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ED E

Lisa8786 wrote: »

Hey everyone,
I recently played at a birthday and had a major technical blip as every so often the music would stop for about 2 seconds. I know it was to do with the soundcard. Is it faulty or what's the story? Thanks.

Was your Wifi on? If so hit the FN+F? to disable it and then retry.

Lisa8786

No I don't have Wifi...any other ideas?

electrogrimey

Lisa8786 wrote: »

No I don't have Wifi...any other ideas?

Maybe it's soundcard latency? What kind of soundcard do you have? Maybe you have the latency set wrongly in the preferences.

jimi_t2

Lisa8786 wrote: »

Hey everyone,
I recently played at a birthday and had a major technical blip as every so often the music would stop for about 2 seconds. I know it was to do with the soundcard. Is it faulty or what's the story? Thanks.

More than likely Spyware or some sort of virus clogging **** up.

Hit ctrl+alt+delete to bring up your task manager. Do a dry run of a gig with the task manager window minimised to the dock. If the drop-ous correlate with heavy CPU activity then thats your culprit. You should be able to see quite quickly what the problem is, but always worth downloading both AVIRA or AVAST as a free virus scanner, and AdAwareFREE! for your spyware and that. Google will sort you out for both.

(another thing occurred to me - make sure your virtual memory settings, page file and all that are in order. Last of all, make sure that if you're using an external harddrive that its not ''skipping'' because of bass resonance).

ED E

Lisa8786 wrote: »

No I don't have Wifi...any other ideas?

If you're not scratching then you can drop your latency and reduce pressure on your soundcard and CPU. Would also allow a higher sample rate(better quality).

lazzday

Hello people,
I want to start learning to dj, but none of this pop crap. I'm looking to start in the indie-electro, electro-house kinda thing. I was told to start on vinyls, because cds would just waste me alot of time, plus I like jumping into the deep end so to speak...

Just a few question for people with experience:

1) What is the best set-up I can get for around E300 or so? And what should I look out for?

2) Where can I buy vinyls of good stuff?

3) If I found good mixes on, say youtube for example, how can I acquire them to vinyl to play myself? Or would I just mix them myself?

4) I currently play in an Indie-electro band, so I use quite a bit of synth and MIDI controllers. How can I utilise them in a DJ set??

I'm in no rush soall opinions are appreciated! Cheers!

ED E

lazzday wrote: »

Hello people,
I want to start learning to dj, but none of this pop crap. I'm looking to start in the indie-electro, electro-house kinda thing. I was told to start on vinyls, because cds would just waste me alot of time, plus I like jumping into the deep end so to speak...

Just a few question for people with experience:

1) What is the best set-up I can get for around E300 or so? And what should I look out for?

2) Where can I buy vinyls of good stuff?

3) If I found good mixes on, say youtube for example, how can I acquire them to vinyl to play myself? Or would I just mix them myself?

4) I currently play in an Indie-electro band, so I use quite a bit of synth and MIDI controllers. How can I utilise them in a DJ set??

I'm in no rush soall opinions are appreciated! Cheers!

To "jump into the deep end" you'd want to be spending at least a large one on 2X Turntables and a mixer, plus all the vinyl to start off, it isnt cheap or easy to source. Also, you can expect at least 2 years before you'll likely get out of your bedroom.

MIDI = Computer = Vitual DJing = Cheaper, but still not cheap. If you are seriously interested in virtual you'll be looking at around 250-300 min for a MIDI controller and another 100+ for the software. May also need an external soundcard if the controller doesnt have one.


In short, not a cheap hobby....

Leinster7

Well, if you have a laptop already then pickup Traktor Scratch Pro from Native Instruments...about 500 euro.

You will be able to mix mp3's on your laptop (which is a cheaper way to access music then vinyl right now) but also in the future when you have more budget you can connect 2x Technics1210 turntables via the Audio 8 interface and use vinyl & or mp3s for mixing.

The software has an inbuilt mixer you can control as well as pitch shift control so you don't need an external mixer initially but again you can add one later. i would recommend a Pioneer DJM800 for home use (if you are serious).
Worth getting the traktor "pro" version as you get the audio 8 interface which you can connect devices to and also as you can interface with midi in/out.

You will of course have to spend money on an amp and speakers

Hope this helps

electrogrimey

lazzday wrote: »

Hello people,
I want to start learning to dj, but none of this pop crap. I'm looking to start in the indie-electro, electro-house kinda thing. I was told to start on vinyls, because cds would just waste me alot of time, plus I like jumping into the deep end so to speak...

Just a few question for people with experience:

1) What is the best set-up I can get for around E300 or so? And what should I look out for?

2) Where can I buy vinyls of good stuff?

3) If I found good mixes on, say youtube for example, how can I acquire them to vinyl to play myself? Or would I just mix them myself?

4) I currently play in an Indie-electro band, so I use quite a bit of synth and MIDI controllers. How can I utilise them in a DJ set??

I'm in no rush soall opinions are appreciated! Cheers!

Don't start on vinyl, unless you have a huge budget. It'll cost you over €5 just for one track. It'll cost you nearly €200 on vinyl alone before you've enough for a good hour mix.

