External Sound Cards for Laptop DJing

It's all about the equipment

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CountBasi
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#61 Post by CountBasi » Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:46 am

Sorry but I didn't understand that girlfriend analogy at the end. :oops:
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Haydn
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#62 Post by Haydn » Tue Feb 19, 2008 8:21 am

J-h:n wrote:Where did you order it from? I haven't found any place online that will ship the Turtle Beach sound cards outside the USA.
Hi Johan,

Here's a list of Turtle Beach's worldwide distributors, including several in Europe -
http://support.turtlebeach.com/site/support/distro.asp

I ordered mine from 'Et Cetera' in the UK. Before you order, it's worth cross-referencing details of whatever the distributor has with Turtle Beach's website, because I've found distributors don't always stock what you are expecting.

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#63 Post by Surreal » Tue Feb 19, 2008 11:26 pm

CountBasi wrote:Sorry but I didn't understand that girlfriend analogy at the end. :oops:
I *think* the advice was to buy a cheap sound card and spend the extra money on girls instead.

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J-h:n
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#64 Post by J-h:n » Wed Feb 20, 2008 5:12 pm

Haydn wrote:Here's a list of Turtle Beach's worldwide distributors, including several in Europe -
http://support.turtlebeach.com/site/support/distro.asp

I ordered mine from 'Et Cetera' in the UK. Before you order, it's worth cross-referencing details of whatever the distributor has with Turtle Beach's website, because I've found distributors don't always stock what you are expecting.
Thanks - just what I needed! Unfortunately, Et Cetera doesn't seem to carry the tiny cards (Micro or Amigo) any more; the only external Turtle Beach one they have on their website is one called Roadie, which is a bit bulkier. And no more luck with the other distributors. Oh well, I'll give Et Cetera a call tomorrow just in case.

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Cyrano de Maniac
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#65 Post by Cyrano de Maniac » Sat Mar 22, 2008 3:01 pm

Not sure exactly which thread this fits in, but this seems to work...

Last night I tried my first gig using a laptop instead of CDs. My setup is a brand new MacBook Pro, a Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro USB for main output, along with Disco XT for playback. I was using the onboard audio for previewing.

Fairly early on in the night I started getting choppy audio. At first I thought it was a bad CD rip (I was playing a few songs that I hadn't listened to all the way through), but as time went on it became obvious that wasn't the issue. I do have to admit to chuckling a bit when the stuttering audio threw off everyone doing the Shim Sham -- the look on their faces was priceless.

Anyway, I eventually gave up, played my emergency CD for a song while I transitioned over to iTunes, and finished out the night that way (I still had one or two audio hiccups, but nothing like when using Disco XT). I did continue to use Disco XT for previewing, but iTunes handled the main output the rest of the evening.

After getting home I emailed the Disco XT author, and this morning found a response from him (I certainly can't complain about how quickly he turns around support questions). He wasn't sure what the issue was, but suggested I might try swapping the outputs -- onboard for the main output, and the Turtle Beach for previewing. I set things up in this manner in my living room, and sure enough, main playback was perfectly smooth, but the preview audio was occasionally choppy.

I've seen the Turtle Beach device as fairly well thought of on Swing DJs. Has any of you run into such a problem with it before, particularly on a Mac? Have you run into such problems with other USB sound devices? How about Firewire (I'm considering the MOTU Ultralite or preSonus Firebox, in part because they could be useful for live sound in addition to DJing)?

I look forward to hearing any stories.

Brent

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GemZombie
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#66 Post by GemZombie » Sat Mar 22, 2008 3:08 pm

Never had a problem using the Turtle Beach usb device on a PC as my main output device, can't help you with the Mac side though.

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Lawrence
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#67 Post by Lawrence » Sat Mar 22, 2008 9:25 pm

Choppy audio is usually a software issue, not a hardware issue, but the fact that you replicated it at home after switching is relevant. You might have a bad card, but it also might be a problem with the program you are using.

