Virtual Dj

[popey]

Any of you guys use this?

Ive got it on my PC and im really into it for doing a quick set and uploading it. thing is though i havent got a mixer for it yet and when i mix the beats sound like they are slightly out even though there fully matched, i can only use my mouse for it and really want to put my mixes on websites, thing is with the beats sounding like there slightly out theres no chance they would be accepted. Anyone know a resolution to this or will i have to pay the £95 for the mixer?

Cheers guys

[Laan]

I use Virtual dj, It works very well for me. I became very skilled with it. Although I'm not a dj, but virtual dj works fine for me.

[dfx]

the problem isn't the lack of the mixer, the problem is that vdj many times cannot sync the beats fully correctly.

vdj is only a software, it cannot "hear" the tunes, so when you hit that "sync" button, vdj is only taking an educated guess and will do its best to sync the beats up. but it's not perfect, as you say yourself you can hear that the beats are off.

so in other words: if you hear that the beats are off, they are really off and are not synced perfectly, even though vdj tells you that they are.

the only way to fix is to use the pitch bend buttons, the [+] and [-] buttons, to actually sync the beats up correctly. you will have to do prelistening with headphones (having only a single master output will not work) and learn how to use the pitch bend to fix it up. an external mixer will not help you with that, however it could help you make the prelistening easier (but not worth it IMO).

bottom line: trust your hearing, not the software!

as for the mouse problem: you can define hotkeys in vdj to make your life a lot easier. define hotkeys for the most common operations you're using (such as pitch bend, bass kill) to save you a lot of work with the mouse.

HTH

[90degrees]

wonders if the algorithms can be so perfected that other softwares seem to get it nearly always spot on, i.e. Traktor Pro, Live (warping) and even MixMeister.

Originally Posted by dfx

the problem isn't the lack of the mixer, the problem is that vdj many times cannot sync the beats fully correctly.....

.....and learn how to use the pitch bend to fix it up. an external mixer will not help you with that, however it could help you make the prelistening easier (but not worth it IMO).

does VDJ speak Midi, could you assign a midi controller, maybe TriggerFinger or something else with sliders to get more hands-on and a finer adjustment to ride the pitch? surely it won't help you with the actual sync but it'll make the process easier to get right.

Originally Posted by dfx

bottom line: trust your hearing, not the software!

QFT
same with tracks, always listen to the tune, don't just see the artist.

[dfx]

Originally Posted by 90degrees

wonders if the algorithms can be so perfected that other softwares seem to get it nearly always spot on, i.e. Traktor Pro, Live (warping) and even MixMeister.

for some reason ableton never seems to get it right for me, i have to adjust the warping on each track...

Originally Posted by 90degrees

does VDJ speak Midi, could you assign a midi controller, maybe TriggerFinger or something else with sliders to get more hands-on and a finer adjustment to ride the pitch? surely it won't help you with the actual sync but it'll make the process easier to get right.

just tested, vdj does speak midi quite well.

[Plx]

I have to put a reply... I used to work with VDJ and this is the reason why I moved onto Traktor. You hit the SYNC button - on the top of the screen it shows that it is perfectly beatmatched ... You even have the same BPM on each tune so there is nothing to do with pitch control. However on traktor you hit SYNC and it does not do any awful sounds. Once I made a demonstration of this problem - sth like comparing virtual dj with traktor but I deleted it

[DreamensioN]

Moved topic to Equipment.

[DreamensioN]

My contribution to this thread.

Popey - VDJ can be configured with different latency. You will have the issues you are experiencing on low-end soundcards. What you need to get is a high end ASIO (low latency) soundcard. Think of a high end soundcard, like a high end graphics card for playing 3D games. The beat-mismatch you are hearing is because your current soundcard (or possibly drivers) cannot process the audio fast enough.

Look at M-Audio USB soundcards, or the Echo Indigo DJ (made by Echo Audio). That is a laptop PCMCIA/PCI-Express based soundcard.

You can buy hardware mixers to control Virtual DJ - one such item is the NuMark Total Control. This USB hardware based mixer actually comes with a rebadged licenced version of Virtual DJ.


PLX: I think the problem you experienced with VDJ is the keylock feature. It is true, VDJ cannot handle keylock very well. If a track is keylocked, anything more than a 1-2% increase/decrease in speed, and it sounds like crap. Which is pointless because such a shift doesn't really change the key that much anyway.

Originally Posted by DreamensioN

Popey - VDJ can be configured with different latency. You will have the issues you are experiencing on low-end soundcards. What you need to get is a high end ASIO (low latency) soundcard. Think of a high end soundcard, like a high end graphics card for playing 3D games. The beat-mismatch you are hearing is because your current soundcard (or possibly drivers) cannot process the audio fast enough.

i don't think this is really true, the beatmatching, syncing or whatever you want to call it, happens in vdj only, before the audio gets sent to the soundcard. only a single audio stream is sent to the soundcard, so there can't possibly be any latency related syncing problems there...

[akosm5]

Hi All!

I have a question: What do you think which is the "best" software to make mixes on my laptop?
Thanks in advance!