What hardware do most DJs choose for audio interfacing

wovencord · Post by **wovencord** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 10:29 pm

I am trying to find an audio interface that will allow me to cue music while other music is playing (you know, basic DJ techniques) and be able to cross fade it in afterwards using Live's crossfader.

What I want is a way to send a track to the master and an aux send so I can cue the track in the aux send without it being affected by the master crossfader. Then when I am ready I can cross fade it in, which would then let me cue the other tracks that were faded out. If this sounds confusing, I apologize. I am new to this stuff.

I basically want to use the crossfader to mute a group of tracks, while another group is playing, so I can que the first group. Therefore going back and forth like this between groups.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

kabuki · Post by **kabuki** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 4:58 pm

any controller with a Knob or Fader can do this. Set the DRY signal to A nad the Sends to B...

cosmosuave · Post by **cosmosuave** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 1:55 am

I'm assuming your using a laptop.... From what I have read the Echo Indigo DJ PCMCIA card is perfect for this ... 2 stereo outs one for mains one for cans... Only drawback no audio in.

smutek · Post by **smutek** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 5:00 am

I'm using the Maudio quattro. 2 ins and 2 outs running to a pioneer mixer.

arar · Post by **arar** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 5:03 pm

I use the echo indigo dj.

Rich · Post by **Rich** » Tue May 04, 2004 3:10 pm

Does anyone here use the M-Audio Transit? The Echo Indigo DJ is interesting, but I don't really see the need for the 8 virtual "outputs." Besides that, the Transit is 80 bucks less.

The reason I'm questionable about which one I want, though, is the ability to audition loops or samples with the Transit - it doesn't have a second analog output like the Indigo does. As I'm sure you all know, in the Routing section of the Audio tab in Live's prefs, there are separate sections to assign hardware for master output and pre-listening. The decision between these two soundcards is this: can I assign different hardware for each of these functions (main mix through the Transit, pre-listening through my PowerBook's built-in hardware)?

Any help or insight is appreciated.

Rx · Post by Rx » Tue May 04, 2004 8:54 pm

if you've only got one stereo analog output, you can forget about cueing. i've got the Indigo DJ and it will do that perfectly. i haven't messed with the virtual outs at all and may never will - i only got it because 1) echo is reliable and 2) it cues.

Rich · Post by **Rich** » Tue May 04, 2004 9:49 pm

Rx wrote:if you've only got one stereo analog output, you can forget about cueing. i've got the Indigo DJ and it will do that perfectly. i haven't messed with the virtual outs at all and may never will - i only got it because 1) echo is reliable and 2) it cues.

What I want to know is if it's possible to use separate hardware for the main mix and pre-listening - the Transit for the main and the PowerBook's stereo out for headphones.

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Tue May 04, 2004 10:28 pm

Rich wrote:What I want to know is if it's possible to use separate hardware for the main mix and pre-listening - the Transit for the main and the PowerBook's stereo out for headphones.

Ableton claim you cannot use two audio interfaces. However, this isn't entirely true (under Windows XP anyway - no idea if the same is true for a Mac) but latency will suffer, and if your two interfaces have different latencies trying to cue accurately (e.g. beatmatch) could be interesting....

Rx · Post by Rx » Tue May 04, 2004 10:29 pm

dunno for sure, but i do believe it has been convered here in the forums somewhere. my guess is that only one audio device can be used, which is why anything that is reliable and can cue has been extremely well received.

Rich · Post by **Rich** » Thu May 06, 2004 2:49 pm

I went and checked out the Transit at the local music store, and, though they didn't have one on display for demos, the sales guy was very helpful (surprising - I never expect to be helped satisfactorily at these big chain stores) and we discovered that you can only use one audio interface at a time with Live. I should have noticed this before but if you check out the Audio tab in the Live prefs, the Device Type menu selects which device driver
will be used - and you can only choose one at a time.

I just thought of something, though... What if your two pieces of hardware use the same driver (ASIO, for instance)? Of course this doesn't apply to what I want to do with the Transit and the PowerBook's built-in hardware, but it would be interesting to find out if it would work.

Next question... The Transit has 1 stereo analog output and 1 digital optical output. I could use the analog out for cueing and the digital out for the main mix (or at least that seems logical to me). The problem with that would be that I don't think there are many (if any) venues who will take an optical signal for the house mix. The question is, then, what is the easiest way to convert the digital optical signal to analog? I know this will cost me another pile of cash, but it's a viable option if the total cost is still less than the next higher tier (price-wise) of audio interfaces.

robbmasters · Post by **robbmasters** » Thu May 06, 2004 3:04 pm

Rich wrote:The Transit has 1 stereo analog output and 1 digital optical output. I could use the analog out for cueing and the digital out for the main mix (or at least that seems logical to me).

Don't they both just get the same signal? Are you sure you can address them independently? I'd be very surprised if you could.

Rich · Post by **Rich** » Thu May 06, 2004 5:18 pm

robbmasters wrote:
Rich wrote:The Transit has 1 stereo analog output and 1 digital optical output. I could use the analog out for cueing and the digital out for the main mix (or at least that seems logical to me).
Don't they both just get the same signal? Are you sure you can address them independently? I'd be very surprised if you could.

That's a good question that I hadn't thought of. I'd be disappointed if the two outputs (analog and digital) couldn't be treated separately. Normally I would assume that they could but now that I think about it, the fact that the outputs are two different formats kind of leads me to believe that one is just a mirror of the other. I guess I'll go back to the store and ask some more questions.