DJing on a Laptop - opinoins

Eddie Brennan · 12-12-2005 11:16am

well my rane serato scratch live arrived this morning. €480 from the states!! the best i found here was €799!!

paddylonglegs · 12-12-2005 8:33pm

Eddie Brennan wrote:

well my rane serato scratch live arrived this morning. €480 from the states!! the best i found here was €799!!

Eddie,keep me updated on what its like,serato and FS are similar.You're a jammy sod might I add

rabbitinlights · 12-12-2005 10:48pm

Take a few photos if you can, Ive never seen it up close?

Sean.

Hub · 13-12-2005 1:29pm

Google it. There are a few videos of djs using it too

Eddie Brennan · 13-12-2005 4:03pm

were u from paddylonglegs? not so many people into this kinda stuff in meath!! im from the north of it myself (syddan, its between Slane and Nobber)

penexpers · 13-12-2005 6:31pm

Giles wrote:

You still haven't proved otherwise mate. I'd love to know how you've come to the conclusion the sound is awful. Listen to any of my mixes and come back to me.

Bug ridden??? No program is perfect but it's in no way bug-ridden and it hardly ever crashes if you have a decent spec pc. Of course you've probably only tried a cracked version in which case you're whole argument is down the pan as the cracked versions always screw up. I used one briefly before purchasing the software when I realised this myself.

As for it looking and feeling nasty... That's a matter of taste of course but bear in mind that there's tons of skins to choose from aside from the basic default (which I agree is pretty crap btw...) and you can even design your own one. I use the Pioneer one and it's by far the best skin imo.

I've had it crash on me before in some quite embarrasing situations. It seems to have problems reading tracks that are over 6/7 minutes in length i.e it can't seem to analyze them properly so you don't get a good preview of the waveform. If you read the forums on the VDJ website, it's full of people complaining about the program crashing and the fact that it took ages for VDJ to release a patch for it.

The FX and filters are also pretty poor and don't add anything to the program.

sturgo · 13-12-2005 6:33pm

Eddie Brennan wrote:

were u from paddylonglegs? not so many people into this kinda stuff in meath!! im from the north of it myself (syddan, its between Slane and Nobber)

UP NOBBER!!!

Helix · 13-12-2005 7:13pm

paddylonglegs wrote:

Neither of them could really tell me the best way to go about hooking my external mixer up to my laptop via soundcard.

soundcard with minimum 4 analog outputs

plut outs 1 & 2 into line ins on one channel of your mixer via 1/4in jack to rca cables

repeat for outs 3 & 4 (and any other pairs you wanna use)

within software youre using, configure dual outputs

done

paddylonglegs · 13-12-2005 9:36pm

Eddie Brennan wrote:

were u from paddylonglegs? not so many people into this kinda stuff in meath!! im from the north of it myself (syddan, its between Slane and Nobber)

Near dunshaughlin Eddie,don't wory I'll track ya down and have a bash on your new toy!So stop keeping me in suspense man,is serato any good?watched a demo vid of it today,I like the way they show a image of the vinyl on screen and can track where your needle is.nice.

paddylonglegs · 13-12-2005 9:37pm

Helix wrote:

soundcard with minimum 4 analog outputs

plut outs 1 & 2 into line ins on one channel of your mixer via 1/4in jack to rca cables

repeat for outs 3 & 4 (and any other pairs you wanna use)

within software youre using, configure dual outputs

done

Helix,nice one man,clears the head a bit bit what I'll need

Selik · 14-12-2005 7:10am

penexpers wrote:

I've had it crash on me before in some quite embarrasing situations. It seems to have problems reading tracks that are over 6/7 minutes in length i.e it can't seem to analyze them properly so you don't get a good preview of the waveform. If you read the forums on the VDJ website, it's full of people complaining about the program crashing and the fact that it took ages for VDJ to release a patch for it.

The FX and filters are also pretty poor and don't add anything to the program.

Hmmm... I used it for my first ever gig last Sunday without any hitches and I was renting the laptop so anything could've been going on with it really. There's a setting which can restrict the programs ability to read tracks over a certain length but this can be disabled in the FAME options.

Re the FX and filters. The standard fx are pretty poor but you can download tons more and even use VST plugins instead or as well.

Preset No.3 · 15-12-2005 3:17am

sturgo wrote:

If you're DJing with MP3s try and make sure they're all encoded at 320Kbs anything below 196Kbs will just sound crap played through a powerful PA.

Not necessary. 160 is fine! Ive been using the laptop road for a about 3 years now. Never had a problem, use the internal sound card and most times it sounds better than using CDs. I use PCDJ, and can perfectly beat mix away on it. Only thing extra that I want is the pcdj DAC-2 controller.

