PC DJ, Ots, etc...

[PropellerHeadCase]

Need to look at adding a laptop-based solution to the arsenal but, as always, on a budget. Fortunately a local IT auction house has some reasonably spec'd Toshiba Laptops available at the moment.

So, those using laptops, what spec do you run and have you ever had freeze/crash/BSoD issues? I'm particularly looking at Ots to begin with.

Cheers all.

[Tom]

Well atm i am using a Packard Bell with 512mb ram and a 1.7 intel celeron m processor. its not the best laptop but i have no problem pluging in the mouse, external hard drive and bcd 3000. all run smoothly with no glitches. i just tend to have nothing else running in the background, just the dj software which is traktor 3 LE.


Any laptop with better spec's than mine would work much faster and smoother but if you want a basic model why not pop into curry's or pc world and pick up a cheap laptop, thats what i did and i have had no problems at all (touch wood)

[PropellerHeadCase]

Geography would have a certain amount to do with it :D

Just below my avatar... location: :D

[Tom]

ahh i see. lol. my bad. lol. got family near there i tihkn, para para umu. i duno. well i would say have a look on the NZ ebay or if not then got to a few pc shops you have overthere.

[PropellerHeadCase]

Paraparaumu is just outside Wellington, some 500-odd kilometres away :D

[Vectis]

For a bargain-basement entry into laptop DJing try OTS Turntables Silver (the cheapest of the three versions that allows public performance as part of its licence).

I use this on an old Pentium 3 IBM laptop with XP, 256MB RAM and a 20GB HDD (£150 off of eBay) as my backup machine and more often than not I find myself using this for background music etc. as it's quicker and easier to use than the full-blown OTS DJ which I use as my main playout software.

[PropellerHeadCase]

Thanks, Vectis, I was looking at exactly that based on a previous post of yours (after I've played with the trial version, of course).

I can't actually see anything that I want that isn't in the Silver version.

[CRAZY K]

Thanks, Vectis, I was looking at exactly that based on a previous post of yours (after I've played with the trial version, of course).

I can't actually see anything that I want that isn't in the Silver version.

Hi Al, I have an Acer Laptop as back up when im using my Cortex.

I bought PCDJ Red which has been ok---but one day the program disappeared off the laptop--PCDJ didnt seem sure what that was all about--I certainly didnt delete it--far as I know--anyway reinstalled and its been fine since--the motto is--always carry the original installation disc just in case:D

CRAZY K

[Larry B Entertainment]

My laptop is a P4 2.8 Ghz with 1gb Ram running xp. I have been using S.A.M party DJ and have 2 external soundblaster cards and 160gb hard drive. Used it for 7 hours on the trot at a club one night with no problems, but it is well maintained, no other software to conflict with, no back ground apps running etc.

[Spirits High]

I've got an IBM think pad T41 which is 1.6ghz with 1gb of RAM. Currently have it with pcdj blue and pckj.

No real problems with it apart from having to get an external cdrw as the internal one wouldn't rip cdg's. Had a few teething troubles but its been fine since that.

I use it for my karaoke mainly but with blue to do the buffet mix and background type stuff.

The blue was bought with the usb headphones for I think £65 direct from pcdj

[Ricesnaps]

Mixmeister - all the way.

I know some of the guys here are happier with some of the more "CD like" emulators, but personally Mixmeister is the dogs!

Just need to get my Tosh lappy back into the land of the living (maybe that's not a good review for you on Tosh!)

[Larry B Entertainment]

Rice snaps, which version of Mixmeister are you using ? Been looking at some tutorials for that and seems much better than party dj.

[Spirits High]

Second mixmeister, had it on funnily enough on my old Tosh laptop. Very easy to use, think I had version 5

[Ricesnaps]

Rice snaps, which version of Mixmeister are you using ? Been looking at some tutorials for that and seems much better than party dj.

Have I been using - laptop buggered, so not had the benefit for about 6 months!

I think I had version 5.

I have a mate who uses just Mixmeister (no CD's) and I used to think it was a cheats way out, but actually when you see him work, there is a lot you can do to get the mix right and the version he uses has a "pre-fade" output.

[rob1963]

Al,

I'd suggest you take a look at OTS DJ - a fantastic piece of software.

I have a couple of friends who used it for shows on internet radio stations, and they never had any problems with crashes or anything.

About a year ago, I downloaded the free 30 day trial version & had a play with it...you can probably still d/l the trial version - so you can try before you buy & see what you think. I'm sure you'll be impressed.

Highly recommended.

:)

[BrightLights]

The latest version that's particularly applicable to DJs is Mixmeister Fusion, and it's *awesome*!

