Okay so I have a set of decks and a mixer, I bought a Citronic AC-1USB sound card with which Audacity came with.
Can anyone possibly help me figure out how I set my decks up to play and record through my iMac built in speakers ( I don’t currently have an amp, or hi fi/stereo). I’m not very gifted when it comes to setting stuff like this up.
My CDJ400 mixer has a mono and stereo output, my Citronic sound card has input and output ports with a switch to flick between Phono/Line, and then on the other side of it I have a USB cable plugged into my iMac. I’ve messed around with the settings a little and I can only hear what’s currently playing on my decks when I go to record on Audacity, which has about a half second delay compared to the decks so when listening through my headphone output on my mixer it’s out of time with what is playing through the speakers.
Like i said i’m really not clued up on stuff like this so please forgive me, but is there anyone who may be able to help?
Probably an old version. Look in “Audacity > About Audacity” for the version number. The current version is 2.1.2 which is available here: Audacity ® | Download for Mac OS.
It is not possible to play through the iMac built in speakers without a delay because there is no direct connection to the input (the Citronic AC-1USB), which means that the sound has to be routed via software, and that takes time. For “zero latency” (no delay) monitoring you need to monitor from the recording device. If you plug headphones into the Citronic AC-1USB I expect that you will be able to monitor with no delay (“Transport menu > Software Playthrough” should be off / not selected).
Okay so I have a set of decks and a mixer, I bought a Citronic AC-1USB sound card with which Audacity came with.
Back up a little. You bought these because you’re an experienced DJ (but not a techie) and wanted to have your own kit? Somebody else has a system like this and you liked it? It was recommended by a music store?
Do you want to record your mixes?
If the question is too open-ended, we could go around the barn for long time with advice you will never use.
You don’t need to go into record in Audacity. Control-Click (or right-click if you have a larger mouse) inside the audacity sound meters > Start Monitoring.
But it’s still going to be late. Anything that goes into or out of the computer is going to be one computer late because of sound processing. So the basic system you’re trying to build isn’t going to work.
Thanks for this, i don’t think i have a headphone input on my sound card , i could try plugging an RCA from the output of my sound card to the input of my iMac?
I bought the decks from someone else, i am not an experienced DJ but would like to record some mixes for my friends, i know the basics of an input and output but get more confused with when it comes to additional hardware and software and the settings I need to change Audacity to.
That might still have some latency, but much less than using software playthrough in Audacity.
You could buy an RCA stereo male to 1/8 inch female TRS adaptor cable (assuming your headphones have a 1/8 inch plug) and plug your headphones into the adaptor. Something like http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/111570162497 would do.
