Digital DJ software + hardware

This is one especially for Rob V...

I occasionally still get asked to do some DJing (despite my active Dj days being 25 years ago). As it is very occasional and casual, I don't want to drag too much stuff with me, so all-digital is the way to go. Preferably only laptop + possible MIDI/USB controller, plugging into PA amp - so far I have also used a small mixer, but want to get rid of that too.

Now the complication - I don't want to dedicate a laptop to this, and my "everyday" laptops run linux ([K]Ubuntu and gentoo), so I would prefer something linux-based.

As to software, I have tried out Mixxx and djplay, and for hardware, there is at least the Hercules DJ console that has the benefit of combined controllers + multiple sound outputs.

I could also go for one of the Numark midi controllers, but then I need a separate audio output box, as I would like to have independent audio out and headphone monitoring.

Comments/advice?

Would any of these work for you, used with one or more USB flash keys (or even an iPod) in place of the laptop ?

http://www.numark.com/idj2
http://www.numark.com/idj
http://www.numark.com/d2director

Frankly, I know nothing about DJing, or if this is what you're asking about, but my wife's brother does a little DJing, and so does a friend of mine, and they both swear by this software.

That does appear to be the de facto solution, it seems to get used everywhere.

This mix album was made entirely with Serato Scratch Live... and very good it is too.

Runs only on Windows & Mac -- not useful to Julf.

My initial thought when I read Julf's original post was that this might be one of those times where having a dedicated drive for the job mightn't be a bad idea. If he does that he doesn't need to be "restricted" to Linux if there's a Windows solution - chances are there's an unused XP licence code stuck to the underside of the laptop anyway!

I'm thinking along the lines of using a swappable hard drive, or a dedicated partition on the existing HD, or booting from a USB HD. The reasons I think this could be a good idea are that the DJ'ing HD needn't be tied to his current OS, and perhaps more importantly, if the day-to-day OS breaks he can still meet the DJ'ing commitments.

Depends on how good the user interface on them is. My concern with any non-laptop solution is ease of finding/browsing songs. Nothing beats a full-size keyboard, a decent-size display and a well designed GUI.

I assume the product would be "scratch" (as "itch" is "coming soon"). It seems to require their own hardware, and be based on actually using vinyl (albeit with specially encoded LP's?).

Good point. Any views on how the USB interface on your generic laptop would be up to dealing with all the traffic (songs coming off USB HD, and then going back out to D/A)? I know that on paper there is more than enough bandwidth, but...

And just from an ideological point of view, I would prefer open source software...

Based on Rob's demos from the 2006 Empeg Meet, the GUI looked really well done. And you can plug a USB keyboard into the Director (probably the others, too).

They did look very slick at the meet. And are Linux based.

cheers

With Linux, USB is just another bus, like a SATA or SCSI bus.

The bandwith is a bit lower -- 30MByte/sec max for mass storage, but that's still fast enough.

Dunno about with another O/S, though.

Ignoring the OS, USB really isn't all that great of a bus, and I doubt Linux can overcome protocol and design limitations. One issue I discovered is how bad it can be to mix a USB 1.1 and 2.0 device. Many sound devices are USB 1.1, so make sure to isolate them from any USB 2.0 devices on their own bus, otherwise there could very well be performance issues. This cropped up in my CarPC install, and on Windows at least, also exposed how much load device mixing like that put on the kernel drivers. I saw shoddy performance due to both bus load and CPU load.

If the system has firewire, you could put all the storage there, or find a firewire audio device, ensuring separation.

As I said, 30MByte/sec max for mass storage.

You never said anything about what sorts of music you want to DJ and what your functionality requirements are (cross-fading? beat matching? pitch bending?).

If all you want to be able to do is cue up multiple songs without any kind of cross-fading, then just about any MP3 player will do the job. If you want to preview on headphones while playing something else to the house, then something cheap like a Griffin iMic can provide you a second audio out. That's actually all I ever need. I configure Winamp to play to the iMic and use that for the house, and I use iTunes through the built-in audio out to preview stuff. I imagine you can do something similar with any two different MP3 players on Linux.

Now, if you want fancier mixing and whatnot, Google for "open source dj mixer", which turned up Mixxx and also helped me find OpenJay, which seems to be dedicated to exactly your needs. There's even a tool called xwax, which understands timecoded vinyl for scratching and so forth. Lastly, you might want to check out UltraMixer. It's not free, but it is cross-platform.

Showing my age here - anything from "classic" 70's/80's disco to KLF-style "stadium house".



Pretty much all of those.



Thanks! Had ftried out Mixxx, and it worked pretty well, but hadn't come across OpenJay. Still need some hardware - a decent controller/A/D/mixer at least, but the Hercules ought to do that.