Hello. I suspect that this is a well-worn topic, but I continue to receive conflicting info, having just coughed up a yearly subscription to DJay Pro AI primarily for the ability to precue with just my MacBook Pro, a small USB plug-in soundcard, a cable or two, and whatever house mixer is around.
But it appears that there is still no way that precueing will render both the cue and public output split into mono, even when using a USB soundcard? That’s obviously unacceptable, right? Do I need some bulky four-channel device in order to play in stereo, even in this latest iteration of DJay Pro AI?
Anyone want to settle this issue once and for all, in language even a simpleton such as myself can understand? Thank you, of course.
First of all, what’s the USB audio interface? Is it just stereo? Ideally it should have separate stereo channels for cue and master (or to output stereo from both decks when using a “house mixer”).
You could just use your computer’s headphone jack with a suitable splitter (DJ type, not generic sharing type) but both outputs would be mono, low volume and not the best quality.
Yes, I understand that if I wanted a mono split, it would be an easy thing to do, but who wants to DJ in mono? Back to Mono may have worked for Phil Spector in 1962, but not for clubs today. As for the interface, I was thinking of something as small as possible: a plug-and-play resembling a thumb drive. Is there one available that can split the channels while allowing a stereo output?
As far as I know, there’s nothing that tiny on the market for DJs any more.
Some of the smallest controllers (i.e. Numark DJ2GO2) have cue and master channels, and will also give you physical control of the software.
The other option is to use the onboard audio for one signal and a USB dongle interface for the other, but you may run into latency issues there (sound from one is out of sync with the other).
[edit] There’s the TX-6 from Teenage Engineering if you have 1100 Euros.
Notes:
I don’t recommend the Hercules Starlight or Numark DJ2GO2 audio for large systems. They work great on smaller systems or as pure MIDI controllers. But there always seemed to be audio gremlins/glitches on larger systems with the ultra-portable controllers that fixed themselves when I plugged in at least my MIXTOUR or Traktor Z1.
Thanks for the great suggestions @PKtheDJ and @Michael_Wisniewski. There are also some great suggestions for proper USB sound cards/audio interfaces in the topic linked below. You might also want to check out the Reloop Flux (Reloop Flux - Reloop), although it sounds like this is probably larger than what you’re looking for. Personally, if it was me, I’d go for something like the Reloop Mixtour so you have some physical mixing controls, but still in a small form factor. If you can wait a bit, it sounds like the upcoming Mixtour Pro will have a higher quality sound card than the previous iteration.