What MIDI controllers do you have? That's the way to go IMO. Get a freeware DJ software to start off, and use your midi controllers. Something like Mixx.

CDs waste your time? What's that about? You'd be better off with CDs then vinyl tbh. If you don't want to go digital get a pair of cheap CD decks and a cheap 2 channel mixer, then upgrade as you can afford it. Apart from Serato/Traktor users, I've hardly seen any DJs use vinyl around Dublin (for your kind of music, very different for d 'n' b and dubstep).

hans aus dtschl

No, I see the logic in CD's being called a waste of time, personally. I'd recommend a decent midi controller + computer above cd's, if you follow? It's old technology now.

Vinyl is something that takes time to get into. You'd need to be buying regularly for a while, before you can go looking at playing out. I'd get a cheap turntable to listen to vinyl and buy regularly in drips and drabs if you want to get into it. Wouldnt recommend doing the "deep end" or "all at once" approach with vinyl at all. The amounts of money you can spend at once are absolutely huge. This is coming from a vinyl user.

For the safest option, if you have a laptop, get some software and use the midi controllers you say you already own.

E300 is nowhere near enough to be going full-on into vinyl. But if you're dead set on vinyl, buy in drips and drabs, and get a really cheap turntable. If you still love it in a few months time, you'll have enough records to play out, and you'll know them inside out. If you dont still love it in a few months time, the buying will slow down and you wont be lumped with a huge amount of "useless" stuff.

ED E

Lads, I won a free DJ Banner but I dont know what to put on it. Dont have a name at this point. That I'll have to work on but I was thinking of maybe a cheeky second line. No, I don't have any Pendulum springs to mind. Any ideas?

Lisa8786

Actually I think it was the bass resonance. Is there anything I can do to stop that happening? and sorry but I don't know what you mean by latency. excuse my ignorance.

ED E

Latency is the measure of how long it takes for your instruction to be produced by the soundcard and outputted. So say you hit the play button it could take 5ms to 18ms for it to actually start playing. [MS = Milliseconds]. Doesnt matter much unless you scratch.

jimi_t2

Lisa8786 wrote: »

Actually I think it was the bass resonance. Is there anything I can do to stop that happening?

Keep the harddrive on a flat area that isn't shaking

Have it standing on some Foam would be the best option I suppose. You're trying to insulate it. I remember hearing about someone DJ'ing on 1210s put up on four ping-pong balls that were split in half to avoid skipping.

That_Guy

Right lads I've been asked to DJ over the internet tomorrow evening but I need to have a mic too.

I've got my mic and Virtual DJ and I was told I'd need a sound card in order to run both music and mic together.

Does anyone know where I'd be able to find a sound card around Dublin. I've tried ringing tons of places but nowhere sells them. Couldn't get through to PC World or anything.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I'm running off a laptop so need a USB sound card. I've seen plenty of them I could order online but I don't have any time to get one online.

ED E

That_Guy wrote: »

Right lads I've been asked to DJ over the internet tomorrow evening but I need to have a mic too.

I've got my mic and Virtual DJ and I was told I'd need a sound card in order to run both music and mic together.

Does anyone know where I'd be able to find a sound card around Dublin. I've tried ringing tons of places but nowhere sells them. Couldn't get through to PC World or anything.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I'm running off a laptop so need a USB sound card. I've seen plenty of them I could order online but I don't have any time to get one online.

What you actually need is an audio interface. In terms or USB a soundcard is usually just an Output device. Some have a mic port but they may only be a passthrough.


If you have a basic mixer and another computer to do the streaming that would be easiest.

jimi_t2

lazzday wrote: »

1) What is the best set-up I can get for around E300 or so? And what should I look out for?

Hands down, the Xponent for me. I've used the VCI 100, BCD-2000 and Hercules Mk.1/Mk.2/RMX and its definitely my favourite of the cheaper end of the controllers, and it's definitely (imo) the best of them with a built-in soundcard.

It has also come MASSIVELY down in price in the last year or two. It was selling for about 500 odd in 2008. I got mine secondhand, boxed a few months ago for 220 (but that was a decent enough deal in fairness)

Comes with its own proprietary software 'Torq' which is exceptionally good, clean and unbelievably responsive (I actually prefer the 1.5.1 version to Traktor for basic gigs) and there's so little menu diving. It's painless as well. You just set it up and latency/outputs and mapping is all there. It just works out of the box.

Has a CDJ, Vinyl and Hybrid emulation mode for the jogwheels. The tops of the platters are incredibly touch sensitive although the scratching is obviously a bit naff in Vinyl mode, but you can use the sides of the jogwheels to track without interfering. You can also use VSTs as drop-in effects - although the normal built-in one's are superb.

On top of that, there's a software powered VU meter in the middle of it, there's a tracking bar for each song to show a rough idea of progress, the dedicated looping section is superb, the kill switches and placement of EQ's and gain is perfect, the X/Y pad can be used for controlling effects or as a mouse so you look less like you're playing solitaire , all the buttons are backlit and they glow when hit so if you hit something by accident it'll catch your eye, you can set every light on the left or right side to flash in sync with the BPM. In short, its amazing to use and looks absolutely class. You'll get a lot of attention when using it outside of DJ box (although that's arbitrarily good or bad).



