Laptop DJing

It's all about the equipment

Moderators: Mr Awesomer, JesseMiner, CafeSavoy

Locked
Message
Author
User avatar
LindyChef
Posts: 228
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2003 7:52 pm
Location: Houston and Seattle (bi-coastal wanna-be)
Contact:

#106 Post by LindyChef » Mon Apr 12, 2004 12:55 pm

I don't know about Media Player, but the free player WinAMP does allow you to select which output you use. Just go to Preferences (CTRL + P), Plug-ins > Output. Select which sound output you use and hit Configure. The first tab that comes up should be the Device tab. Choose the sound card you want and you're good to go.

For clarity's sake, though, I use two different pieces of software to keep things straight: iTunes for searching through my library and cueing up my songs and WinAMP for actually playing them (I can just drag and drop a song from iTunes to my WinAMP playlist),

User avatar
GemZombie
Posts: 772
Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2002 2:46 pm
Location: Alpharetta, GA (Formerly SLO, CA)
Contact:

#107 Post by GemZombie » Mon Apr 12, 2004 4:37 pm

12bars wrote:ok...
i can run 2 versions of media player at once; can i have each one play in a diff sound card? effectivly previewing and cueing while a song is playing?
theoretically yes. I'm not sure how easy it is to tell media player to use a different sound card. Easier to do the same thing with winamp or something like it.

I just use bpm studio which does it all internally.

User avatar
yedancer
Posts: 417
Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2002 8:08 pm
Location: San Diego
Contact:

#108 Post by yedancer » Mon Apr 12, 2004 7:14 pm

I don't think you can send sound to different cards with Media player. You have to use WinAmp.
-Jeremy

It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money. And I guess that's what I like about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money.

User avatar
(geek)
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 1:23 am
Location: Vancouver, BC
Contact:

#109 Post by (geek) » Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:16 am

Note to self and words of note for others:

Don't forget to plug in your laptop while DJing. :-)

The battery indicator on my tibook is acting up, and OSX gave no warning before shutting me down last night in the middle of Alberta Hunter's most excellent rendition of The Darktown Strutters Ball.

Cue and extended "skip" of the song while I scrambled to find a free power outlet. At least iTunes remembers exactly where it paused the currently playing song when OSX goes to sleep!

Gotta love it when the crowd initially blames the closest stomper to the DJ booth for making the music skip. ;-)

User avatar
djstarr
Posts: 1043
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2003 2:09 pm
Location: Seattle

#110 Post by djstarr » Tue Jun 15, 2004 12:46 pm

(geek) wrote:Gotta love it when the crowd initially blames the closest stomper to the DJ booth for making the music skip. ;-)
HA! - That was awesome Iain --- we've had a consistent problem with both CD players since the heaviest stompers like to dance right by the booth..... You certainly recovered quickly - I usually lose my cool and fumble around for awhile when stuff like that happens to me.

User avatar
LindyChef
Posts: 228
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2003 7:52 pm
Location: Houston and Seattle (bi-coastal wanna-be)
Contact:

#111 Post by LindyChef » Tue Jun 15, 2004 1:52 pm

Just recite on the count of three ... "KILL THE DJ!"

User avatar
smunky
Posts: 34
Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2003 11:55 am
Location: st louis
Contact:

#112 Post by smunky » Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:29 am

i have been trying to pre-empt that shout by being the first to yell (if i am not dj'ing and something goes wrong): "LOVE the DJ!!!!!"

User avatar
LindyChef
Posts: 228
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2003 7:52 pm
Location: Houston and Seattle (bi-coastal wanna-be)
Contact:

#113 Post by LindyChef » Wed Jun 16, 2004 12:21 pm

smunky wrote:i have been trying to pre-empt that shout by being the first to yell (if i am not dj'ing and something goes wrong): "LOVE the DJ!!!!!"
When I hate, I love ;)

I hate you smunky!

User avatar
wheresmygravy
Posts: 145
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2003 11:24 am
Location: Dallas

#114 Post by wheresmygravy » Thu Jun 24, 2004 9:26 am

I have been using PCDJ Blue and now they have just announced new versions of PCDJ Blue VRM and PCDJ Red VRM. Anyone made the jump to try these yet?

I downloaded the Blue VRM demo and was excited about some of the changes (Like more data on the playlist and easier to use groups) but was disappointed that they got rid of the Recordcase Player, so it does not appear that you can preview songs unless they are loaded in one of the players....

