A beginners guide to DVS (digital vinly systems)

[wazza]

hi all

As the topic say's this is a beginners guide and a look into the 4 off the most popular DVS systems out there

With the rapid growth of the new digital download music generation ( I-POD kid's) and the ability to get new music at a click of a button for about 50cent a track from web-sights like beatport,

comes the technology called DVS ( digital vinly system )

Basically this technology lets the old school D.J like me control MP3's/wav's files stored on my laptop P.C and play them with my turntables and/or C.D players using time code vinly and or time code control C.D's

but still give me the ability to scratch , loop's , add effects and search through 1000 and 1000 of tracks at the click of a button

this post is not a best off the DVS ...BUT more off a pro( + ) and con ( - )

Frist up is the most popular off all the DVS set-up out there

RANE / Serato scratch live...price $ 850 rrp

pac ..2 time code vinly , 2 time code C.D's , RANE sl1 interface and Serato softwear

pro's....easy to set up , will run on low-spec P.C and MAC , very stable

and the support from Rane/Serato users is very good

con's...the Rane sl1 USB 1.1 interface is old and out-dated ( a lot of new interface have better latency).....S.S.L latency is about 7 ms

M-Audio TORQ Conectiv....price $500

pac..2 time code vinly , 2 time code C.D's , the M-Audio Conectiv interface and the Torq softwear

pro's...cheap at half the price of S.S.L , the M-Audio Conectiv interface is a good ASIO sound card that can be used for other D.J programs , can be used as a VST plag-in for Ableton live and has nice Effects...

con's...has a Question mark on its stability and has latency of about 9 to 11 ms

N.I Traktor Scratch...price $949

pac..2 time code vinly , 2 time code C.D's , the Audio 8 usb sound card and the Traktor scratch softwear

pro's ...the best USB 2 ASIO sound card out there , the most accurate time code vinly , the beatport interaction and the 4 decks time code vinly with the traktor 3.2 up-grade

con's...the price with the traktor scratch and the traktor 3.2 up-grade , you need phono pre-amps with time code vinly decks 3 and 4 and latency is bad at 10 to 11 ms ...

mixvibes pro 7 & the mixvibes u46 sound card ...price $590

PAC...4 time code vinly , 2 time code C.D's , the mixvibes u46 sound card and the mixvibes pro softwear

pro's...its got a good 16 sampler that can be controled with midi , video files scratch and mixing , low latency with good sound card ( I get 3 to 5 ms latency with my edirol fa-66 firewire sound card ) , 4 deck of time code if you have a sound card that has enough in-puts & out-puts and it got some nice VST effects

con's...it takes time to set it up to how you like it and can give you problems if you don't set it up right ( YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING )and the time code vinly are hard to get in OZ..

latency with the u46 sound card is about 7 to 9 ms

HOPE SOME OFF THIS INFO HELP"s....

thats 4 dvs out off the way ...will do another 4 later

D.J WAZZA

[Skank]

you can get serato for $730 from dj warehouse SOOOO worth it

[tramonte]

you can get serato for $730 from dj warehouse SOOOO worth it

yeah I got mine from them on special for $620

[deanmaessen]

got torq instead of serato - saved the $$.. in some ways i'm happy with the decision, i mean, it works and all, but stability on the long haul is questionable and latency leaves a little to be desired. fair enough, i've adjusted to the latency, but it does eventually start doing your head in..

if i was going to give advice now, it would be throw in the extra $$ and get serato.

[Skank]

yeah I got mine from them on special for $620

When was that dude im so cut now haha the guy at the store i go to is allways having a cry about how no one apreciates how cheap there stuff is. so its usually best to go in and out as fast as you can

[tubby]

I got djdecks for about 38 euroes. Bought my own soundcard and TCV's, all up less than $300. since then the package got bought out and sells also under some other name (PC dex i think) and costs alot more.

I've tried serato and was pretty underwhelmed by what it offers for the price.

best part is the regular updates and direct access to the guy who writes the package.

[Blodders]

the beauty of serato is the fact it will run on laptops 6 years old with out problems

i had a min spec laptop full of viruses and malware.. yet for some reason serato stabliesd it and i could gig on it for 6 hours but if i tried to surf the web it would start opening windows and crashing....

yes it doesn't have all the effects and features of the other players BUT it is responsive and stable which is the MOST paramount thing for a gigging dj. your there to keep the music playing not to have it stop cause your comp froze..

saw bexta's laptop freeze once.. all the guys at the front didnt mind they just stood there and kept drooling had she been a guy she would have copped it...

[Skank]

last time i saw bexta was in wollongong she was 3 hours late played for 35 mins and left plus she looked like she was coming down hard

[Blodders]

haha

She probably was

[tubby]

Now i'm using traktor scrathc pro I guess I can add to this thread.

it's a 4 channel DVS, with cd, vinyl, internal/midi control across all 4 channels. As a DVS alone, works fine, sounds good, not too sure what else to say about that side of things.

Beat grids work like a very basic warping. It cannot warp an irregular track (though apparently this feature is coming in new point releases), rather it sets a starting point and the tempo. on 4/4 tracks it works perfectly about 75% of the time. Almost all other times it gets the tempo right but maps the grid much earlier in the beat so you get a slight off-set, very easily fixed though.

With the beat grid the sync functions work perfectly, and it also gets used to sync time-based effects.

The effects are a big seller. As well as filters per deck, you have two banks of effects. In advanced mode you have one effect per bank, with 3 parameters, plus wet/dry control on that effect. In chained mode, you have 3 effects per bank, but only one dial to control each effect. any channel can have none, one or both effect banks assigned, so the possibilities are huge.

GUI, once you get used to it is actually ok. There's just so many options to start with that it can be annoying having to swap pages just to get anywhere. Now I've got a decent midi map, making decks smaller to see effects, swapping over to browse files etc is much easier.

Midi-mapping, sounds hard to start with but actually pretty easy. Select from menus the function you want to map, press learn button and press the button, wiggle the dial that you want to assign. Add modifiers (like shift buttons) so it can handle more than one function.

the downsides? mostly the cost. Only works with their soundcards or certified mixer if you want scratch control, if mixing via midi any soundcard with enough channels for you will work. I paid almost $600 without a soundcard, you'll probably pay over $1000 with their soundcard. Compared to torq which you can get on special for $400 if you look for it.

It was also released very early, and has a lot of bugs. hopefully that will get sorted soon enough.

All up pretty happy with it, especially when bugs get sorted. Being able to play off vinyl/cdj, and then add other tracks controlled via midi means I get the best of everything - can use internal syncing so layer /fx, or play hands on off tt.s