I have upgraded to a VCI-100 recently and whilst choosing between the NI Audio 4 DJ & Audio Kontrol 1 to complement my setup, a recent price reduction on VCMs in the UK (from £345 → 199 @ HTFR) has grabbed my attention. I have been craving for more direct controls lately (more buttons, less modifiers ), and for the combined price with the VCI-100, £535, there are no 4 deck controllers (w/wo soundcard) on the market at this price range.
Whilst it is by no means an A&H Xone 4D (drool) in terms of no. of functions or sound quality, it would still be a contender because of the price (1/3!). The build quality on the VCI is superb, and if you own a silver VCI, the VCM will fit right into your setup. What really gets me excited about this idea is the potential when modding comes into the picture (imagine 4 deck juggling with arcade buttons! ). An upgrade in sound quality is desired, but not mandatory as I am not doing gigs.
What do you think? Worth buying instead of an Audio 4 or Audio Kontrol? Do you foresee any problems in setting these two controllers up?
They are good but you can get better for sure, if you are a serious about the soundquality and latency of the soundcard you go get a decent firewire soundcard. Everyone around here seems to <3 the presonus firebox for dollar versus value - as long as you dont plan to use DVS this makes for a better choice.
As a general rule of thumb usb soundcards generally dont have as high a quality parts as firewire soundcards do.
Well we all draw the line in different places, personally i think its nice using studio gear as its good quality and has the dual use of being able to work with studio equipment and standard dj equipment by simply turning down the volume of the ouputs. There is a considerable difference between the audio 4 and the firebox but your not going to find a massive difference in comparison to say the RME fireface 400 vs the Firebox. So i draw the line when stuff starts getting comparable to high quality studio equipment personally.
But each to their own, i would personally put those devices somewhere in the middle between consumer gear and gear where your starting to get serious.
Yup the Audio 8 and the Audio 4 have the same audio quality as one another - its not like there is a whole lot of of choice if they are using DVS with Trakor. You will most likely find that they use different soundcards when\if they are doing studio work.
I think you’re way too harsh on usb soundcards bento, possibly talking a lot of people on here into spending money they don’t have to on something they don’t need.
yeah for me the sound quality of an audio 4 or audio kontrol would be more than enough. in fact as an amateur (no pay), even this is stretching my budget a little bit. after all, i am only gigging in my kitchen, and once a fortnight like to shake up the house (and with whoever is attached to our house ). i’ve been using a behringer bcd 3000 prior to the vci, and its on-board soundcard has been sufficient (no latency issues, loud) for me. i just thought that since i’m trying to upgrade, it would be nice to hear a bump in sound quality as well.
my priority at the moment is to improve my techniques and knowledge on djing, so as long as the vcm’s onboard sound is not worse than the behringer’s, i’m thinking it will be money better spent.
so back on track…what do you think? ie. setting up midi channels, how 4 deck mixing would be like using the 2 units combined, or if the vcm’s soundcard is seriously shit?
But I think, the NI Audio soundcards are going to be enough for 95% of people when you consider:
A: No disrespect to anyone, this is more against venues, probably won’t be playing out on THAT great a system. (feel free to prove me wrong and tell me about the systems you get to play through )
B: And a lot of people use 320Kbps MP3’s! (again feel free to tell me about your multi-terabyte WAV and FLAC connection, which you store on a top of the range firewire external HDD, of course plugged into your MBP)
Try to search something about the DICE-II chipset problems on some audio cards (presonus firebox included). I’m not a JEDI AUDIO MASTER but I think that are some problems with that.
Read more here: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1646736&mpage=1&key=�
), and for the combined price with the VCI-100, £535, there are no 4 deck controllers (w/wo soundcard) on the market at this price range.
