Dual output - Monitors - Headphones

[Jakeboi]

Hello all,

I am hoping to be able to get a dual output from my sound card, by this I mean I want two seperate peices of audio going from the mixer channels(mixer inside the PC software) one to the Headphones and the other to the speakers.

I.E. The way a DJ has a mixer set up so he can listen to the track he is about to cross fade into in the cans and the current playing track from the monitors.

I have an M-Audio 2496 soundcard.

Cheers

Jake

[robertruetz]

I don't think the 2496 is going to give you enough outputs. You will need at least 2 separate sets of outs to run a DJ setup. You're either going to need a card with more outputs (like the Delta 44 (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta44-main.html)), and a DJ style mixer. Or an interface with enough outputs and a headphone output as well. There is a lot of software out there that can do the job, but you'll still need a way to route everything. Most DJ software will have this built-in (as long as you have the outputs available), but you can also rig it up with some interfaces that use software signal routing.

I ran a decent setup with a Presonus Firebox (http://www.presonus.com/firebox.html) and some DJ software once. Everything went silky smooth until some drunken moron bumped my table and knocked the firewire cable out of my laptop... as well as nearly tipping over one of my speakers--which WILL happen to you if you do enough gigs. It's like juggling live monkeys that are holding chainsaws.

Now, I do think you can stack M-Audio cards in one system, so you could add another 2496 and run it that way (again, I'm not completely sure about this one, but I think it's theoretically possible).

Good Luck,
Le_Singe
:cool:

[ecc83]

Good morning Jake.

If you mean you want to PRE- listen to a track whilst another is playing (que) then you need two sound cards or one with 4tracks and the DJ software to do it (I think there is free stuff about).

If you merely want to headphone monitor a track and then open the taps to the speakers at the right time that is not so much of a problem. Assuming the latter; How are you controling monitor volume at the moment? Again, assuming you have hardware control of this you just need a headphone amp in the line out of the 2496( I have 2) This feed is split, one to speaker control, one to H/P amp. The 2496 uses RCA connectors and you can get 1to2 rca adaptors quite readily (Maplin for ex.).

Let us know how you do, pm me if you wish.

Dave.