Sound wizards

Ok, for cadet dances, myself and a friend always do the DJ work. But since the squadron dosent own any sound equipment worthy of a dance (cause we have a 5.1 80Watt speaker system) we rent our equipment every time. Our dances are overnighters so we rent for 2 days. And this costs us 100$ everytime. And considering we have to fund-raise our money thats a tad expensive.

We rent 2 speakers, 1 powered mixed, and 2 5disk players (dont ask me why 5 disks, we just do lol)

I was thinking that instead of renting all that, and having to make new CD's almost every dance, we could make do with the 2 speakers and then use my computer since I've got quite a huge (634songs and growing) library of songs and I've got AtomixMP3 which is a virtual mixer pretty much.

My question is, can my computer produce the sound?

Here's what we have:

http://www.roland.com/worldwide/products/AUDIO/sound_reinforcement/PA-410.html

or this one

http://www.roland.com/worldwide/products/AUDIO/sound_reinforcement/CPM-300.html

speakers=

http://www.rolandus.com/products/details.asp?catid=14&subcatid=58&prodid=SST%2D151

Usually you can get a cable which can fit in the signal-out port on the sound card or a headphone port on some PC-speakers ... it's a "jack".

This cable splits into two channels (L-R), which you can plug in the mixer/amplifier.

Unless you own a top-notch soundcard, that's the first thing I thought about.

I'm throwing a party in June too, and that's how I'm going to do it ... 2 cd-players, 1 computer, mixer, amplifier and speakers. All connected with that type of cable :smile:

edit

Made some crappy paint sketch of the type of cable, since I don't know the name :smile:

RCA cable.

That picture looks like an RCA cable "Y-Adapter" which plugs into the 1/8" stereo jack on the sound card.

Biological Component said:
RCA cable.

That picture looks like an RCA cable "Y-Adapter" which plugs into the 1/8" stereo jack on the sound card.

gotta write that down :smile: thx !

Yea but Im wondering if I would like need a amp or something... or if its even possible.

It depends what kind of output you're looking for and the size of the room. I have my pc connected to my stereo, 2 100watt speakers and it's really really loud up full.

You need your laptop, an Amp, speakers and a single cable. Its the type that u have on the back to plug a tape deck into your amp or something. You have one of those that goes from those 2 plugs into a headphone port cable. Thats all you need.

I do a similar thing at home and uni. I plug my PC into my uber l337 hi fi to get amazing quality sound :biggrin:

The speakers are 450Watts and the room is half a school gym

Never been in a standard size canadian gym, sorry. :smile: Seems like it'd be enough though, you yound fellows don't want to go deaf!

Alien_Sniper said:
Never been in a standard size canadian gym, sorry. :smile:

Im talking a Gymnasium here.. Just like every other country.. Not a overly large igloo :razz:

Alien_Sniper said:
Seems like it'd be enough though, you yound fellows don't want to go deaf!

Say What??

Judging from my 100watts, 450x2 should do a GYMNASIUM nicely. :smile:

Alien_Sniper said:
Judging from my 100watts, 450x2 should do a GYMNASIUM nicely. :smile:

Trust me it most definatly does.

Is 8ohms compatible? lol Im just reading this off the tech chart...

huge (634songs and growing)

We all start somewhere :razz:

8 ohms is the standard. You have to look at the 'tech chart' for the amp, and see what the rated load is - it will almost always be 8 ohms, but even if it says 6 or 4, it should work fine anyway.

music is free on the airways, i waste no bandwidth of note downloading any..

my MP3 collection consists predominately of audio books and christmas music.

never understood the allure of downloading songs :/

never understood the allure of downloading songs :/

Tthe advantage of having the songs as files on your computer, is so you can listen to one song as many times as you like, or create your own playlists out of them. Unlike say radio or TV, where you have to listen to a set playlist. Also, you can't choose to listen to whole albums on the radio can you? :smile:

Kage_Prototype said:

never understood the allure of downloading songs :/

Tthe advantage of having the songs as files on your computer, is so you can listen to one song as many times as you like, or create your own playlists out of them. Unlike say radio or TV, where you have to listen to a set playlist. Also, you can't choose to listen to whole albums on the radio can you? :smile:

LOL

i didn't say there was anything wrong with it kage, just that i don't understand the allure..

every "positive" point you just said, are all reasons why i listen to the radio, i don't listen to a song in loop, and i rarely listen to albums, listening to one group for an hour is not my idea of pleasure.

the key words is "allure"

Well, just to keep on the safe side, about half of the songs come from CD's which either I or friends own that I ripped onto the computer. The rest are downloaded. But for the most part, the songs are only played during dances.

