I Have just brought a nice new mixer, a Gemini PS626EFX Professional DJ Mixer and have two Koolsound TDJ-02 Decks hooked up to some standard speakers and plugged into my PC using the Microphone input. I am trying to record myself using this process but have yet to crack the problem I’m having.
I’m using Audacity to record my sounds, but I only receive signal from the right hand deck, as soon as I swap from the right hand deck to the left hand deck I loose all in-put signal and have no idea why, surely if I’m receiving a signal from one of the decks which has to go through the mixer to my PC then I should be from the other?
I’ve cancelled out the possibilitie that it could be a broken wire somewhere but I dont know where to go from here?
That is an immediate problem. You need to plug into a “line input” not a “mic input”.
If your computer is a full size one, there should be a line input. If it is a laptop you will probably need to use an external USB audio device (I use a Behringer UCA 202 and I’m very happy with the results).
You may also have a wiring problem somewhere in your deck/mixer set-up - check the wiring against your manual, and check all of your leads. Sometimes swapping leads around can reveal if one is faulty.
By Line-In you mean where I would usually have my main speaker cable in the back of the PC?
I checked there earlier, there wasn’t a free port there so I unplugged my main speaker cable and put my mixer into there but still only the one signal.
Do I have to adjust the ‘Sound’ settings in the Control Panel or anything like that?
I’m running windows vista as well which makes things a little trickier, I don’t know too much about it to be honest, I really want to get my mixer and both decks up and running, it just seems something is going wrong. Like I said before, I only got the one signal coming through to the PC but both signals are going the mixer so I don’t know what’s going on.
So this is a full size PC (not a laptop)?
If the sockets are colour coded, there is usually
Lime green = main output
Pink = Microphone
Light blue = stereo line in
Connecting the Gemini
Check pages 3 and 4 of your manual and make sure that you have the “Record RCA Output” connected to the computer (light blue - line in socket).
It is a full size PC from Dell, I’ve had it about a year and a half now and I paid what I’d consider a lot of money for it. There’s not a lot to play with in the back of the PC, I have a load of spare usb’s and that’s it.
I checked the back of my PC yesterday and I couldn’t find any free in-put slots, but if you want me to try plugging my mixer into the line-in (light blue) as you asked which is currently in use by my PC speakers then I will give it a go again, although I am sure this is what I did yesterday.
I hope we can resolve this issue I’m having because after spending all this money on equipment to record, I want to as you can imagine!
To be honest, I haven’t even touched the back of my PC since I brought it, I’ve never hooked up any kind of mixer to my PC before I just plugged in my speakers straight into the back of my PC when I brought it and that was that.
I did notice that although I have 7.1 surround sound speakers, only 5 of the speakers worked and my bass amp, I fiddled around trying to set it to 7.1 and tried testing it through the ‘sound’ option in the control panel but I could never get it working so…
I’m not a complete noob when it comes to this kind of thing but I’m no technician. All I want is to record my mixes from my decks to my PC, most people I know haven’t had an issue but I’m having this problem.
I’m not sure if my PC ‘auto-detects’ any new plug-ins or not.
The wiring is correct, I have my ‘red/white male phono cable’ plugged into the the RCA Record sockets in the back of my mixer that goes straight into a 3.5mm stereo jack which I assumed went into my mic input. I will try plugging it into my stereo line-in (light blue) socket when I get chance, I don’t have a lot of time to do this yet, only at the weekend can I try messing about with it to get it working.
Will keep you updated, as long as I have some support whilst I try to get this up and running I’m sure we will crack it sooner or later, I do appreciate the help!
Could you try plugging the “record out” into a music system input of some sort, so as to establish whether the problem is at the computer end, or the mixer end.
I have one of those sound cards. You are about to get really good at mucking about behind your computer. The 7.1 sound cards changed the identity of the little connectors to get enough outputs. This may be one of the reasons all your outputs never worked right. The Whole World changes with the software settings.
So you need to figure out the sound card settings that reduce you to just stereo playback so that the connectors can be turned around to accept a stereo line-level signal. I had a whole custon setup panel to run the sound card. I remember I had test audio files where a woman would walk around the room behind me talking. That was part of the speaker setup.
That plus wrestling with Windows Sound Panels.
You don’t want the microphone input. That’s mono and is really easy to overload and damage.
Hey guys, I tried plugging my ‘record out’ into my stereo speakers and I found two things, one it increased the volume of the sound and two it worked fine so I guess we’ve eliminated that its the mixer. I’m 110% certain my wiring is correct, but I have found a couple of flaws with-in my set-up, this is where things get rather funny.
I have my mixer master out-put going to my speakers as you would expect, now when I play a song on my left hand deck, I only hear sound coming through one of the two speakers yet when I play a song on the right hand deck I get sound coming through both speakers, now I did swap the cables around from the ‘left hand deck to mixer’ and the ‘right hand deck to mixer’ but nothing changed so its not the cable. I swapped the cartridge from the left deck to the right deck but still the same so I’m guessing its something to do with the ‘left hand deck’s out-put’?
Now I plugged in my cable from the ‘record out-put’ to my (light blue) line in-put in the back of my PC and still the same problem, I receive a signal from the left hand deck but it is very very quiet so when I do drop in my right hand deck it swamps the sound and I hear nothing but the right hand decks record playing.
Could it be that one of the two out-puts on my left hand deck is faulting some where? Because I do get sound from the deck to my speakers but obviously only the one speaker, and it would appear I do receive sound from the left hand deck to my PC yet its only very quiet.
Something doesn’t add up.
And to you Koz, I’m running a creative SB X-Fi sound card, whether that is of any use to you I don’t know. I wouldn’t know where to start when it comes to adjusting my sound card setting’s to change the stereo playback around to accept stereo line-levels.
If you can help me that would be appreciated, oh for the record I’m only a young pup of 20.
Me again, I’ve cracked it, I still have problems with the sound from the left deck to my speakers but I am now able to record both decks to the PC using Audacity. I have the ‘record ou-put’ going to the (light blue) line-in in-put in the back of my PC and have changed my sound settings to ‘line-in’ and away it went.
So that’s all good, I still have the other stuff to sort out, but I don’t know if you guys can assist me on those issues as I’m guessing its something to do with the out-put of the left deck.
Thanks a lot though guys for the help, I will keep you updated if I need any more help.
