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MP3 Goat: Choosing a DJ Sound Card |
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Written by MP3Goat
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Choosing a sound card can be a confusing issue these days. There are so many available, that the new computer DJ can get overwhelmed easily.
Here's a few tips to help you through the process:
1) Know your noise floor.
The average DJ event, whether it be a wedding, party, bar, dance club, etc., is a noisy environment. People dancing and talking, wait staff moving about, all contribute to the noise floor.
Does spending $500 for a sound card, that sounds great in a quiet home or studio, make sense in this type of environment?
Probably not.
2) Know your hardware.
Many people go out and purchase a USB sound card. We like USB sound cards, and many sound fantastic -- but know the limitations of your hardware and software.
If you use a USB mouse, have one or two USB hard drives, and a USB sound card, you might be looking for trouble.
The USB bus, where all this information has to travel back and forth, can get congested quickly. For example, a simple mouse move, can translate to hundreds of messages being sent back and forth across the USB bus. If you are playing an MP3 song from an external USB drive, they are generally streamed across that bus as well.
The more USB devices you have plugged in, the better the chance of a bottleneck, which could cause your music to skip or stop!
An easy solution, is to use a PS/2 mouse (or adapter). You can use Firewire hard drives and/or sound cards as well.
Try to distribute the load across the buses, so that one is not handling all of the traffic.
3) Know your software.
Does your software handle multiple sound cards?
Most do these days, but there are still some exceptions. Some software relies upon ASIO drivers, to split one sound card into multiple outputs. ASIO drivers are not known for their stability, and usually require a lot of tweaking to get them working correctly.
A dedicated sound card for each deck/player in your software, usually requires no drivers, and are basically plug and play. They use what are called WDM (Windows Driver Model) generic drivers, which are already included with the Windows operating system, and require no tweaking.
Using this type of setup, deck A goes to one sound card, then to one channel on your mixer, deck B goes to another sound card, then to another channel on your mixer. Basically the same as having two turntables or CD decks plugged into your mixer.
You can then cue off your mixer, and not have the latency that computer cueing usually interjects.
So, there's a few tips to get you on your way.
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