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Originally posted by skywarp DJTJ, that's true - in theory. In the real world, I'll bet you ANYTHING that you won't be able to tell the difference between those two recordings.

exactly... this is what I am trying to say.
btw this was a nice theory

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www.andrew-k.com

This may not be the best solution if you're after a super-high quality mix, but if you have a computer that you wouldn't consider top of the line, this may be your best bet.

You can make a pretty decent recording using Winamp and Shoutcast from Nullsoft. If you download the server software from the shoutcast website, you can setup your own computer as a server (ie: use localhost:8080 as the server address). Then, download the DJ software from shoutcast, and setup winamp to stream to the server you specify through the line in jack on your soundcard. Then all you need to do is fire the 2 things up and run a cable from your mixer out into your soundcard's line in jack and you've got a decent recording setup. You'll need the Radium Codec... that allows you to stream at 128/44 or even 192/44.

It sounds confusing but once you see what I am talking about and get the software you will realize it's really easy to get working. I recommend it for people who don't have a ballsy machine. I have a AMD K6-2 400 with 256MB RAM and I know an 80 minute CD quality wave recording will bring my system to it's knees, so if I record to 192 it's a decent compromise and my system can handle it.

Leme know if you have problems.

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Originally posted by Technaut I as wodnering how long everones cables are for doing this, my PC is like 5 feet away from my mixer and I dunno if there are cables long enough?

It's not a huge problem to have really long cables. Most good mixers will come with XLR outputs. These are the 1/2" three pronged male plug on the back of your mixer. XLR is what you have to use in clubs because of the distance the cables that are run. The degradation of the signal over XLR cable is much much less than an RCA cable of the same length. Of course, if you are a quality freak, like me, every cable would be a gold plated titanium plug! Of course, as many people have said, I'd bet a buck to the person who could actually hear the difference between going through a couple sound cards, encoding/unencoding, normal costing quality wires etc.

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Originally posted by shompton This may not be the best solution if you're after a super-high quality mix, but if you have a computer that you wouldn't consider top of the line, this may be your best bet. You can make a pretty decent recording using Winamp and Shoutcast from Nullsoft. If you download the server software from the shoutcast website, you can setup your own computer as a server (ie: use localhost:8080 as the server address). Then, download the DJ software from shoutcast, and setup winamp to stream to the server you specify through the line in jack on your soundcard. Then all you need to do is fire the 2 things up and run a cable from your mixer out into your soundcard's line in jack and you've got a decent recording setup. You'll need the Radium Codec... that allows you to stream at 128/44 or even 192/44. It sounds confusing but once you see what I am talking about and get the software you will realize it's really easy to get working. I recommend it for people who don't have a ballsy machine. I have a AMD K6-2 400 with 256MB RAM and I know an 80 minute CD quality wave recording will bring my system to it's knees, so if I record to 192 it's a decent compromise and my system can handle it. Leme know if you have problems.

Instead of the shoutcast dsp you can use the oddcast dsp (http://www.oddsock.org/tools/). It needs a shoutcast server (so basically the only difference with shompton's method is the dsp plugin. What's the difference? Oddcast uses the LAME encoder (which is known as one of the best). So you don't need to search the Radium rip from the Fraunhoffer codec. Oddcast can encode up to 320 kbps. And it has Ogg Vorbis encoding too...

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Originally posted by Dj Flesch It's not a huge problem to have really long cables. Most good mixers will come with XLR outputs. These are the 1/2" three pronged male plug on the back of your mixer. XLR is what you have to use in clubs because of the distance the cables that are run. The degradation of the signal over XLR cable is much much less than an RCA cable of the same length. Of course, if you are a quality freak, like me, every cable would be a gold plated titanium plug! Of course, as many people have said, I'd bet a buck to the person who could actually hear the difference between going through a couple sound cards, encoding/unencoding, normal costing quality wires etc.

I only have a Vestax PMC-170A mixer and it's not a club effort!, no XLR outpus on mine just the standard Master Output and Record out. Each output has a left and right (Red and White) and all the cables I have are like 2 feet long.

So you reckon any decent audio store would be able to knock me up a set of decent lenghted Cables, so I can stop wasting all my Minidiscs??

ps - I used to bother about good quality cables for my Car's soundsystem but no-one notices so why bother! :d

Technaut

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I also have that mixer (Vestax 170A). So I'm just gonna grab a cable with a 1/8 jack and some RCA ends. Plug the RCA into the record out and the jack into my PC. This sounds good, yes?

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DJ Groove

Yup

quote:

Originally posted by Dj Flesch It's not a huge problem to have really long cables. Most good mixers will come with XLR outputs. These are the 1/2" three pronged male plug on the back of your mixer. XLR is what you have to use in clubs because of the distance the cables that are run. The degradation of the signal over XLR cable is much much less than an RCA cable of the same length. Of course, if you are a quality freak, like me, every cable would be a gold plated titanium plug! Of course, as many people have said, I'd bet a buck to the person who could actually hear the difference between going through a couple sound cards, encoding/unencoding, normal costing quality wires etc.

This would be nice, but I have yet to see a soundcard with balanced XLR inputs. If you were to use XLR-RCA cables, then by definition this is not balanced so you would lose any benefit from having the balanced output from the mixer.

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Originally posted by The_Groove I also have that mixer (Vestax 170A). So I'm just gonna grab a cable with a 1/8 jack and some RCA ends. Plug the RCA into the record out and the jack into my PC. This sounds good, yes?

yeah thats what I want to do but I need to get myself a extra long lead !!

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Originally posted by DJTJ This would be nice, but I have yet to see a soundcard with balanced XLR inputs. If you were to use XLR-RCA cables, then by definition this is not balanced so you would lose any benefit from having the balanced output from the mixer.

Hmmyeah, but it's pretty easy to find soundcards with TRS inputs.
As for soundcards with XLR inputs, they do exist (for example Aardvark, Sekd, Hoontech, ...) but those are rather expensive. But then again they are not really meant for regular home use

I'm not sure where I saw it, but I'm pretty sure somewhere in this forum, there was an extention for a soundblaster live that had XLR inputs etc. But anyway, my point is that clubs use XLR because they have to run the cables 30 or more feet. My setup is from my mixer with a gold plated RCA to 1/8" stereo jack. The cord is 6" long and runs into my soundcard (soundblaster extigy) and from my soundcard through another 6" USB cable. Not that much loss at all will be because of the usb cable, but this setup allows me to have a little over 12" between my mixer rec outs and my computer box. If you need more length than that you can always get another RCA cable and get a pair of female to female connectors so that you can extend it that way. (because I doubt anyone is going to buy the exitgy just to get a little extra length ). This will also bring the quality down a slight bit, but I doubt that you'll be able to notice it--especially if you get gold connectors. I have a 12" gold plated rca to rca cable going from my mixer to my reciever and that coupled with the female to female jacks to couple it to the rca to 1/8" stereo jack should work just fine for a cost of maybe $25-$50 depending on if you get gold plated or not.