Cheap USB soundcard/splitter?

[jnmixxie]

Reading the wiki it advises against going with a cheap usb soundcard or splitter as the quality is poor. But, I will not be playing live and just want to hear the master output and the headphone for queuing whilst making and recording mixes on my laptop. Am I right that therefore the quality of soundcard or splitter isn't such a worry for me?

Thanks

[Be.]

Go with a splitter cable then. The cable from Native Instruments costs just $10.

Am I right that therefore the quality of soundcard or splitter isn't such a worry for me?

You are right in the sense that it won't directly affect the quality of the recording you make. It will affect how well you can hear the music you're playing. How much that matters to you is up to you.

[jnmixxie]

Go with a splitter cable then. The cable from Native Instruments costs just $10.

Am I right that therefore the quality of soundcard or splitter isn't such a worry for me?

You are right in the sense that it won't directly affect the quality of the recording you make. It will affect how well you can hear the music you're playing. How much that matters to you is up to you.

Perfect, that's what I thought, thanks for your reply!

[Spindoctor]

My OWN experience with USB soundcard:

Awhile ago I installed Windows 10 on my laptop -- the Preview, some time before its release. Everything worked perfectly except the sound, which was totally dead. At the time, windows was fighting several types of sound cards, and it seems mine was the worst (HP G60 with Conexant Pebble). Figuring a second sound card would be beneficial anyway, and realizing that my internal one will eventually be fixed, I bought a USB sound card. I forget the brand but it was inexpensive, and actually sounded great.

One day along came a Windows update, and suddenly my internal sound began working. So I continued with the external for main output, and internal for headphones so I could preview. This worked extremely well, and had an added benefit -- those little Windows chimes that correspond to messages, or inserting flash drives, etc., would play through the headphones and not through the external card. I put this to use and enjoyed it, although the only downside was that MIXXX would not work unless that external card is in place.

One day -- talk about getting hopping mad -- the laptop crashed, at a gig. It simply locked up. Apparently some stupid Windows update suddenly caused the sound to quit working, and in turn locked up MIXXX. I removed the external card, and ran MIXXX long enough to reconfigure the sound back to the internal -- worked for 5 minutes and locked again. A later Windows update got the internal card working, but the external never did come back on. Meanwhile this laptop has developed other problems -- had to disable Windows 10 updates entirely just to keep it from screwing up worse.

Today -- new laptop. Working great. However, I still haven't decided whether to try it with the external card. It was great while it lasted.

[sheriblonde18]

I'm new to DJing and mixxx.

I'm using an old HP ProBook 6460b laptop and an inexpensive USB sound card Soundblaster E1.

The Soundblaster E1 sounds much better than the built in laptop audio!

I'm setting up mixxx to use the SoundBlaster E1 , I'm going to try to get the best driver for windows 10 that I can.

Sheri

[sheriblonde18]

So it seems the key is to find a sound card that supports the same API as your built in soundcard on the laptop?

When I try to use the Windows WASAPI and put the Sound Blaster E1 as Master Chanels 1-2 and the Headphones as "Communication Headphones (IDT High Defnition Audio CODEC)"as Chanels 1-2, it spits out an error.


---------------------------
Configuration error
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Error opening a device
An unknown error occurred
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OK
---------------------------

[Be.]

So it seems the key is to find a sound card that supports the same API as your built in soundcard on the laptop?

If you are going to use more than one sound card, yes. In some cases, if you have one sound card that supports ASIO and one that does not, you may be able to use them both together by combining them into a virtual device with ASIO4ALL.

Error opening a device
An unknown error occurred

The actual error message is in mixxx.log (Mixxx 2.1 will show it in the dialog so you don't have to dig through the log for that). What does that say?

[JosepMa]

@sheriblonde18 : Try using WDM-KS instead of WASAPI.

[TechnoMan]

Hello buddy. Do you want to be honest? Sound is very much affected and without knowing which sound is better and what the differences are between them - it’s stupid to spend money, you need to choose the one that suits your needs. The review https://technogeekknows.com/reviews/best-external-sound-card/ helped me in my choice of an external sound card. For example, I, as a music lover as well as a gamer, feel 100% - all the steps, movements of leaves and the sound of rain, not to mention music. Here, as in construction, you cannot build a house without a good foundation.

[mringer]

I use mixxx for an internet radio station. I use a $7 usb sound card as well. Mainly because my internal down sound card quit working due to win10 updates. I have never gone back. Probably doesn't effect me or my sound much since i broadcast, but last night i was hearing some tweaking. I have also been djing this way for several years now as well.