Mixer / External Sound Card REcommendations

[Jdawgwill]

Recently had Yamaha MG10 mixer, connected to PA with XLRs and to laptop through (gasp!) headphone jack to 1/4 input on mixer. I sold the mixer and DBR15 speakers but now I am getting more requests to play events so looking to re-buy some of these items, but with a little more knowledge (see speaker thread in addition to this one)

I understand through this forum that headphone jack not optimum. Any recommendations on decent external USB soundcard that is the right tool for mobile DJs? Mainly I am just mixing music and MC the events, basic beatmatching through the software I don't even have a DJ mixer as of yet and do't do any effects or anything just yet.

Any recommendations beside the Yamaha MG10 mixer?

Thanks all

joe

[Manu]

depends on what you need for the mixer, how many channels, how many mics etc.

Anyways, for external sound cards. The best bang for your money could well be a Focusrite Scarlett solo. If you are stretched and on a budget, a Behringer U-Phoria UM2 perhaps.

Extra tip for local gear, since you're from Rochester: there is a facebook group called Kent Musicians Notice Board. There is some equipment going for dirt cheap in there sometimes.

[conanski]

There are several way to kill this bird.
Buy a DJ controller. Pretty much all of them contain a sound card and as a bonus you get real controls for the DJ software, but you will need one with XLR outputs to drive powered speakers directly and this rules out many of the cheaper versions. The one downside to this choice is that the included mic channels are total crap.. even the $1000 Pioneer DDJ-SX mic input sucks compared to a much cheaper PA mixer.
Buy a dedicated external soundcard and another small PA mixer, guaranteed to work and sound better than what you were doing before but it's a little untidy IMO.
Buy another small PA mixer with a USB soundcard built in, lots of them out there now including some in the Yamaha lineup, I have a couple Mackie ProFx8s with it that sound good, and there are plenty others from Soundcraft, A&H, and more. I have measured the Mackie soundcard and it is ruler flat, I use it for speaker measurements.

[Jdawgwill]

Something like the Denon DJ MC4000?

XLR outputs and 24 bit audio interface, also 2 mic inputs which on my old Yamaha I definitely used more than one mic input at times. Seems feature rich compared to entry level at about $380 USD.

Has great reviews but of course several saying the unit quit on them mid set. That could happen with any product review but man my worst nightmare!

Any other controller recommendations sub $400?

Thanks again




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jdawgwill]

Thanks guys for all the advice, do appreciate you as well as this forum.

So seeing as how I just mix music and do Karaoke type activities, I ended up going with the Yamaha MG10XU mixer. My first gig was Saturday night, about 100 girls sweetheart father/daughter dance. I had the mixer hooked up with USB to use the MG10XU sound card with latest Yamaha drivers, etc. Everything sounding great with rented DRX12s and one DXS15 sub (still making up mind about speaker selection)

So I am playing along everything is going fine for maybe 15 minutes and then all of a sudden about every minute or so I would get a static hiss through the mains, lasted about 5-6 seconds and then went away. This continued on and so at a break I switched to running the speakers through the laptop headphone jack to the 1/4 mixer input and got rid of the mixer USB connection. No more hiss the rest of the night.

That night after everything done I am googling and diving into the realm of USB ground loops, etc. Then I recall some similar situations with mics where I would setup and test everything and no feedback whatesoever but then during the live gig I try to use the mic and get a giant static sound or some other anamoly and have to quickly lower all the gains, volume, etc to get it to stop.

So my question is, are these most likely ground loop issues? Is the solution one of these USB plug in devices that purport to eliminate ground loop issues or should I use something like the ART DTI that would go between the mixer and the mains? If that would eliminate it from all the sources that would seem to make more sense than just doing it on the USB connection but wanted to make sure I understood what was happening and the best way to prevent it.

And if I use something like ART DTI between mixer and a sub, and then the sub feeds 2 mains - so I need yet another ART DTI for teh two mains or will that one unit protect all the output sound?

Thanks again all,

jdawgwill

[conanski]

No what you describe is not a ground loop or feedback it is a problem with the digital connection, this could be the cable, the mixer or the laptop so you are going to have to setup your rig and try to recreate the problem and then determine what the source of it is. It could also be an artifact caused by your laptop running low on memory, how old is it and how much memory does it have?

A device like the Art DTI won't help here either, and even if you did need an isolation device it would go between the computer and mixer and not between the mixer and speakers.

[efinque]

Look for leprechauns?

Anyway the setup sounds fine, did you try restarting/rebooting it? I've used a number of FW/USB interfaces with laptops etc and they sometimes crap out on you, even the ones for studio use with tabletop PCs will do that.

Operating systems have kexts, extensions, .dlls etc and sub-programs that can "reserve" the audio output drivers, say if you ran audio via browser or a media player it could stay on the background and hog the audio outs so that no other program gets to them, Jack is a virtual patchbay developed for Linux iirc but for Windows you need a server that runs it and it's highly unstable in my experience, the one in OS X (AudioMIDI) is great though.

EDIT : some unlicensed software can make a noise every once in a while but it rarely depends on the output (USB/headphone 1/8" etc) if you're using restricted features in a demo/lite version.

EDIT 2 : also, you mentioned karaoke.. I come from an "old school" karaoke background where everything was done by DVD and laserdisc (very popular throughout the 90's-00's I heard, I never owned a system but I operated one for several years 2007-2014ish), the systems these days are software-based, the program itself rarely costs a dime but the files and licenses do.. the resolution by switching from USB to headphone jack hints there's something wrong with the USB but it could be either computer or mixer related (you could try this with different devices and see if the problem persists)

[SWS Productions]

Could even be a crappy usb cable or jacks.

[efinque]

Or snakes?

https://youtu.be/aYkipu0cQRg

[Manu]

Smells like a crappy cable.

I had a faulty usb extension cable last week. I quickly found out the metal outer sleeve on the female side was slightly loose, and that resulted in bad/no contact. I re tightened it including the 2 little tabs on each side and problem solved. The cable went back in with a satisfying click.


Whenever there is an issue such as this, it's always handy to have doubles of all cables. I lost count on these forums of how many people turning up with a sound problem, and 9 times out of 10 it's a dodgy cable.

As a matter of fact, I have brought one extra bag of spare cables to every gig, a soldering station and some gaffer tape. That saved my butt a few times over the years, you never know when a cable is going to take a dump on you.

got rid of the mixer USB connection

Gremlins possibility on a brand new mixer, rig it up at home and retest it...