Selik · 15-12-2005 11:54am

Preset No.3 wrote:

Not necessary. 160 is fine! Ive been using the laptop road for a about 3 years now. Never had a problem, use the internal sound card and most times it sounds better than using CDs. I use PCDJ, and can perfectly beat mix away on it. Only thing extra that I want is the pcdj DAC-2 controller.

Hmmm... You must have one hell of a sound chip/card in your laptop dude coz if it's not at least 16-bit I fail to see how the sound quality would be up to scratch... Are you a mobile DJ and what sort of gigs & soundsystems do you play on?

Eddie Brennan · 15-12-2005 12:45pm

yeah if the quality of sound at a gig aint gonna matter theres no point wasting money. im actually gonna use wav's of tracks if i can at all. I know they are huge files but they are worth it and i did notice a slight bit of bad quality in a 192 track i played in the Pod a few weeks back. Made up for it a bit with the EQ's but still it wud be nice to have good quality

Eddie Brennan · 15-12-2005 12:46pm

sturgo wrote:

UP NOBBER!!!

a nobber man here!!?? :eek:

Preset No.3 · 16-12-2005 2:41am

Giles wrote:

Hmmm... You must have one hell of a sound chip/card in your laptop dude coz if it's not at least 16-bit I fail to see how the sound quality would be up to scratch... Are you a mobile DJ and what sort of gigs & soundsystems do you play on?

Both mobile and clubs! I just bought a standard Toshiba laptop about 3 years ago. Was never intending to be a laptop DJ. I couldnt tell you what the sound card is in the pc but Ive never had any problems with it or the sound out and I use a pair of DAS DS-15A and the sound is sweet off it!

The majority of my files are 160 or 192, however some are 128 and to be honest Ive never noticed any major differences. However I dont run any other programs on my laptop. Ive got PCDJ, my files and my Nokia Data Suite, thats it! No internet of email use. I dont even use any Word or excel programs.

Helix · 16-12-2005 3:44am

Preset No.3 wrote:

The majority of my files are 160 or 192, however some are 128 and to be honest Ive never noticed any major differences

when it comes to talking about sound quality dont trust the opinion of ANYONE who says anything like that

the difference is blatantly audible to anyone who knows what theyre listening for (not necessarily knows theyre listening for top end artefacts in an mp3, but people who know what a DECENT quality version sounds like)

Preset No.3 · 16-12-2005 3:58pm

I hear what you are saying. But if your a working DJ, you will know the majority of clubs/bars have at best an average to good sound system. Not great though. However I would notice if Im listenig to some files on my home system which is a damn sight better quality than most! The same kind of arguments were made about 10 years ago when people started using CD-Rs, and the quality etc.

Helix · 17-12-2005 12:46am

youd notice it on a crappy hifi tho man

the top end is massively fecked up on mp3s, even higher bitrate ones if theyre not encoded with lame

the thing is tho, IF you were gonna play 128kb mp3s for your entire set, by the 4th track, itd sound fine to everyone, coz their ears wouldve adjusted

cept for picky hooers like me

lol

Bri · 17-12-2005 2:32pm

I have Serato setup at home now with a fairly normal and well used Presario XP home laptop. Runs perfectly once all the compressed files have their overviews built in advance (i.e. pre-loaded).

I already knew from research that FS was not a contender and I found Rane/Serato support staff, both online and by phone to be second to none.

Anyone have any specific questions feel free to ask - although the scratchlive forum is your best solution to everything.

In terms of big names using it the list is huge - saw various DJs across the states using it for all types of styles and crowds and no complaints at all. Even the replacement vinyl are cheap.

sturgo · 17-12-2005 7:34pm

Preset No.3 wrote:

Not necessary. 160 is fine! Ive been using the laptop road for a about 3 years now. Never had a problem, use the internal sound card and most times it sounds better than using CDs. I use PCDJ, and can perfectly beat mix away on it. Only thing extra that I want is the pcdj DAC-2 controller.

There's simply no comparison between an MP3 @160 and an original CD. If you think an MP3 of that low quality played through a laptop's internal soundcard sounds better than CDs you need you ears checked out. Let me know where you're DJing, so I can warn paople.

...Only messin:D

Preset No.3 · 18-12-2005 3:00am

Well we all have our opinions! But as a working DJ for over 17 years, Ive never had a problem with my laptop DJing in the last 3 years!

sturgo · 18-12-2005 1:09pm

Preset No.3 wrote:

Well we all have our opinions! But as a working DJ for over 17 years, Ive never had a problem with my laptop DJing in the last 3 years!

What ever your opinion is this is fact: Uncompressed audio stored on a compact disc has a bit rate of about 1400 kbit/s. MP3s have a maximim bit rate of 320 kbit/s. Typically between 128kbit/s and 196kbit/s.

Do the math!:v:

DJing on a Laptop - opinoins

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