The Numark DJ I/O is a good value and popular DJ soundcard. Several readers have been asking about sound cards: What they are, why they need them, why they don’t seem to work at times. The popularity of the (which doesn’t have one) seems to have precipitated this flurry of questions. So in this article we’re going to answer these questions, and show you a cheeky trick that can help you to DJing without a sound card at all!
What is a sound card? In short, a sound card simply turns digital computer music files (eg MP3s) into actual audio signals that can be amplified and played, just like when you amplify the signal from a CD player.
When trying to update the audio output to an external audio card (via usb or Dante Virtual Sound card via LAN) VIrtualDJ 8 (last ver) cannot.
Your computer already has one built in: When you play a tune on iTunes, or watch a YouTube video, or make a Skype call, your computer’s sound card is turning the MP3, video or other person’s voice into sound. If my computer has a sound card, why do I need to have a separate one for digital DJing? If you get a DJ program on your computer such as Virtual DJ or Traktor, it will work fine without a sound card. You can drag tunes onto your virtual decks, hit play, and the music will either come out of your laptop or PC’s built-in speakers, or if you have some speakers plugged in to your sound out socket, out of those. Configuring Traktor Pro ’s audio settings.
As a new DJ, then, especially if you’re just messing around with a trial version of a DJ program, you may wonder why you need a sound card at all. The answer is simple: without one, you can’t listen to the next piece of music you want to play without it coming out of your existing speakers – the ones that are already playing the current tune! So what a sound card does is provide you with TWO sound outputs – one to plug your normal speakers into (which if you were performing, would be the big speakers playing to your audience) and a second one to plug your headphones into.
With a pair of headphones around your neck, you not only look like a DJ, but now you can actually act like one, preparing (or “cueing”) the next tune safely in your headphones while your DJ software plays the current one out of the main output. What does a sound card look like? It’s normally a box that plugs into a spare USB socket on your computer, and has multiple outputs – maybe two sets of red and white phono cables, 1/8″ sockets (like on an iPod for your headphones), 1/4″ headphone sockets or other less common outputs. It usually takes its power direct from your computer.
The common thing they all have is that they’re designed for you to be able to plug your sound equipment into them. (Sometimes you may even use two “normal” sound cards with only one output on each to get the same effect, especially on desktop PCs. The crucial thing is to have two separate sound outputs.) OK, I get that.
I’ve got a sound card but I still can’t get it to work like you say! This is down to the sound settings on your PC and software: Somewhere in the configuration settings of your DJ software will be a panel that lets you change these vital settings. Setting up a sound card in Virtual DJ. First, you have to tell the DJ software which available sound outputs to use. You select “sound card” or “audio setup” or something similar in the settings or configuration panel of your software, and select your sound card from the available options. (If you can’t see these settings, the first thing to do is ensure that any necessary drivers for the sound card are installed and up to date.) Next, you have to tell the software what to send to at least two of the outputs of your sound card. You’d normally send the “master” output to one set of outputs, and the “cue” or “headphones” output to the other one.
Now you plug your speakers and headphones into the correct outputs and you’re ready to go. What if I have an external mixer and want to use that to DJ in the old-fashioned way?
Can I use that? You can – you simply set one of your decks to come out of one set of sound card outputs, and one to come out of the other (that’s actually how Virtual DJ is set up on the screengrab you can see above). I have an external DJ controller.
Do I still need a sound card? That depends on your controller. Many popular controllers, like the Vestax VCI-100 and the Numark Mixtrack, don’t have a sound card built in, so you must have one. Didn’t you say there was a trick that means I can get away without needing a sound card? Setting up Virtual DJ to work with a mono separated signal, avoiding using a soundcard at all.
Yup, sure is. It depends on your DJ software, but if it offers a “mono separated” output, you’re in luck. How is this? Well, when we’ve been talking about two sound outputs, of course we’ve really meant four, because each output has two channels, a left and a right, to make the stereo signal. But you can take advantage of this to have two completely separate outputs, just in mono instead. (Before you say “I don’t want to DJ in mono”, you may be surprised to know that the majority of club sound systems are mono anyway) To pull this trick off, you just need a lead that splits the signal coming from your PC’s one sound output, sending one channel to one lead and the other to the other. You then concoct a way of plugging your headphones into one and your amplifer and speakers into the other.
