A Cheap Alternative to Mixing Like Serato

Heres a way to build your own TCV (timecode vinyl) setup, the same as serato, final scratch, reflex, torq, ms pinky etc, but for about 150 euro, obviously excluding the price of a half decent laptop.

What you need before hand:
Laptop
regular turntables/CD decks
Regular mixer

Now, serato (as an example) is made up of 3 parts. the Timecode vinyl (TCV), the serato box thing, and software. You could buy them all in a nice little package for around 600 euro, or...

You can order 2 serato control vinyls off ebay for about 40 euro including delivery

You can use a program like virtual DJ (http://www.virtualdj.com) as your software

Its supports TCV, including serato, its years old and rock solid, just in the setup select "external mixer" and you will basically have 2 decks and your music library on the screen, same as the serato software.
Lastly is the serato box. While most people think its a specialised peice of equipment that makes it all work, its not really, its just a soundcard. Bit different from a regular soundcard, found in a pc or laptop though. they usually have 2 input channels (line in) and 2 output (speakers). You will need a soundcard with 4 inputs (for the feed from the decks) and 4 outputs (to connect to the line-in of the mixer on chan. 1 and 2) You'll also need ASIO support in the soundcard, which can let you bring down the latency to as low as 2 or 3ms. The most popular soundcard for this is the Maya 44, which can be gotten for under 100 euro online.

http://www.thomann.de/ie/esi_maya_44_usb.htm

Last thing you need are 4 x Phono Y-Splitters, and 2 RCA cables, which can be got in any local audio/tv shop.

How to setup:
Connect the Maya44 usb to your laptop.
Run Virtual DJ, select "External mixer"
Enable TCV and select serato as the type.
In the setup, map the input of deck A to the first and second input lines of the MAYA 44 (stereo)
Map the outputs of deck A to Output lines 1 and 2 (stereo)
Map the outputs of deck B to Output lines 3 and 4 (stereo)

To wire it up:
Connect the y splitters the the phono cables coming from the decks, so now you have 2 stereo output connectors for each deck.
Take Deck 1 and connect one set of the cables to the phono in of your mixer (channel 1)
Take the other set of cables from deck 1 and connect them to inputs 1 and 2 or the maya 44

Take Deck 2 and connect one set of the cables to the phono in of your mixer (channel 2)
Take the other set of cables from deck 1 and connect them to inputs 3 and 4 or the maya 44

Last thing is then to connect the rca cables to link the output from the soundcard to your Line-in's on your mixer. Connect output 1 and 2 of the maya to channel 1 line in of your mixer, and output 3 and 4 of the maya to channel 2 line in of your mixer.

Start spinnin!

To use regular vinyl, switch to phono in on the mixer, to use tcv, switch to cd/line in, same as you would with serato etc...

By the way, this is a CHEAP way of doing it, not a POOR QUALITY way. You're using serato vinyl, virtual DJ which is a pretty established product and receives regular updates; Carl Cox uses it, and a Maya soundcard, which is a top quality make of studio quality sound cards, so theres nothing cheap about it, except the price.

This news item was posted by Primer and sourced from
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