PCDJ Red (Pro) with E-Mu 1820m soundcard

Ok Toqer would be better at this and there's a guy we both know but doesn't post here that would know even more since he works for EMU.

You mention the sound card but do you have the box too? I'm assumeing you do.

I have it too... thing is it is primarily designed as a recording interface rather than a live production unit.

I love mine for that very reason. The only way I can see you being able to tie in PCDJ as two separate decks is to play one through the EMU as a wav/host insert and then use your onboard sound card as the secondary sound source into the EMU dock...

Then using the Aux busses you could send the strip signals to individual outs on the emu then to your mixer... with no return to the main mix.

Do you get what I'm saying?

Then just send your mic mix to both aux mix channels on the emu or just plug a mic into your external mixer.

Your other choice would be to sacrifice the ability to use the EMU's effects on one deck and use your onboard soundcard but I don't think that will work because the EMU only accepts on Host source and the internal sound card would look just like the emu as far as it was concerned...

So

Pre-fader/Insert 1 Host/WAV input > Aux Bus 1 zero return to the main mix put a physical out on the aux bus to L 1/2 out

Pre-fader/Insert 2 Line 1/2 input (recieves input from your internal sound card via the Line out jack) > Aux Bus 2 zero return to the main mix put a physical out on the aux 2 bus to L 3/4 out

Then just wire L 1/2 out to the In on your mixer and do that for the L 3/4 out to a different in on your mixer....

Then just set Deck 1 to output through the EMU Card and Deck 2 through your internal sound card.

Maybe this will help clear up the wireing part...

Insert 1: The green would be your L 1/2 input from your computers Line out on the internal sound card sent to the Aux 1 bus by turning the Aux Send (cirlcled in green) all the way up.... this sends the entire signal to the aux bus 1 bypassing the main mix.

Insert 2: The pink would be host/wav input from the emu sent to Aux 2 bus by turning up the Aux send (cirlcled in pink) all the way up... this sends that signal directly to the Aux Bus 2 bypassing the main mix..

Be sure both chanels are set as pre-fader.

On each bus you see I've circled the returns... turn both all the way down and put a physical out on each bus to a different out on the back of the emu dock.... see previous post.

Playback said:

Hi Rob
Thanks for the wealth of info you've sent on. Yes, I do have the dock or breakout box as they seemed to be called. Apologies for the 'stunned silence' after I received your post, but it has taken a while to take it all in.
The wiring suggested by E-mu is totally different to what you suggest, but that's probably why I haven't been able to get it working properly so far!!!
I presume that I am right in thinking that the mini jack outputs and the large jack outputs are in parallel with each other, so it makes no difference which ones I use?

Click to expand...

I don't think that they are linked in the traditional electronic manner, such as series or parallel. I believe they are linked by microprocessing controled by the PatchMix software.

But, you are right it matters not if you plug something into Input 1/2 and then output it to Outs 3/4 but you have to specify that in the Patchmix software otherwise the entire main mix is outputed to all outputs the same. And that is determined by the Physical output settings. ***Note yes the 1/8" jacks are the same as the 1/4" jacks but are addressable separately or in parellel as you sugest, but they are outs only unfortunately there are no 1/8" ins so in order to bring your onboard sound card in you'd have to use a y-adaptor with a 1/8" Y'd to two 1/4" plugs to accomplish the above diagram***

That's where the Aux Buses come in handy.... you can shut them off from returning the mix back to the main mix and deal with them as separate mixes outputed to which ever physical out you wish to use.

Also, you mention the 'internal sound card'. Are we talking about another card, apart from the E-mu one itself? I was sold this card on the understanding that this unit was the equivalent of two soundcards in one, and that I could configure it as though the E-mu was two seperate soundcards. If this isn't the case, it looks as though my easiest route would be to do away with the 1820m altogether, and just buy two new sound cards.
........I never had this trouble when I used to go out with the wind-up gramophones........
Thanks again for your help!
Regards,
Steve. (Playback)

Click to expand...

Yes I'm refering to what's commonly the built in sound card on your motherboard or your own PCI card. If you have to put a card in then stay away from using the Sound Blaster cards. Not that they are necessarily bad just that they clash with the EMU. Try something like Turtle Beach or other manu if you don't have a built in sound card.

You could do away with the EMU there is a device called Gigaport (sp?) which is a USB sound card and while you'd loose all of the onboard effects capabilies that the EMU offers... you may also experience latency when using any VST effects as well. But, it could be the way for you to go if utilizeing a second sound card is out of the question or doesn't work for your purposes.