You may need to head down to your local hi-fi shop and may even have to start hacking leads up to do it, but hey – if you’re trying to avoid shelling out for a sound card, you’re going to have to do some work here! Google “DJ Y-cable” too and you’ll find plenty of DIY instructions in geeky forums to help you with this. Native Instruments Audio 2 is another surefire winner around the same price. Recommend me a sound card, then!
We’ll review popular sound cards elsewhere at some point, but you can’t really go wrong with a or a (so you know, these product links are from our affiliated store Musician’s Friends, which guarantees the cheapest prices and free delivery, US only). Isn’t there an easier way? If you’re going to use a with your DJ software (and while it’s possible to DJ without one – I did for years when controllers were more trouble than they were worth – nowadays most digital DJs use some kind of controller) just make sure you buy one with a built-in sound card. This makes things really simple as you just plug the controller into the laptop, your speakers and headphones into the controller, and off you go.
Controllers like the, the and, and and the weighty Numark NS7 are all like this. If you want the simplest possible digital DJ setup as far as leads, cables and boxes goes, go for one of these and all you need extras are some speakers and a pair of headphones. Which sound card do you use?
Or do you just have an all-in-one controller? Does your sound card work fine, or is it always causing you problems? Your article went a long way in opening up my eyes to solving the concurrent use of headphones/speakers. I use my laptop to mix music.
My laptop has 2 headphones/external speaker outputs. The problem is that whether i use the Virtual DJ’s mono splitter or the 4.1 sound card options, both the headphones and the speakers play the same sound.
I have even tried to search for software that can split my sound card into 2 (for left and right channels)but to no avail. What advice would you give me? I recently purchased a TASCAM US-144.
I am using Virtual DJ 6.1. This card has one output that goes to my powerd speakers. The soundcard also has a headphones plug similar to the Nunmark DJ-IO, but has 2 input for mics. Now I have not been able to configure the card so that I use that headphone connection instead of the laptop audio.
I have been able to I read in some other post that it’s better to have it this way. Also I want to be able to use my 2 decks and send this audio to my master Read more ». I’m totally new to DJing so I wanna buy a PC controller and I’m between two options right now I’m considering the behringer BCD3000 since it has an integrated sound card and it’s cheap, although I’ve read that it’s not that good. On the other side, I’m considering the Numark Mixtrack even though it doesn’t have the integrated sound card The other option would be getting the Numark Mixtrack Pro which does have the integrated sound card.
Thing is, I do have a Numark X1usb mixer which also has an integrated sound card as far as I know. I’m wondering Read more ». Juan: The Mixtrack is the better controller, as it’s more modern and is much more fun to use. The Mixtrack Pro would of course be fine as it has a built-in sound card. The Numark X1USB should work fine as a sound card with your Mixtrack. You plug the Mixtrack into the laptop, and plug the X1USB into the laptop too, both by USB.
The laptop then treats the X1USB as a sound card, and you ought to be able to use one laptop channel for monitoring and one for headphones – or even use it as an external mixer Read more ». Hey phil, i just got the mixtrack pro and im having trouble setting up my headphones as well (im new to this). I know it should be easy being that it already has a sound card built in but im having problems.im trying to practice on my pc, so im trying to get my master sound through my pc speakers and my cue/headphone sound through the actual headphone jack on the mixtrackim hearing the master through the speakers but no volume in the headphones.is this possible? What should my settings be in vdj 6.1.2? Any advice would help alot.
Hey phil,i have read all through poeples problems and all the solutoins and what not but im still having troubles! Im trying to run my master volume through my laptop and cue songs through my headphones on the mixtrack pro headphone jack. I have the vdj 6.1.2 cd running that comes with it, even upgraded it to vdj pro 7.
Set up output = none input = headphone soundcard= my laptop as master and mixtrack as headphones. When i hit the cue button it seems to run through the master soundcard still, it wont run through my headphones. Any helpwould be great. I used to use the mono separated trick when I first started experimenting around with mixing.
IMHO, save up and buy yourself a VCI-300. If you wanna get a real feel for DJing and don’t wanna spend a lot of cash, I couldn’t advise anything better. I’ve made the mistake of buying cheap gear before, and never again. I now have a nightly residency in a club in Xiamen, China and now only use the club standard system of 2 Panasonic CDJ-2000s with a DJM-800. It’s just my opinion, but I would advise people in 3 directions depending on the Read more ».
