Advice needed on 2 topics

RastaRed

Hi Everyone,

Was doing my first gig in a couple of years on Sat when one of the cd decks suddenly decided not to recognize cds anymore, luckly I had ipod,dock and leads with me so I managed to get through the rest of the night with it(just about). I have a family do next week and was asked to provide the music for the night, not going to get time to get the deck looked at and was just gonna use ipod and amp again, my first question is, if I have all tunes organised in playlists on ipod, is there anyway to cut out the gaps between songs?
Second question is about DJing on a laptop, was looking for advice on which programs to use and what leads would I need to hook laptop up to the amp, at the moment all my tunes are in ipod format on laptop, is there any programs that I could use the files or will I probably have to convert them over to mp3?

Any help would be much appreciated

ED E

Point to note: I'm just starting(Numark TC arrived thismorning, god I'm in a good mood now:D)

Are you just gonna use a single ipod? With the dual ipod systems you can use the fader to remove the gap. With just one, I dont think you can, as even if you removed the loading time, many tracks have a second, or a few of silence rcorded on each end.

I'm personally almost ready to start Virtual DJing. I'm just waiting for my new DJ IO soundcard (USB) to arrive. Most laptops don't have dual sound out as standard, so if you want to preview you have to buy an external. The IO above cost €104 shipped from the UK. If you can sacrafice previewing, then you can drop it, but in any case the extra 1/4" inputs and gain controlled mic jack are handy. Also, with my soundcard I cannot loop the input to the out without an external, the Sigmatel Card(Cheap Junk) isnt compatible with mic monitor.

Next, Software. Yeah, I have PCDJ VJ 5.1. I'm new to this whole art so I cant really give much of an outlook but I like it, nothing really bothers me about it, and the ability to hook up a monitor/tv/projector for Kareokee lyrics is very nice. My Numark comes with CUE LE(Light Edition), I've read reasonalbe reviews of that, and I'll test it at some stage. Traktor seems to be a favourite around here. There are a few threads about it in this forum if you have a look.

Lastly, DJing with a mouse is a nightmare. You'll need a controller which gives you all the knobs and faders that arent just images on a screen. I could guess at suggestions but I'd need to know a price range and what do you want it for?

Hope this is informational:)

franklyshocked

RastaRed wrote: »

Hi Everyone,

Was doing my first gig in a couple of years on Sat when one of the cd decks suddenly decided not to recognize cds anymore, luckly I had ipod,dock and leads with me so I managed to get through the rest of the night with it(just about). I have a family do next week and was asked to provide the music for the night, not going to get time to get the deck looked at and was just gonna use ipod and amp again, my first question is, if I have all tunes organised in playlists on ipod, is there anyway to cut out the gaps between songs?
Second question is about DJing on a laptop, was looking for advice on which programs to use and what leads would I need to hook laptop up to the amp, at the moment all my tunes are in ipod format on laptop, is there any programs that I could use the files or will I probably have to convert them over to mp3?

Any help would be much appreciated

If ONE of your Decks is faulty and you are using your ipod as your other deck then there shouldn't be any gap between tracks if you're cross fading from deck to deck. The only limit you have is not being able to play 2 tracks in sequence from the same deck, but you can't do that on a regular DJ set up anyway.
Rule number one when playing live, always have a back up.
My club set-up is all kinds of over compensation, 3 CD decks and a laptop running Ableton Live. I've had software and hardware problems in the past so I always have redundant systems lined up in case anything goes down.

RastaRed

franklyshocked wrote: »

If ONE of your Decks is faulty and you are using your ipod as your other deck then there shouldn't be any gap between tracks if you're cross fading from deck to deck. The only limit you have is not being able to play 2 tracks in sequence from the same deck, but you can't do that on a regular DJ set up anyway.
Rule number one when playing live, always have a back up.
My club set-up is all kinds of over compensation, 3 CD decks and a laptop running Ableton Live. I've had software and hardware problems in the past so I always have redundant systems lined up in case anything goes down.

Thanks for the tips everyone, CD decks I have are pretty old about 10years KAM brand, I was just using the one ipod on a dock going though the amp, do you reckon I would be able to play the ipod through one of the other channels in the mixer, gonna fiddle around with it tonight

franklyshocked

RastaRed wrote: »

Thanks for the tips everyone, CD decks I have are pretty old about 10years KAM brand, I was just using the one ipod on a dock going though the amp, do you reckon I would be able to play the ipod through one of the other channels in the mixer, gonna fiddle around with it tonight

All you need is a 3.5 to 2 phono lead. Its got a headphone jack on one side for your iPod and a dual phono connection on the other end to plug into your mixer. about a tenner in good audio shops. Same lead if you're hooking up a laptop with a basic sound card to your mixer so a handy one to have