DJ new to digital music PLEASE HELP

jason2422

New member
i have been DJ'ing for about a year now and would like to learn how to use my computer for recording, remixing, mixing, mastering, and other such things


i basically have no clue what i am am getting into so i can going to tell you what i want to do a hope to get some answers

- to be able to record live mixes onto my hard drive and be able to burn them in high quality sound
- i also would like to record single tracks from my records onto my computer i have rca outputs on my computer and a set of 1/8 in i/o on my sound card (that i am looking to upgrade) i need to know what hardware, software, cables, ect ect
- i would like to take the saved tracks and be able to remix them with sampling and effects through a program or some sort of external effects mixer and save the remixed versions
-then i want to take the remixed tracks and use a mixer software program to mix them (downloaded PCDJ recently any other suggestions)
- finally i want to master the final mixes
- i aslo want to be able to keep the files as mp3's and convert them to wave and visa versa. also keep them on cd's, and be able to imprt the music from a cd

i really need to know any and all programs, hardware, external devices, cables, cords, that will be needed looking for highest quality sound
 
There is a substantial amount of information on this site about the questions you asked.
All you have to do is search around a bit. :)
A lot of what you need/want to get depends on...
How much money do you have/want to spend?
What kind of music will you be creating/remixing
What kind of equipment do you have?
What kind of equipment do you want/afford to get?

I would suggest that you look at the Sonic Foundry products.
Acid 3.0
Sound Forge 5.0
Vegas Audio 2.0

Check them out @
http://www.sonifoundry.com

Q1 SF*, VA, AID
Q2 SF
Q3 ACID or VA
Q4 check out http://hitsquad.com/smm for freeware/shareware
Q5 SF
Q6 SF

peace... :D

spin

p.s. You'll need to purchase (2) 1/8" male stereo plug to L/R mono male RCA plugs.
 
I agree with Spin. Acid for remixes, Sound Forge for recording & cleaning up LP's, Vegas for multi-track. There are cheaper options, but SF has a good line.

One other suggestion, tho... Go with Native Instruments Traktor as a DJ/mixer program. It's way more powerful than PCDJ, and if you're a DJ, it'll be second nature to you. Crossfades, auto BPM sync, pro scratching, support for 2 sound cards (for a headphone mix), all that stuff. It's very intuitive and easy to use, but powerful enough to do gigs, and obviously, you can save your mix performance to master & burn later.
 
thanks spin and sean for the very helpful info. i downloaded vegas, it seems to be exactly what i am looking for in a recording program. i am having a bit of trouble with there being ALOT of static. also can you explian this 2 soundcard setup better to me. i will be needing to do headphone mixes. i want to get all my stuff set up from the start for high qualitly sound what are some good soundcards for me to look at and sould i get 2 of the same soundcards?
 
The static problem could be any number of things. Try this first, then if it doesn't work, give some more details and we can try to help figure it out.

1. Make sure you're recording into the LINE-IN jack of your sound card, and not your MIC IN.

2. Make sure you've got good levels. Make SURE the meters are just inside of the red.

3. Make sure you're recording at 44.1 khz

As far as the 2 sound card thing goes, I would buy a cheap second sound card to use with your headphone mix (I can't think of any reason to spend big bucks on a high-end sound card if it's just going to be used for a headphone mix - my DJ friend uses a cheap-o Ensoniq -est $15) .

Traktor allows you select which sound card you use for your main output, and which to use with your headphones. The only thing that can get tricky is getting the 2 sound cards installed together, but most of the time, that's not a major issue.
 
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