- BEST EXTERNAL SOUND CARD DJ DRIVERS
- BEST EXTERNAL SOUND CARD DJ DRIVER
- BEST EXTERNAL SOUND CARD DJ SOFTWARE
- BEST EXTERNAL SOUND CARD DJ PROFESSIONAL
Plug your headphones into your DJ mixer and you would cue and monitor channels from there directly. Thus, you run outputs 1/2 from the soundcard into line one input of your physical DJ mixer (any traditional DJ mixer would work for this) and outputs 3/4 to line two of the mixer. In this mode DECK A would utilize one output on the card ( outputs 1/2) and DECK B would use the second output ( outputs 3/4). The other sound card work mode would be for external DJ mixer use.
BEST EXTERNAL SOUND CARD DJ SOFTWARE
This way, when you engage the headphone cue buttons on your DJ software that DJ decks signal pushes through the dedicated headphone output on the sound card. In this mode you would setup the sound card in your DJ software options so that both DECK A and DECK B (for the sake of keeping this more simplified we’ll work with just 2 decks instead of a 4 deck DJ software setup) go through one output on the card, and your headphone cue channel the other. Most DJ software, and PCDJ products are no exception, offer two modes for dual channel output: One mode, internal mixer. So, when using a pro-audio USB multichannel sound card, like the American Audio Versaport as pictured with this post, you’re able to headphone cue with DJ software.
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You should always check the mix in your headphones first, if mixing music on beat is important to how you DJ. Of course “ SYNC” in DJ software now, like what we include with PCDJ DEX 2 and PCDJ RED Mobile 2, helps tremendously with beat mixing on beat – but it’s truly meant to be a guide. This is paramount for any DJ that beat mixes or otherwise blends their DJ sets seamlessly. You can get the mix right in your cans before you send the mix live.
![best external sound card dj best external sound card dj](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71oGCu0-Z4S._AC_SY450_.jpg)
Why is this important? Traditionally when a DJ uses two turntables or CD players (I say “traditionally”, but obviously tradition today is some form of Digital DJ software with DJ controller or time-code control, but I digress) and runs each to an independent output to an external mixer they have the ability to headphone “cue” or use “pre-fade listening” With this setup the DJ can preview one track in their DJ headphones, while the other plays live to their audience.
BEST EXTERNAL SOUND CARD DJ PROFESSIONAL
Why all this talk about “single stereo output”? DJ software, at least professional DJ programs, support true dual-stereo output – otherwise multi-channel output. But here again, MAC’s come with single stereo output sound cards built in as well.
BEST EXTERNAL SOUND CARD DJ DRIVERS
MAC users do have the benefit of Mac’s “Core Audio” drivers – which offer much lower latencies (around 3-6ms on average) and multichannel support.
![best external sound card dj best external sound card dj](https://s11234.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/20100412114803.jpg)
BEST EXTERNAL SOUND CARD DJ DRIVER
While WASAPI and WDM both support multichannel output, and lower latencies than the basic direct sound driver included on the Windows platform, they still run around 30ms latency (time the DJ software takes to react to a button press or virtual slider movement etc) and doesn’t help the fact the sound card itself only offers one true stereo output. Sound cards included on Windows machines utilize “ DIRECT SOUND“, “ WASAPI” or “ WDM” drivers. The sound card you receive with your computer is not a “pro sound card” and furthermore, doesn’t offer more than a single stereo output or surround sound. Got that? Yeah, a tad bit technical, agreed! The integrated sound system is often still referred to as a “sound card”.” The best plug-in cards, which use better and more expensive components, can achieve higher quality than integrated sound. Sound functionality can also be integrated onto the motherboard, using basically the same components as a plug-in card. Typical uses of sound cards include providing the audio component for multimedia applications such as music composition, editing video or audio, presentation, education and entertainment (games) and video projection. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware inside the PC. “A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. In more detail, this excerpt from Wikipedia explains best: What is a Sound Card (or otherwise known as Audio Card)?įirst off, your computer already has one built in (laptops have integrated single stereo output or surround sound output cards included by default) A sound card essentially turns digital audio player output (audio files) into audio signals that can be amplified and played, just like when you amplify the signal from CD decks.
![best external sound card dj best external sound card dj](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71EWKRp1N1L._AC_SX425_.jpg)
Since our product specialists here at a PCDJ receive this question often from first-time callers, I figured it was worthy of its own blog post…