I don't have any need to be able to listen to a particular track on a separate channel so everything I've said is in theory anyway. But, this theory comes from lots of toying with the EMU and it's settings.

Of course if all you are doing is setting up a cue channel then I really see no need to even plug the second sound card directly into the emu any way... if you use PCDJ's interface to do the actual mixing (ie cross fadeing and beatmixing) then you really only need one channel strip for that. Just setup the cue channel to a secondary soundcard and plug headphones into that.

We may be going about this the hard way. Know what I mean?

I have PCDJ Blue.... I'll install it and play around with it since I have both an onboard integrated sound card and the EMU-1820 and see if I can get it to do what you want... I don't have an external mixer but if I can get the cue channel to play through just the secondary soundcard and not through the EMU patchmix....

This might be a way to bypass using an external mixer.

Are ya game for that?

Give me about a week to fiddle fart around with it... as I am going out of town for three days.

If this works the secondary sound card could be connected directly to your mixer bypassing the emu... so you'd have a cue channel from the secondary sound card and then your main mix from the emu... I assume you'll use PCDJ to actually do the crossfading from track to track right?

New Mixer Strip > Wave 1 & 2 Aux Presend fader
Put a send on the effects strip to the physical out, say output 1 and 2
Connect out 1&2 to your denon x500 input.
Connect your other stuff to your denon.
Connect your headphones to your denon.

That should be it.


JW shup your screenshot, the forum derezzed your pic

toqer said:

New Mixer Strip > Wave 1 & 2 Aux Presend fader
Put a send on the effects strip to the physical out, say output 1 and 2
Connect out 1&2 to your denon x500 input.
Connect your other stuff to your denon.
Connect your headphones to your denon.

That should be it.


JW shup your screenshot, the forum derezzed your pic

Click to expand...

This is true toqer only if you are trying to put one wav input into the mixer... the problem is he wants to be able to que tracks and listen to them without them playing through the system... and I havn't found a way to get more than one wav insert out of the patchmix software....

From reading the PCDJ manual a simple solution would be a secondary sound card since the EMU doesn't support multiple Wav inputs. Using the secondary sound card he simply can set both players to play from the EMU and the Cue channel form Brand X sound card..... so then yeah he'd plug the EMU into one channel of his mixer and then the other sound card into then next. then he could or should be able to use the cue function of the software (PCDJ) and then listen to the physical strip on his mixer....

Like I said I'll toy with this option when I get home from Chicago this weekend and see if what sounds good in therory works in real life.

Playback said:

Whichever way I try to configure it, I either get no output at all, or both the left and right hand players out of the same channel at the same time, making connection to my external mixer impossible. (It's a Denon DN-X500, by the way).
The plan is that I would then monitor via headphones in the usual way with the pfl on the Denon

Er, I hope we're not getting our wires crossed here. All I need to get from the E-mu are two clean stereo feeds in analogue to feed line 1 and 2 on the Denon. I can monitor with the phones plugged into the Denon in the usual way.

Either way, thanks for your efforts!

Click to expand...

I know exactly what you are trying to do... the thing is I'm not so sure it's possible... atleast not in using the EMU strictly... but what I'm trying to do is work a work around for you... without making it too complicated... and without having to ditch the emu in lue of another solution...

Of course if you want to do this the easy way and loose all the added benifits that the emu does have the simplist solution would be the Gigaport as sugested in the PCDJ manual.

As I read the manual the best solution without buying new equipment to replace your existing equipment would be to use the built in sound card as your cue channel... and use the on screen sliders to control output from the two players.... just remember the old saying K.I.S.S. or Keep It Simple Stupid

At this point I don't see any reason to throw more money at it...

You have said your friends are already going and I can tell you how... they are using their internal sound cards along with a secondary or are using the Gigaport type devices that support multiple wav outs.

Yeah I couldn't get it to work either... PCDJ is such a pain sometimes.... one reason I don't use it....

You may want to go to their forums. I doubt you'll get any better answers.

I've been toying with VDJ and It will work.... if you have an external mixer.... I'm not sitting at my system computer at the moment but I did find a setting that would work for the purpose you are looking for...

VDJ will run ya about $299.00 US.

OtsAV has the ability to do this as well and will run about $279.00 US.

I think I'm leaning towards VDJ myself because of the ability to see key signatures and bpm which helps to mix both harmonically and beat match better.

OtsAV offers beatmatching but not the key signature information.