The Return
The Hardware
The Software
The Connections
I recently acquired the Reloop Spin 2+ software in excahnge for some Flash work, so the price was even sweeter. Now, once you have all the hardware and software you need, hooking it all up is pretty simple:
- The turntable RCA cables are connected to the Reloop Spin 2+ Midi Interface's inputs (channel 1 and 2 resepctively). The Behringer UCA-222 serves no purpose now, nor did it work with Virtual Vinyl timecoded vinyl, in spite of having up-to-date ASIO drivers.
- The output section of the interface is connected to Phono input 1 and 2 on the mixer
- The USB cable is connected to any available USB port on the computer
- RCA cables from the mixer's master output section is connected to the stereo
- Without going into too much detail, the way this all works is as follows
- the timecode vinyl on the turntable feeds an audio signal to the Reloop Spin 2+ Midi interface
- the interface passes this signal via the USB cable to the Reloop Spin 2+ software being run on the computer
- The software then maps this signal to any selected audio file, in effect making them one signal, and then passes this signal back through the same USB cable, through the interface's output terminals to the mixer's input terminals.
- with very low latency, this all happens in mere milliseconds, so there is virtually no audible delay in the sound.
Issues / Problems
- When I first tried configure the software, while all hardware connects were sound, for some reason there was no interaction with turntable 2. The timecode vinyl did not control the virtual on-screen vinyl and the only way to play any music was to press start on virtual on-screen mixer instead. Turntable 1 had no issues at all. The strange thing was that both timecode signals were being tracked in the configuration at 100%, waveforms clearly shown for both decks.
- After many futile attempts, I uninstalled the Reloop software and reinstalled again. This seemed to do the trick, and everything worked perfectly
- However, after returning home from work and attempting to give my 'wifey' and fellow Dj some lessons, nothing worked. This may have been due to the computer not recognizing the drivers for the Reloop software after the USB cable was disconnected and then reconnected later. It still is a mystery, but after some fiddling around, I was able to get it working again without having to reinstall anything this time.
- Laptop - Now that everything works as it should, the importance of having a decent laptop is more apparent than ever. I bought a second hand, six month old HP Compaq Mini 110 (virtually new) to run the Reloop software on. During intense mix sessions the sound drops out: a very noticable absence of sound. This only happens when beat juggling, and may very well be remedied with the latency settings in the software. However, since I did not adjust those settings when I was running it off the desktop, it comes down to the processor speed and RAM available on the Mini. It is currently running XP with 1GB of RAM. It can be upgraded to a maximum of 2GB, but some reviews on this upgrade have stated that the laptop then runs so much hotter. Whatever the case, sound dropouts are unacceptable, so first the latency settings, and if that fails, then a RAM increase will hopefully solve all issues.
The Complete System
System Pics
Enough chatter!! The pictures...
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