Yeah, I've a bit of a stiffy for this yoke!

Zascar

The Xponent is a fantastic little unit and great for the money, the only thing I would say is the sound quality is lacking a little. It was not something I noticed wehn I had it (other did say it though) but now I have the VCI-100 and the Audio 2 DJ, and one of my mates brought over his Xponent and there was a clear different in sound quality, most notably the eq's on Torq were fairly pants in comparison.

So, if you are going to be playing in clubs I'd advise spending more to get the VCI or something similar, but for a beginner or bedroom DJ I could not recommend it enough!

jimi_t2

Zascar wrote: »

The Xponent is a fantastic little unit and great for the money, the only thing I would say is the sound quality is lacking a little. It was not something I noticed wehn I had it (other did say it though) but now I have the VCI-100 and the Audio 2 DJ, and one of my mates brought over his Xponent and there was a clear different in sound quality, most notably the eq's on Torq were fairly pants in comparison.

Really?

I mean thats terribly easily sorted by using an external soundcard (like the A2DJ for example) when you get up with it. In fact, I was fairly sure that the Torq Konnect and some of the higher end M-Audio soundcards share the exact architecture.

I'm surprised at the EQ comment because I find them fairly servicable tbh. And even then, I can't see whats preventing anyone hooking up the booth outputs as Deck 1 / master outputs as Deck2 and using whatever mixer is up in the box as the EQs in a smaller club. Or hey, be a real man and use decent LP and HP filters

(and if you're playing a big club you'll probably have a better interface anyway )

Also, what the hell is the deal with the lack of RCA outputs on the A2DJ? I thought 1/4" as a thing was frowned upon because it was unbalanced and, unless you had a power conditioner or were running off the laptop battery, you'd get hum?

So, if you are going to be playing in clubs I'd advise spending more to get the VCI or something similar...

Even as a controller I find the Xponent to be far far superior. I've big hands so things are a lot less cluttered; I find the VCI-100 to be a bit small for comfort. The x-fader and linear pots are better in it though to be fair, but as a multi-purpose unit the Xponent is by far the best thing on the market under e500

Lisa8786

cheers for the advice...il test it out 2nite!

jimi_t2

Actually yeah, on a big system the EQs are noticeably not the best. Easiest solution is just to drop a small, CPU friendly and stable 3 band EQ VST into each effects rack and remap the hard EQ rotaries to the corresponding VSTs, but to leave the kill buttons and the Gain as is as they're far more responsive natively

ED E

Does serato only work with Rane gear?

hans aus dtschl

jimi_t2 wrote: »

Really?
Also, what the hell is the deal with the lack of RCA outputs on the A2DJ? I thought 1/4" as a thing was frowned upon because it was unbalanced and, unless you had a power conditioner or were running off the laptop battery, you'd get hum?

RCA is unbalanced. 2 core = unbalanced.
TS 1/4" is unbalanced, but TRS 1/4" is not.
So.....RCA will always only be unbalanced, but jack can be either...

So if they put the right 1/4" sockets in they can be balanced or unbalanced, depending on your cable. So basically, you can cater for more people by putting in a 1/4" jack connection.

hans aus dtschl

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

Does serato only work with Rane gear?

Not sure what your question is here. Serato software only works with serato I/O unit, as the unit has a dongle inbuilt. The I/O unit will work with all mixer types though, not just rane.

ED E

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

Not sure what your question is here. Serato software only works with serato I/O unit, as the unit has a dongle inbuilt. The I/O unit will work with all mixer types though, not just rane.

Yeah, I was just gonna have a mess with their VJ plugin but looks like I wont be now.

EuskalHerria

Just wondering. I have a set of cdj 200's and i've just realised that with a timecode cd it is possible to hook my decks up to virtual dj. I've been trying to find out how it all gets connected up with no joy. Does anyone know how after burning the timecode cd's, how does it all get hooked up?

jimi_t2

EuskalHerria wrote: »

Just wondering. I have a set of cdj 200's and i've just realised that with a timecode cd it is possible to hook my decks up to virtual dj. I've been trying to find out how it all gets connected up with no joy. Does anyone know how after burning the timecode cd's, how does it all get hooked up?

http://it.virtualdj.com/forums/126213/General_Discussion/How_do_I_hook_up_my_CDJ-2000_s_to_Virtual_DJ_.html

ED E

Lads, looking at either a KP Mini or a Kaossilator to add a little something to my rig. I know that the KP is an effects and the Kaossilator is a syth(seen that one in person) but TBH I dont know which to get. Will probably end up with both in 6 months time but which to get first?

EuskalHerria

jimi_t2 wrote: »

http://it.virtualdj.com/forums/126213/General_Discussion/How_do_I_hook_up_my_CDJ-2000_s_to_Virtual_DJ_.html

Cheers for the link, seen that myself but wasn't sure how it all gets wired up. Have sorted it now but still unsure as to how the movement on the decks translates to the laptop.

ED E

Lads, is fog fluid easily available in dublin?