I use a PC, too, and the only problem I had was where the software did not recognize the card once because I plugged it in as the program was loading. After wondering WTF for a minute, I just unplugged it and re-plugged it back in, which reset the connection.
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#68 Post by Surreal » Sun Mar 23, 2008 10:52 pm

Do you have other devices running off the usb? (hard drive, mouse, etc) I remember reading some reviews for the turtle beach sound cards saying they were heavy on the usb bus, so any other devices running off the usb would cause issues with sound quality.

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Cyrano de Maniac
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#69 Post by Cyrano de Maniac » Mon Mar 24, 2008 10:06 am

Nope, I made sure that the only USB device in use was the sound device.

A friend did point me at the following relevant article, however it just so happens this wasn't applicabe to my case as I was using the left-hand USB port on my Mac:

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=sup ... 0652bc9655

I do have a suspicion that Bluetooth aggravates the problem. I was using a wireless mouse at the time of most of the audio hiccups. I wonder if the Mac's internal Bluetooth adapter is connected via USB?

Brent

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Mr Awesomer
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#70 Post by Mr Awesomer » Mon Mar 24, 2008 10:46 am

Cyrano de Maniac wrote:I've seen the Turtle Beach device as fairly well thought of on Swing DJs. Has any of you run into such a problem with it before, particularly on a Mac?
I'm on a Mac and I'm beginning to be very suspicious of the Turtle Beach device for various reasons. I've had a few issues with dropped audio over the years and was wondering why the hell I never had the same issues with audio at home. It just dawned on me that the reason I never have the issue at home could well be because I never use the Turtle Beach card at home. I think I may add the Turtle Beach card to my home audio setup and see if the bug appears.
Reuben Brown
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Cyrano de Maniac
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#71 Post by Cyrano de Maniac » Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:47 pm

I think I may have found another correlation.

I borrowed another USB audio device from a coworker an hour ago, and ran into the same problem. That would seem to exonerate the Turtle Beach, unless both are similarly crappy.

However, I noticed in the System Profiler that the Mac internal Bluetooth adapter is on the same USB bus as the left-hand external USB port, where I had the Turtle Beach plugged in that ill-fated night. In some limited testing with the coworker's audio device on the right-hand USB port, which is not shared with the Bluetooth adapter, I have not yet experienced any audio drop-outs.

I'll perform more testing at home with the Turtle Beach, but I'd say I have 75% confidence that the Bluetooth adapter on the same USB bus is at the heart of the problem.

I'm not ready yet to say Disco XT is totally without fault here. iTunes does experience the same problem, but much less frequently. Thus there seems to be somewhat of a software component to the problem. I suspect Disco XT somehow tickles the bug more frequently, but the root cause is likely in the hardware or operating system.

Brent

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Mr Awesomer
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#72 Post by Mr Awesomer » Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:30 pm

Interesting... considering I also make use of a Bluetooth mouse.
Reuben Brown
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Surreal
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#73 Post by Surreal » Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:49 pm

That seems to be in line with what I mentioned above. Try sticking in more usb devices like playing off an external hd or flash drive (assuming they're all on the same bus) and see if that makes it worse.

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#74 Post by Toon Town Dave » Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:13 pm

I'd point the finger at both USB and wireless stuff (bluetooth or WiFi) as suspects. USB is very dependent on the O/S and device drivers to play nice for real-time-ish stuff.

Check if bluetooth device discovery is turned on, if it is, try turning it off. According to MS, it's turned off in Windows by default. I think it's on by default on a Mac.

I find WiFi also causes problems if the radio is on and it can't find a network to connect to. I always turn off the radio when I'm DJ'ing.

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Mr Awesomer
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#75 Post by Mr Awesomer » Tue Mar 25, 2008 2:38 pm

Cyrano de Maniac wrote:However, I noticed in the System Profiler that the Mac internal Bluetooth adapter is on the same USB bus as the left-hand external USB port, where I had the Turtle Beach plugged in that ill-fated night. In some limited testing with the coworker's audio device on the right-hand USB port, which is not shared with the Bluetooth adapter, I have not yet experienced any audio drop-outs.
A little testing last night confirms this for me as well. Left side USB port = issues. Right side USB port = no problems. Hopefully this is addressed in a system update sometime soon.
Reuben Brown
Southern California

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