A_S, I know if we use our normal mixer, the speakers will run fine, but Im talking about plugging the speakers directly into the computer, without a amp.

LOL

i didn't say there was anything wrong with it kage, just that i don't understand the allure..

every "positive" point you just said, are all reasons why i listen to the radio, i don't listen to a song in loop, and i rarely listen to albums, listening to one group for an hour is not my idea of pleasure.

the key words is "allure"

I know what you said, and I was explaining why it was such an attractive way of obtaining music. You were the one who didn't understand what was so alluring about it, and I explained. :smile: What made you assume I was blindly defending it?

Kage_Prototype said:

never understood the allure of downloading songs :/

Tthe advantage of having the songs as files on your computer, is so you can listen to one song as many times as you like, or create your own playlists out of them. Unlike say radio or TV, where you have to listen to a set playlist. Also, you can't choose to listen to whole albums on the radio can you? :smile:

blindly is a bit stronger word than i would use.. but it sounded as if you wanted me very clear on your position..

no harm done bud :smile:

Yeah, that's why I put a smiley in there. :smile:

there are a few things you need. these are:

• An audio Input (tape machine, Cd, DVD, computer)
• A mixing desk (you have one)
• An amplifier (the thing between your speakers and mixing desk that isnt wire)
• And the speakers.

Thats it, the mixing desk will allow you to switch and mix between sound sources.

by the look of the powered mixer, your amp is inside the mixing deskm, so just plug your pc into the input and away you go!

Well the mixing and the song playing is done on computer with AtomixMP3.

But I see now I will need a amplifier.

ive edited my post, i didnt pay attention properly.

Yes, but I intend in not using a powered mixer

ok,if you are gonna try and use a computer to do mixing, you will definatley need an amp and a better set of speakers then desktop ones. different speakers because if you feed 100 watts of power from an amp into 40 watt speakers, something is going to break. most likely the speakers. The better idea is to use a proffesional kit instead of software. hardware is generally better than software.

I talked to my dad who is in the sound business, that if you try to put a pc sound output into a mixing desk input, it doesnt always work and it can sometimes mess it up. he said something about checking the impedance levels and if theyre the wrong levels the input will sound quiet or distorted or can lose the bass. he said that you need to do a bit of research :sad:

anyway, i hope that i have helped in some way,

I believe it's very critical to match the impedances on the sound card and the amplifier... a typical soundcards output impedance is around 8-20 Ohms, and the line input impedance of an average stereo is around 40000 Ohms. Worst case, you might overdrive either side and end up with something burning.

Besides that I have noticed that if you use unshielded cables on a direct connection from PC to a speaker, you get a wierd hum (which I have later found to be a 60Hz hum caused by a ground loop).

A simple solution would be an impedance matching transformer. See if you can find one at an audio equipment store. You can find some specs from http://www.bcae1.com/trnimpmt.htm (funky little calculator thingy at the bottom of the page). I had one custom made for a friend because I couldn't find any over here, but you might be able to find one designed specifically for PCs. I dont know what to do about the ground loop,it just took care of itself when I used a shielded cable.

Hope that helped somehow (most of the information is just from random experience though, might not be correct).

Just to clarify, he actually has two 450 watt speakers Dred.

What if we used the same setup we have right now, 2 speakers (450W each) connected to the powered mixer. But instead of having 2 CD players pluged to the mixer, have just the single computer. Would that work?

Because half the time, we get stuck with a broken mixer (it playes the sound, but we cant fade the music for some reason) so I though just having the computer pluged into it so all the mixer has to to is amplify the sound and send it to the speakers, and the mixing part would be taken care of on the computer.

Wild Card said:
What if we used the same setup we have right now, 2 speakers (450W each) connected to the powered mixer. But instead of having 2 CD players pluged to the mixer, have just the single computer. Would that work?

That should work perfectly, but if you connect them without an impedance matching transformer, you will get a lot of distortion, plus your soundcard is not isolated... So it is definitely somewhat dangerous to do that, but it shouldnt normally give you any trouble except a little distortion. Try this page for some interesting info on getting rid of distortions and the like.

to put it simply, Yes. that is what you are likely need to do. you need to compare the impedance of the two items, your PC and your mixer.