It is best to use a Firewire or USB sound card. You'll get even less interference, giving you better sound.

If you're on a budget, M-Audio products are the bomb. I'm friends with a lot of elitist DJs who like to talk shit about M-Audio, but I love them (I'm a 17 year old with a part-time job).

get an echo indigo DJ.

USB is crap, never get a USB interface. UNLESS it is REALLY expensive, then it might be ok :P

firewire is better than USB, but I would still take pcmcia over it. also, if youre computer doesnt have 6 pin (powered) firewire, then dont get a firewire box for djing - have to carry around an extra psu.

quote:

Originally posted by djkoolaide You'll get even less interference, giving you better sound.

wtf?
did you just pull that out of your ass or what? :P

No, I didn't. External interfaces are going to be better since they will experience less RF interference that come naturally from the components inside of the computer. The further away from your computer the audio interface, the better.

IIRC, PCMCIA bus is faster than both USB and Firewire.

Generally, any external soundcard will be much better than the internal one (in a laptop), since it will generally have higher noise immunity.

I have an Echo IndigoDJ, and I like it because it's small and compact, and is powered by the PCMCIA bus. Downside is that it sticks out a bit when inserted, so you can't leave it in when you pack up your laptop, but it's small enough to be carried easily. There are also only 2 outputs, but should be sufficient if you're using it for Traktor to listen and cue, or if you're using it with an external mixer.

I have an Indigo DJ as well, which I use with my NUO4 and Traktor...works perfectly! It's small, sounds good, and works well...plus its easy to use.

If you need to record your sets to your laptop, then its probably better to get something 4IN/4OUT...and those are usually USB or Firewire. But if youre just using Traktor, then theres nothing more perfect than the Indigo

quote:

Originally posted by Soundwerks I have an Indigo DJ as well, which I use with my NUO4 and Traktor...works perfectly! It's small, sounds good, and works well...plus its easy to use. If you need to record your sets to your laptop, then its probably better to get something 4IN/4OUT...and those are usually USB or Firewire. But if youre just using Traktor, then theres nothing more perfect than the Indigo

If you are using Traktor, just record your set within Traktor.

quote:

Originally posted by david.michael If you are using Traktor, just record your set within Traktor.

Thats a little cheap I really like to live DJ but the equip i use is a friends and he's going on co-op next year and I'm broke. I don't really LIKE djing on traktor but I guess I can get used to it. Its just not as fun.

I was just elaborating that Traktor has its own ability to record, so if you are using that exclusively, no need to run it to anything else to record.

Btw... DJing on Traktor is (or can be) just as "live" as any other form of DJing. I understand what ya mean about being too broke for equipment. I will say that I played a house party on Halloween using Traktor and a MIDI controller, and I still had a blast doing it.

as an alternative to the echo indigo dj, the creative audigy zs 2 is a bit cheaper and has pretty good sound, works perfectly with traktor

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I'm not sure whether recording as Native Mix in Traktor and exporting at a later time or recording directly to audio is better, but I would presume native mix/export would be less resource intensive while you're mixing.

That said, I recorded a CD-length mix for a friend (by request) as a native mix, but Traktor decided to segfault when exporting to wave, and I ended up losing everything. Just be careful with it. Normally I mix with CDs and have output 2 on my Ecler Nuo4 (cough @ Soundwerks =P) going into line-in on my computer. It's really quite handy.

Since we're talking about built-in features of Traktor, the only thing I didn't like about the built-in broadcast feature (Icecast2) is that it couldn't encode to mp3, even though it's a supported stream type. Maybe NI didn't want to pay the royalties for it. *shrug*

I always end up writing these ridiculously long posts.

Soundwerks: is there any way I can get an Ecler shirt?