DJ laptop

clint_silver

I put this in the wanted forum as well. anyone know what I should look for in a laptop if I wanted to use it for DJing. Ive been told to look for one with 2 sound outputs to save on getting an external sound card. I would be a novice when it comes to hardware/grafix/processors and am not familiar with whats the latest and greatest etc.

If I did get an external sound card is there one I should look for in particular that would be better then others. how about firewire or USB does it matter for this purpose?
I didnt want to spend more then a grand if possible(hope Im not being stingy)

cheers.

garthv

You are going to need an external sound car anyway becuase sound cards on laptops arent worth the silicon they are pressed on. Get yourself a laptop with a centrino processor so your battery life will be that little bit extended and make sure you have a LOT of RAM so everything runs smoothly.
Other than that....maybe a big hard drive so you can store a good bit of music

condra

Hey Clint.

Dont worry about video/graphics.
512 RAM is enuff for DJing, but 1024 would be great.

You will need an external USB/Firewire soundcard such as Audiophile 2496. I use a behringer BCA 2000 which is cheap at 250 euro for the amount of features it has.
These breakout boxes are available in Waltons and MusicMaker aswell as online of course.

You may also consider a 2 octave MIDI keyboard such as M-Audio oxygen, for triggering samples and tweaking fx live.

I have only 2 USB and no Firewire on my laptop and wish I had more...

For software use Ableton Live- Its expensive but Im sure you can download a demo

Best of Luck.
Let us know how you get on.

rsynnott

clint_silver wrote:

I put this in the wanted forum as well. anyone know what I should look for in a laptop if I wanted to use it for DJing. Ive been told to look for one with 2 sound outputs to save on getting an external sound card. I would be a novice when it comes to hardware/grafix/processors and am not familiar with whats the latest and greatest etc.

If I did get an external sound card is there one I should look for in particular that would be better then others. how about firewire or USB does it matter for this purpose?
I didnt want to spend more then a grand if possible(hope Im not being stingy)

cheers.

Depending on the software you need to use, and the equipment you're using for your DJing, some of the mac laptops have digital sound out. Dunno does the low-end one have it tho.

humaxf1

anyone here use BPM Studio???

robbie1876

Ok, well I'd first advise you to get a reliable brand of laptop, one that won't crash on you during gigs. Dell, IBM and Toshiba seem to be ok. I had lots of trouble with Compaq at gigs in the past.

You don't need a lot of RAM for DJ software, and you don't need fast hard drives. Reliability is the most important thing. Here's what I use:

Dell laptop with 192 MB RAM, 20GB internal drive
External hard drive - 250GB Maxtor USB drive (my Dell only works on USB1 and it's perfectly fine)
OtsDJ software - having tested the rest, I found this to be the best. Most reliable, best sounding and lowest latency. Not the prettiest interface, and not cheap, but I'm very happy with it.
Hercules DJ console which acts as an external soundcard and control surface. It allows for cueing, so you can play one track and listen to another through the headphones etc.

I've about 10GB of the most played tracks on the internal hard drive in case the external one goes belly up, and of course back up CD players in case the whole PC goes south.

Robbie

condra

hey Robbie- just wondering - do vinyl DJs look down on laptop DJs? whats the climate with that whole thing?

mambo

I currently DJ from CDs, but am thinking of going the laptop route.

I don't currently own a laptop, but am thinking of buying a basic one anyway just for messing about on. I may use it for DJing some time in the future (probably with the addition of an external USB DJ console, e.g. Hercules DJ Console MK2), but not immediately.

The question is, when buying my laptop, should I look for any specific features (beyond a decent amount of memory, disk space, etc.)?

I guess I don't need to worry about the quality/features of the soundcard, if I'm gonna get an external USB DJ console, since I believe the console acts as its own soundcard?

Run_to_da_hills

I have been DJing with laptops for the last 8 years and still use my first one. It is an Dell Latitude CPX 600 Pentium 3 with a Roland UA3 external sound card with PCDJ red for mixing. I have also the Hercules mark 2 Pro which is not bad but needs USB2 which I use a HP NX 9030 Centrino. If im playing a gig I would always carry two laptops a case of hard copies and decks as back up.