Hi, i use vdj 6.1 with my laptop. I connected the laptop to the external mixer via rca jack (uses the built in souncard) then the (2nd line also via rca, but through external soundcard) that also goes to mixer. I set vdj config like this: inputs: none.
Outputs: external mixer sound card: 2 card + (external card) primary: realtek second: (external sound card) still cant the headphones to work for the cue. Headphone is connected to mixer (via the headphone slot). Am i connecting it to the correct line??? Traktor pro 2, mixtrack decks a and b, hercules mk2 decks c and d, x1 that kind of floats around handling efx and the sample deck stuff, NI audio 8 soundcard. Option to use hercules’ soundcard as well, can plug headphones into computer, 8, or mk2, and can utilize all of the analog ins the mk2 and 8 will let me. Currently have two tables hooked to the ins on the mk2. Sound from those comes through either that or the 8.
The mk2 is old but its super versitale. To put this together used would probably cost under Read more ».
Traktor pro 2, mixtrack decks a and b, hercules mk2 decks c and d, x1 that kind of floats around handling efx and the sample deck stuff, NI audio 8 soundcard. Option to use hercules’ soundcard as well, can plug headphones into computer, 8, or mk2, and can utilize all of the analog ins the mk2 and 8 will let me. Currently have two tables hooked to the ins on the mk2.
Sound from those comes through either that or the 8. The mk2 is old but its super versitale. To put this together used would probably cost under Read more ».
Is there an external video card that I can use for the Express Slot (or USB) that will reduce CPU load on the Mac? I do see some 'USB to DVI' video cards online, but is there one for this slot?
Has anyone used either a USB or Express Slot video card? I'm testing DJ software (Virtual DJ) and trying to mix music videos with this Mac and when I mix videos (MPEG-4), the audio gets choppy - in the mix.
The audio drops out = very bad! And loading songs on a deck really taxes the CPU to 100%, causing some audio dropouts too. I do have 4GB RAM in this machine.
I am looking for a solution that will reduce the demand on the CPU and allow me to mix music videos - without buying a new computer, haha. I've done everything imaginable to reduce the CPU load - disabling dashboard, any unnecessary processes, Airport, Bluetooth, prefs, sharing - the list goes on. Will any external video option help REDUCE the load on the MacBook CPU? MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM with Mac OS 10.6.4. Any external video processor is going to still take it's initial video feed from your laptops system. They will post process the signal to make it workable on downstream equipment (the USB-to-DVI things by IO Gear and Sewell really just make USB video output acceptable since generally USB video-out is terrible, and they let you redistribute that signal to multiple monitors).
Your machine's limitation is it's own hardware, and nothing that you add-on is going to reduce the computation load on your existing cpu and gpu. Unfortunately I haven't come across anything either for external video processing. There are a number of products for external audio processing (firewire, USBs, even Expresscard/34) but doesn't seem to be much for video unless maybe you hooked up an external enclosure using Expresscard and added a standard PCI-express video card to the enclosure. But I have no idea how that would work performance-wise, at least if you're doing stuff on the fly.
I haven't used Virtual DJ before but with a lot of audio programs you can compensate for latency caused by signal travel and processing so I don't know if it would be possible to set it up so the video signal was sent out early and processed, then sent back so that it syncs with the music. For audio recording programs you can set things like this up to be able to record tracks at the right time if there's lag. But as the other posters have said, your computer might not be up for it. The only other thing I can think of would be going with a faster hard drive if a ton of data is being accessed. I've never seen it for myself but have heard that video is one of the areas where hard drive speed can actually make a difference in performance. If you are processing so much data that your hard drive can't keep up, it's likely that the rest of your system won't be able to either so there's a good chance that wouldn't atually help. I did notice that Virtual DJ suggests having lots of HDD space when you're doing Video Mixing so maybe it does do a lot of temporary reads/writes that could bog down your drive.
Apple Footer. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided; every potential issue may involve several factors not detailed in the conversations captured in an electronic forum and Apple can therefore provide no guarantee as to the efficacy of any proposed solutions on the community forums. Apple disclaims any and all liability for the acts, omissions and conduct of any third parties in connection with or related to your use of the site.
All postings and use of the content on this site are subject to the.