warrenstuart Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Hi I'm going to have another go at DJing with a laptop (tried it 10 years ago and didn't get on with it) and require an external USB sound card with 2 x stereo outputs, one for each virtual CD deck.Does anyone have any tried & tested suggestions that initially won't break the bank as it is just for a trial?Would it be more cost effective to use 2 seperate devices that only have 1 x stereo output?At this stage unbalanced will do as if it turns into a permanent solution I would upgrade to something of decent quality with balanced outputs. Many Thanks Warren. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatBigHippy Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 If you have a fast enough pc you can use a usb external soundcard (one of the £5 jobs from amazon) and ASIO4All. That's how started out and it worked fine for getting into things. EDIT: For clarity: So you use your normal pc speaker out and the usb soundcard as two separate stereo outputs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djmatthill Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Hi I'm going to have another go at DJing with a laptop (tried it 10 years ago and didn't get on with it) and require an external USB sound card with 2 x stereo outputs, one for each virtual CD deck.Does anyone have any tried & tested suggestions that initially won't break the bank as it is just for a trial?Would it be more cost effective to use 2 seperate devices that only have 1 x stereo output?At this stage unbalanced will do as if it turns into a permanent solution I would upgrade to something of decent quality with balanced outputs. Many Thanks Warren. Hi Warren.I have the ideal solution that I use 5 Nights a week and does the job perfectly without breaking the bank. I use two of these My link They give me 2 Stereo outputs (one for each deck) and work perfectly with Virtual DJ Pro. I have had mine for over 3 years and cannot fault them at all.... You can get them cheaper too if you shop around , I`m not a massive Behringer Fan normally as some of their kit is awful but from personal and PROFESSIONAL Experiencethe UCA 222 are a good piece of kit for the price. PS - I use Virtual DJ Pro and am a full time professional DJ :) Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warrenstuart Posted February 18, 2014 Author Share Posted February 18, 2014 Thanks for the replies guys :) Matt, Virtual DJ is what I'm going to try out, been using a Cortex HDC 1000 for a couple of years now alongside CD and found that I'm only using CD for one or two tracks per night now so time to make the move I think.Cortex will be a great backup and has got me into the feel of working from folders and playlists etc so I should be able to take to it this time I reckon. 10 years ago it was too much of a change!! Warren. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djmatthill Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 Thanks for the replies guys :) Matt, Virtual DJ is what I'm going to try out, been using a Cortex HDC 1000 for a couple of years now alongside CD and found that I'm only using CD for one or two tracks per night now so time to make the move I think.Cortex will be a great backup and has got me into the feel of working from folders and playlists etc so I should be able to take to it this time I reckon. 10 years ago it was too much of a change!! Warren. Hi Warren I know exactly what you mean , I was using CD`s mostly for nearly 20 Years and the Change to Laptop was a tricky one for me but a change that I felt I the need to change as that was the way things in the industry were going. The one thing that I still miss about CD`s is being able to flick through my CD wallets to see what to play next and get some inspiration , scrolling through a list just aint the same :huh: I would reccomend Virtual DJ to anyone as its rock solid and is afforable and very versitile. I play music videos now which the venue and customers alike love. Some DJ`s turn their noses up at VDJ and opt for the more expensive Serato which is "Heavily" endorsed by Pioneer / A&H etc but Virtual ticks all my boxes :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warrenstuart Posted February 18, 2014 Author Share Posted February 18, 2014 The one thing that I still miss about CD`s is being able to flick through my CD wallets to see what to play next and get some inspiration , scrolling through a list just aint the same :huh: How right you are, there was a bit of an element of this with the change from vinyl to CD but it's nowhere near as bad as going to a digital system... ok CD is digital but you know what mean. I've tried to not go over the top when building my music database and stick to just the best floorfilling tracks for the years/genres cover and not be tempted to go down the route of carrying 1000s of tracks on a "we guarantee to have your request" basis that so many seem to advertise as that's no good on a flat night when you can't see the wood for the trees because of the huge quantity of tracks.All of my biggest all time classics are wav files too :-)Warren.(Sat in a car park on my Blackberry so apologies for any typos) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamesperrett Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 I haven't done much real DJ'ing for about 20 years now but I've done the odd gig recently with a laptop and just used Winamp with a crossfade plug-in which produces results that are probably as good as I was with manual cueing all those years ago. I've got a 2 level file structure - one area with all the floorfillers and then the rest of my music library elsewhere which caters for the less well known tracks which I would dip into when I'm doing a gig for friends with similar musical taste to me. I find Winamp's search function invaluable as I only have to type in 2 or 3 letters of the artist or title and it finds it for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alec Posted February 18, 2014 Share Posted February 18, 2014 +1 for Winamp - many may deride, but it's a cracker! Winamp for Android is just as good, and lovely and simple too. Same lovely search interface, dead quick, easy to edit the playlist on the fly. Need to pay for the pro version for cross-fade. The only (minor) drawback for me is that it doesn't handle compilations perfectly - so you end up with lots of artists listed, rather than being able to chuck them all under "Various artists", though even that is a matter of opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjriley Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Focusrite 2i4 would give you 4 unbalanced outputs or 6i6 gives 4 balanced outputs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleah Posted February 20, 2014 Share Posted February 20, 2014 Maya 44 USB or Gigaport HD+ are pretty much THE standard for DJ use. I have one of each of the old ones and you can't go wrong. Both ASIO compatible if you need it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azlan Posted February 21, 2014 Share Posted February 21, 2014 I would be tempted to look for a 4-in, 4-out system, to leave you with the flexibility to use timecode cd's/vinyl without having to buy a whole new interface further down the line, without having to buy a whole new interface as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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