Hi all! I’m building a VJ show for an upcoming event which I would love to be automated/reactive to the music that the DJs are playing. Therefore I’m looking at ways to feed audio from the club’s mixer into either my Macbook or my PC (I can bring both to the club).
What do I need to do to make this happen?
After some research, it seems clear that I will likely need a soundcard. Would something like this do? Focusrite Scarlett Solo (3rd Gen)
I don’t need multiple channels - even a mono stream would work fine since I’ve been testing the system with an Audio File In and am already satisfied with the results.
That’s correct, you need a soundcard or a audio interface to receive audio in your computer.
Do your research and grab a good quality one, you need to aim to have the least amount of latency, otherwise your visuals will always be responding late.
Lowering the latency can be achieved by fine tuning some settings in TD or on the soundcard / audio interface itself (with soundcard drivers or software provided, depending on the type of device). Generally speaking, very cheap and poorly designed soundcards will always have an unworkable latency no matter what.
There are also other ways to receive and send sound between computers like Dante, or Sonobus, but perhaps these are not applicable in your DJ - VJ scenario.
I hope this helps! Other people here in the forum might have different suggestions.
Personally I never had the chance to use that particular audio interface, but based on what I see it seems very popular.
That’s great that you have a friend that can lend one to you! Plug it in your computer and do some tests! That’s the best way to know if it works for the type of visuals you have in mind.
In my experience, latency is the most crucial element, everything else (IE quality of preamps) is still important but secondary.
Just an anecdote, but on my Win10 machine, I’ve had a bit more luck with the Motu M2 than the Scarlett. So if you don’t have any problems, great! And if you do, check out a Motu.