Laptop DJing

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happyblues · #391 Post by **happyblues** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:33 am

GemZombie wrote:
happyblues wrote:Hi there,

I am brand new at DJing - but I already have a partial set up on my laptop from playing music at my blues beach parties the last 2 summers. Now that I'm DJing for real, I need to figure out what kind of external sound card set up to get - fast! (So I can actually listen to songs with headphones while DJing)

I have NO computer knowledge, and I've skimmed through this thread and through Jesse's article, but what I really need is someone to tell me step by step what to buy and do.

My laptop is a PC and I believe less powerful than most of yours. It says:
"Celeron (R) CPU 2.20 GHz" and then below that it says "2.19 GHz, 224 MB of RAM". I use I-tunes to DJ. And it has Windows XP.

Thanks!!!

Lydia
You're laptop is plenty powerful enough to DJ from.

The only thing I'd recommend buying is an external sound device... I think the Sound Blaster MP3+ is perfect, as it sounds good, is bus powered, and is inexpensive. Oh ya, buy some decent headphones too

So...is the Sound Blaster MP3+ different from the Audigy 2NX? And can I find it easily in the stores? I looked briefly in CompUSA yesterday and saw various types made by Creative, but I'm not sure any of them was the right one.

Also, don't I need software too? Is WinAmp what I need or something else? And how expensive is the expensive DJ program?

If you're the same Jesse with the article on this, I emailed you too...

Thanks,

Lydia

GemZombie · #392 Post by **GemZombie** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 1:40 pm

They are similar. The Audigy ZS is something relatively new: a PC card. I like the USB solution because it's portable beyond laptop, but the PC card does have the benefit of having a smaller footprint, and no wires at all (other than the patch or headphone cable).

The MP3+ might be a yesteryear model and harder to find. The Audigy would be fine for your situation I think.

It looks as though the MP3+ might have been renamed the Sound Blaster Live! External, though it's unclear to me whether or not that particular model requirse external power. It's $50 at Best buy, however, while the Audigy 2 ZS (notebook) is $99.

Software: BPM Studio is around $500, so it's not cheap, and there are a whole lot of free or cheap solutions. I like BPM studio, and think it's the best software for the type of DJing I do, but I wouldn't even dream of saying that it's the *only* solution. Winamp / iTunes are free ways of doing it, as well as cheaper applications like PCDJ, OtsDJ and the like.

And ya... same Jesse... I replied to your email

happyblues · #393 Post by **happyblues** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 3:02 pm

GemZombie wrote: I like the USB solution because it's portable beyond laptop, but the PC card does have the benefit of having a smaller footprint, and no wires at all (other than the patch or headphone cable).

Hi Jesse,

The above sentence means nothing to me - what is a "footprint" and what is "the patch or headphone cable"? Told you I knew nothing...

Your email hasn't come through yet - that seems weird to me, but I'll keep waiting.

I did see those two types from Creative that you mentioned - the one with the "Z" in it and the one with "live" in it. So those might be my 2 options now? What about the Griffin i-mic - I'm sure I saw that one attached to my friend's computer this past weekend because it matches the picture - is that an option too? It looks smaller and cuter (not that that's my main criteria

).

So your article says you think Winamp sucks, but not enough that I shouldn't use it? And how do I get it for free?

Thanks so much,

Lydia

GemZombie · #394 Post by **GemZombie** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 5:06 pm

Google is your friend.

Patch cable: just a cable that connects your sound device to your amplification system.

Footprint: how much space something takes up, physically.

Winamp: www.winamp.com -- I dont' think it sucks, but i don't think iTunes or winamp are particularly good DJ solutions, though they are adequate especially on a budget

The email woudl have came form jesse@sloswing.com -- maybe it got caught by a spam filter or something

Good luck.

happyblues · #395 Post by **happyblues** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 9:42 am

Thanks Jesse for the definitions! In case email still doesn't work:

I'm still debating between the Sound Blaster mp3+ and the Griffin imic - especially since I might not find the sound blaster. They seem to be the same price, but given that I don't really understand this stuff - is there something about the imic that is lower quality or wouldn't work with my set up?

