DJ Vintage

Shaun Pearcey, post: 38723, member: 6431 wrote: I have an audio splitter cable but it doesnt make a difference to the issue when I use the mono seperated option, Maybe I need a different type of cable as i have to click the headphones listen button to hear the track ive faded into with both speakers its all a bit weird 🙁

Been on this issue with someone else recently. The thing with the splitter cable is that you will want a stereo to double mono splitter, not a regular run of the mill stereo to two stereo splitter (which you use if you want to hook up two sets of headphones to one ipod for example). The “non-DJ” stereo to mono splitter cables have an additional problem when trying to get things to work the way you want. The mono-outputs will be true mono female jacks. If you stick a headphone in, you will hear sound out of only one ear. And while this may be acceptable for headphone use (I never use the other half of my cans anyway :-)) it isn’t very handy when you plug in your mini-jack to the venue PA or mixer and you get only sound out of half the system. In order to alleviate this problem you would need two more mono (male mini-jack) to stereo (female mini-jack) adapters. If you stick those into the outputs of your splitter cable, they will split the mono signal to, effectively, double mono (meaning you get the exact same signal but out of both sides of your headphone or out of the PA).

From what I gather the purpose-built DJ splitter cables don’t need the mono to stereo adapters as they have that solved in the cable already.

This is pretty much what the cables should do. The bottom one is the regular stereo/stereo splitter, with the top one being the way a DJ splitter should behave.

Hope this makes sense.

Good luck with it.

Greetinx,
C.

Hey,

Here is what I said on the forum for the Scratch Course:

+++++ QUOTE +++++

General comment on using new Operating Systems in any “production” environment, DON”T !!!
A good rule of thumb is to not use any new operating system for important work (like live DJ-ing!) before they come up with Service Pack 1. You don’t want to be using it professionally while they are still ironing out all the odd quircks they should have fixed before the first release. Also driver support can be faltering in the early days, especially from manufacturers with relatively limited numbers of clients (couple of 10.000 DJs using your sound card might sound like a lot, but not compared to having millions of people using your printer for example).
Specific comment on using windows 8: DON’T !!! [FONT=inherit][/FONT]
Windows 8, and it’s obligatory graphical user interface Metro (what happened, Steve Jobs dies and now Microsoft think they are Apple?) are a total bust as far as I am concerned for professional environments. A PC or laptop used for serious business is not an oversized tablet or smartphone. You want your Operating System to be a solid, stable and fast platform to support your key applications (like Traktor, Serato, VDJ and such in our case), without imposing all kinds of stuff on you that you haven’t asked for.
You COULD use tools (they are out there) to get your regular Windows 7 “look” back for your windows 8 install, including the start button.
Quite frankly though, my advice to you would be to get your hands on a version of Windows 7 and install that. I am no advocate of using “illegal” software, but you paid for a license of Windows 8 with your new machine, so in my opinion that entitles you (at least morally) to use an older version of the software as well.
When Windows 7 came out a few years back, you could actually go to Microsoft and get a Windows XP serial number if you wanted to downgrade. They won’t do that with Windows 8 (Home version, they do with the Pro) because they want to force their entire user base to switch.
I think Microsoft has made a big mistake here, especially since I don’t see businesses switching to the Metro GUI in large numbers any time soon. They should just have given their customers the chance to choose between windows 8 or windows 7 (or a rebranded version of it, like windows 8 Classic) on their new computer. Microsoft are so big that we will probably end up having to use windows 8 in the future, simply because there is nothing else around anymore, but hey, such is life. Until that time, I will just use my trusted Windows 7 and have my stuff work the way it should.
++++++ END OF QUOTE +++++
One way to go about it if you want to keep your Windows 8 for your regular work (and a great way to use a laptop for two purposes!) is to make it dual-boot. This means that when you boot up you have the chance to choose from two environments and in our case I would make one environment Windows 7 with our DJ stuff on it. The other could be Windows 8 with all the other stuff.
Greetinx,
C.

Yep, the Samsungs seem to be a good choice (apparently they are one of Apples OEM suppliers for SSDs that come factory standard with MBP). OCZ is also good. Pays to read a few recent blog posts on this subject (recent, because SSD is a very fast developing platform, so 6 month old news is often already that, old!) before buying.

The miniDrive gizmo seems like a nice gagdet to have. They portray it as a great backup solution, but I am not to sure about that as it is designed to stay inside your MBP. And good backup practice dictates that you keep your backups in a physically seperate place (if someone steals your MBP, they get your backup with it). Keep in mind that although relatively fast, SD-cards are slower than your SSD would be. I don’t think I would use it for primary use (i.e. stuff I need to access regularly like my music).

Greetinx,
C.

Been a mobile DJ since day one (35 years ago) and it has certainly been a GREAT benefit knowing the techie side of things, even when I started as a resident DJ. It helps troubleshoot problems, help you tweak that awful sound in the room and generally makes you more self supporting.

Greetinx,
C.

Even in the highly personal world of headphones, there are a few “standards”, the Sennheiser HD25 IIs is standard kit for most (live sound and studio) sound engineer and many a DJ and producer. There is a reason for that.

They sound great (of course), are relatively small and light, can be configured in several ways (small headband, wide headband, swivel left earpiece) and they can take abuse like nothing else! My set has travelled in my microphone case for the last three or four years, literally squashed between the top of the microphones and the foam on the inside of the lid. Never a problem.
You can buy every component as a replacement part, choose a coil or straight cable and I actually believe they have them with colors now too (but don’t pin me down on that one).

Read up on them, then try them on in a store.

Greetinx,
C.

Terry_42, post: 38378, member: 1843 wrote: Sennheiser HD 25s.
200 bucks but well worth it for production work, as they are truely amazing sound quality. However they also rock for DJing and are not by mistake the most sold DJ headphone on the planet (in the pro market). Plus you can replace any part of them yourself and the parts are available for like ever now and I guess will be in the next 10 years…

Second that!

Absolutely fabulous for sound engineering live and studio work, which makes them great for producing too I assume :-). And yes, super for DJ-ing as well!

Long term the fact that you can exchange every single piece of it will definitely help keeping it up and running for a very long time!

Greetinx,
C.

Hey Mitch,

You probably know my Denon setup by now, which is way off budgetwise compared to the 7000, so I won’t bother you with that one.

The 7000 seems a pretty good value for money deal, I reckon.

Like any controller, if one bit breaks, you have to send in the entire unit. This can be a pain sometimes. Then again, if you already own another controller you can take as backup, you should be good.

Greetinx,
C.

The Denon MC-6000 is also ready for VDJ (in the US it is bundled with VDJ LE) and a very well built unit (like a brick I’d say), this might be important if you take your controller places. Reviews have been good. It’s also a full stand-alone mixer and very versatile when it comes to hooking up other stuff.

Greetinx,
C.