Admittedly it won't be for everyone, because some people won't want to give up the 2 turntable analogy used by most other DJ software, but personally (having used sequencing software before) it seems totally natural to me. Once you realise how much you can do with it, and how much it can help with your mixing while relieving some of the "real-time" pressure of running 2 (physical or virtual) decks, it's hard to go back.

It's seriously worth downloading the trial. Very very good piece of software!

[pagan_flame]

Have just got a 'new' one myself - I have an antique Toshiba Portege running OTSDJ Boombox 1.0.187, and as I now couldn't face being without it I went for a newer one, keeping the old one as a backup.

Got a Compaq P4, 1.2GHz, 256Mb with Win 2000 for £155 refurbished from local Computer Resale... current version of OTSDJ downloaded was £48, had to add on a ground loop isolator (£8.99 @ M*plins) to stop it humming through the PA.

Stripped all the cr8p out of it leaving just operating system and OTSDJ. Then copied my old OTS data file across, plugged in the external HD with MP3 and OTS files on it --- opened up my new prog - there's all my playlists and categories straight away. Up and running for less than one night's work.

Supremely easy to use, never even had it skip on me much less crash. Got an external sound card to put on it this week... (£5 Ebay) :cool:

[Vectis]

Have just got a 'new' one myself - I have an antique Toshiba Portege running OTSDJ Boombox 1.0.187, and as I now couldn't face being without it I went for a newer one, keeping the old one as a backup.

Got a Compaq P4, 1.2GHz, 256Mb with Win 2000 for £155 refurbished from local Computer Resale... current version of OTSDJ downloaded was £48, had to add on a ground loop isolator (£8.99 @ M*plins) to stop it humming through the PA.

Stripped all the cr8p out of it leaving just operating system and OTSDJ. Then copied my old OTS data file across, plugged in the external HD with MP3 and OTS files on it --- opened up my new prog - there's all my playlists and categories straight away. Up and running for less than one night's work.

Supremely easy to use, never even had it skip on me much less crash. Got an external sound card to put on it this week... (£5 Ebay) :cool:


First time I've ever seen 'OTS', 'Skip' and 'Crash' in the same post... how odd!

[flatliners]

i use virtual dj its great bit of software but if you want it simple then you carnt go wrong with sam party dj
i use a dell optiplex low profile pc in my rack but carry my laptop

[jamesh]

I use VDJ and am a massive fan as some of you know :D... If you are on a budget it's the only way to go especially as the software is future proof as is able to do audio, video and karaoke within the same package... For the money it's really UNBEATABLE!

Downside is you would need a slightly more beefy laptop... Having said that i know a few people running VDJ on laptops they have got in the sale which cost them less than £400 brand new and VDJ runs without a hitch on them.

Oh and within a very short space of time (as in prob before the end of the month if not sooner!) Version 5 will be released with even more features and fixes.. All those who currently own VDJ 4.3 (or i believe any version from 4 upwards) gets the new version for free :D:D:D

Here's a sneaky video preview of some of the new features added into version 5...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRWW4b1V7qo

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

I have spent hours and hours putting the years into the comment section 'cos there was no-where else to put the year and now they are adding it..Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[jamesh]

ha ha ha always the way :P

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

ha ha ha always the way :P

Haven't finished watching the vid though, as I'm a bit pushed today. You couldn't summarise could you James? (Don't worry if you haven't got time)

[jamesh]

Sorry just come back on the forum after the last post today lol


A brief summary from memory is....

New features:

Improvements to the record case with new fields added, ability to choose what fields are displayed and searched, sort/view by genre for everything in the record case, support for ID3 Tags, Better plug and play support for external drives and usb storage products, Ability to filter the record case to only display top 100 songs played or only tracks from certain year or anything you want and save it to the left hand browser section etc...

Improvements to the automix so that you can set it to smart auto sync beats and mix in OR fade in with intros and endings or without... AND it now plays the playlists in the same window on the same player so that one player is still free should you need to throw a track in quickly. - Handy for karaoke... as music can be playlisted and run from the one player leaving the other free for the karaoke tracks to be loaded...

Coverflow picker / Album art - flick through the cd covers on screen to select songs (and be able to change them to any image on your drive) - great for those used to flicking through cd's and remembering the CD sleve art... - can also be disabled if you don't need to see the album pics....

New improved video titler plugin

New video Clipbank plugin - 12 window video sampler that can preview when mouse moves over it with the option to play once / loop...

Better support for overlayer video plugins

Plus some bug fixes that are yet to be released...

Shouldn't be too long before it's released either :D:D:D

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Excellent, thanks James. Can't wait!

[jamesh]

Yep it was officially launched today at some DJ show - so it's only a matter of time now before they upload it for us all to have...

It will be a complete new install too so you can run version 4.3 while your testing version 5.... Just make sure you either install in a different folder or rename the virtualdj.exe to something like virtualdj4.exe