Lydia

GemZombie · #396 Post by **GemZombie** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 5:31 pm

Someone else has to help you with an iMic, I don't even know what it is... though it doesn't sound like a sound device in the vein of what we were talking about.

lipi · #397 Post by **lipi** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 12:17 am

the imic is, in fact, an external sound device, like the creative ones mentioned above, or the turtle beach one reuben got. it's come up in this very thread before. i believe brian (bob the builder) had one and didn't like it much because of low output levels, but i'm too lazy to go back and find out whether that's quite right (it may have been noise). (search doesn't give me page hits -- just threads. is there a way to fix that?)

i'd say avoid the imic if you can (well, o.k., maybe you shouldn't base yourself on my somewhat hazy memory and actually look back and see what was wrong with it). go with the creative or the turtle beach.

edit: griffin imic -- product blurb for the edification of all.

further edit: in an attempt to curb my sloth, i fiddled with the search function, and lo and behold, a simple checkbox made it all better. i found the posts i meant, though i can't find an easy way of linking them here, so i'll summarise: bob the builder complained about low output levels on the imic and john dyer complained about low output levels and poor quality -- both in this very thread.

Bob the Builder · #398 Post by **Bob the Builder** » Sun Oct 02, 2005 5:39 am

The iMic is a very simple little cost effective sound card. For someone on a budget is fine. The sound quality is better than a standard run of the mill laptop onboard head phone output.
However as a generalization the standard sound quality out of a standard laptop is very average.
I determined I was not happy with the general quality of the iMic or the Laptop sound card for DJing, so I invested in an Echo Indigo DJ Card.
I have been much happier with that as a solution. I have tested the iMic a lot and it has the same level of output that my Numark Dual CD Player.

Brian

Nando · #399 Post by **Nando** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 11:17 am

Would anyone know or (or make) a BPM counter widget for Mac?

Zero Cool · #400 Post by **Zero Cool** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 12:34 pm

hey guys,

Just recently became member of this helpfull website and recently started doing DJ'ing as well. Well at least of "SWING" I been doing others for a while.

~ I just got the new TRAKTOR DJ STUDIO 3 and It blew my mind !

WOW!

anyone out there using similar software?

Any suggestion / Ideas in general for a newby swing DJ ?

balgalsue · #401 Post by **balgalsue** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 7:45 pm

Nando wrote:Would anyone know or (or make) a BPM counter widget for Mac?

This thing works great and it was freeware (or shareware that I didn't pay for?); not sure

ltjBPM

here's the URL
www.oatbit.com/~jared/ltjbpm.html

Travis · #402 Post by **Travis** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 11:04 am

I'm thinking of getting a laptop for DJing in the near future. What min spec's do y'all recommend?

Bob the Builder · #403 Post by **Bob the Builder** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:59 pm

To me storage size it the big thing.
If you can find a laptop with 100 GB of storage get it. Using external drives is a pain. It also means you can be happy using a 320 bit rate for your songs and not worry about taking up to much space.

500MB of RAM will power most stuff you want, but if you can afford 1 GB of RAM get it.

Keep away from cheap laptops. They are not put together well and will give you problems. A good test of the body build of a laptop is to pick it up by its front left corner with the screen up. If you hear it creaking keep away from it. Personally I wouldn't buy a Acer or Dell.

Just be aware that 99% of laptop onboard sound cards are very, very bad. To get a quality output you will need to buy an additional external USB or PCI sound card. $120 should get you some thing good.

Brian

JohnDyer · #404 Post by **JohnDyer** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 12:28 am

Travis wrote:I'm thinking of getting a laptop for DJing in the near future. What min spec's do y'all recommend?

512MB of ram should probably be enough. To be sure, run your dj software and whatever else you'd normally run on another computer first and run the Task Manager (Windows) to see how much memory is being used. Running XP and PCDJ Red and a few other things come well under 512MB for me.

I'm running off a Dell Inspiron 700m (12" widescreen) with 80GB hard drive, PCDJ Red and Indigo Echo IO PCMCIA soundcard and am VERY happy with my setup. I have used this setup for a year and have NEVER had a glitch during a gig (except for user error). Of course YMMV.

I agree that the bigger internal hard drive you can get the better. I've lugged around external drives and it is a pain, especially if it requires another power adapter brick.

CafeSavoy · #405 Post by **CafeSavoy** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 8:13 am

JohnDyer wrote: I agree that the bigger internal hard drive you can get the better. I've lugged around external drives and it is a pain, especially if it requires another power adapter brick.

If you must get external drives, make sure one of them is powered through the bus and doesn't need an external adaptor. I think you can get them as large as 80-100 gigs in both firewire and usb. If you have an ipod, you can use that too as an external harddrive.

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