JohnDyer
Posts: 87
Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2002 2:52 pm
Location: Denver CO

#115 Post by JohnDyer » Mon Jun 28, 2004 10:48 pm

wheresmygravy wrote:I have been using PCDJ Blue and now they have just announced new versions of PCDJ Blue VRM and PCDJ Red VRM. Anyone made the jump to try these yet?

I downloaded the Blue VRM demo and was excited about some of the changes (Like more data on the playlist and easier to use groups) but was disappointed that they got rid of the Recordcase Player, so it does not appear that you can preview songs unless they are loaded in one of the players....
Aggghhhh! I actually bought PCDJ FX and then found out that they removed the Recordcase Player - this makes it unusable in my opinion - having to load a song into the player, hit the cue button, turn down the volume for that channel, then play it...

I don't suppose Red VRM has a recordcase player either...

Guess I'll stick to PCDJ Red - it has a few limitations, but is relatively affordable, dependable, and supports 2 soundcards - AND has the recordcase player :)
John Dyer, Denver CO

coldnight
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2004 5:41 pm
Location: Vermont
Contact:

Two installs of winamp... 5.03

#116 Post by coldnight » Fri Jul 30, 2004 11:25 am

Hey folks, I've got my laptop outfitted with two seperate installs of winamp for DJ'ing. One uses classic skin and the other modern. The modern skin is my external output, the classic is preview. It works quite well, once I realized they were sharing the media library.

Now every time I want to add media, I have to nuke and rescan with both of them. Or just rescan if I am only adding. Does anyone know if there is a setting to get winamp to re-read the files without tossing all the definitions away? It seems like a big waste of time.

Thanks!

jmatthew
Posts: 65
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2004 5:16 pm
Location: Corvallis, OR
Contact:

#117 Post by jmatthew » Sun Aug 01, 2004 1:46 pm

did you get the two versions of winamp to share one library? or do you ahve two libraries open too? I'd love to do that, but using two libraries just drives me nuts. I want to be able to drag from my library to either player, so I don't have to find songs twice, but so far I haven't been able to set that up. :(
I'm not an obsessive personality. I just happen to pick hobbies that seem to consume my life.

www.lindyguy.com

User avatar
Zot
Posts: 104
Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2003 12:37 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

DJ 1800

#118 Post by Zot » Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:19 pm

Hi all,

I've finally decided to fork out for a "proper" laptop DJ setup including a Griffin iMic and DJ1800 software.

I'm yet to test the setup but everything I've seen so far makes me think this will improve my DJing experience, by adding song previewing and cuing to the song management stuff I already enjoy with iTunes (organisation, fast searching, bpm tracking etc.). I'll try to report back here with my results.

Image
http://www.griffintechnology.com/



Image
http://www.dj1800.com/
"Take the worst of neo-swing and put it together with Glen Miller. The man thinks the Count is someone from a horror flick. Take pity on him and let him play two or three tunes. But be sure you have some errands to run." -- Bill Borgida

coldnight
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2004 5:41 pm
Location: Vermont
Contact:

#119 Post by coldnight » Tue Aug 03, 2004 11:48 pm

jmatthew wrote:did you get the two versions of winamp to share one library? or do you ahve two libraries open too? I'd love to do that, but using two libraries just drives me nuts. I want to be able to drag from my library to either player, so I don't have to find songs twice, but so far I haven't been able to set that up. :(
They do "Share" in a way... If I nuke one library then do a rescan, then do the other one while the scan on the first is still going on, the nuke on the second one seems to wipe out the already-scanned files on the first one. [Boy thats clear as mud.] If I do what I described, I end up with fewer songs listed in the first instance; the second winamp library nuke seems to wipe them both out.

But, adding files and bookmarks doesn't refresh the other. I guess I'll write to the winamp people to ask what/if there is anything to be done about this. I wonder if they would be amused enough to make a DJ edition... I'll post back what I get from them.

John

jmatthew
Posts: 65
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2004 5:16 pm
Location: Corvallis, OR
Contact:

#120 Post by jmatthew » Wed Aug 04, 2004 2:04 am

My annoyance with Winamp is that I can't have one library and two winamps open. Itunes seems to be the "best" MP3 management software that lets the user drag straight from their library to any other program, a function I'd kill for with anything else.

In a perfect world media monkey would incorporate Drag and Drop functionality, then my life would be as perfect as it could get without a zillion dollars. :)
I'm not an obsessive personality. I just happen to pick hobbies that seem to consume my life.

www.lindyguy.com

Locked