iPad 2 + djay App + iDJ Live + laptop + AirFoil -> Airport Express = DJing the Flickr Holiday Party
tl;dr version: Splitting live mix + cue mix can be tricky; adding AirTunes means latency, mixing over live system without a monitor can be challenging. Still, fun as hell for a $20 app + $75 controller hardware. (AirFoil for Mac, if you want to route audio to an AirPort express as I did here, is $25.)
I'm a traditional "two turntables and a microphone" sort of guy, but I've always wanted to try this set-up. Here we have an iPad, an app and a hardware controller in action. iDJ Live is a MIDI controller, roughly resembling something you'd expect to use with Guitar Hero (or rather, DJ Hero) - except that it really works, and for $75, it's a relative steal. (See better photo of the controller itself.)
The iDJ Live controller simply hooks up to the djay app running on the iPad (there's also an iPhone version), and it does its job well. Where things get funky is that there's only one audio output, so to cue and mix like a real DJ, you have to split the stereo output to two mono channels - one for the live mix, and the other for the cue so the DJ can set up the next song "offline" before bringing it live. In this case, the mono output was noticed by nobody, and it's a reasonable compromise.
Another wrinkle to this set-up: The venue's amplifier was on the other side of the space, and they had an Airport Express. To get audio over to their system, I'd have to run 50 feet of cable or use the iPad's built-in AirTunes support, but the latter would mean a horrible 5-second delay between the live mix and the audio being heard - which obviously rules out real DJing.
My ideal imaginary wireless DJ situation would have the live mix going via AirTunes to the speakers, and cue output on the iPad headphone jack. However, it seems iOS only lets you route audio to one output at a time - and even if so, I imagine djay might have a tough time routing two different audio streams to different outputs. Maybe they'll be able to have cue-type audio going through the accessory port in a future version, with headphones for the live mix (or vice-versa.)
Overall, djay is a damn impressive app by itself, without the controller or anything else. Using just the iPhone version, you can pull off a pretty decent mix just about anywhere. The app also has a record feature that captures the live mix, and appears to write things in a rather wacky AIFF-C (compressed) WAV-like format which you can transfer via iTunes.
iPad 2 + djay App + iDJ Live + laptop + AirFoil -> Airport Express = DJing the Flickr Holiday Party
tl;dr version: Splitting live mix + cue mix can be tricky; adding AirTunes means latency, mixing over live system without a monitor can be challenging. Still, fun as hell for a $20 app + $75 controller hardware. (AirFoil for Mac, if you want to route audio to an AirPort express as I did here, is $25.)
I'm a traditional "two turntables and a microphone" sort of guy, but I've always wanted to try this set-up. Here we have an iPad, an app and a hardware controller in action. iDJ Live is a MIDI controller, roughly resembling something you'd expect to use with Guitar Hero (or rather, DJ Hero) - except that it really works, and for $75, it's a relative steal. (See better photo of the controller itself.)
The iDJ Live controller simply hooks up to the djay app running on the iPad (there's also an iPhone version), and it does its job well. Where things get funky is that there's only one audio output, so to cue and mix like a real DJ, you have to split the stereo output to two mono channels - one for the live mix, and the other for the cue so the DJ can set up the next song "offline" before bringing it live. In this case, the mono output was noticed by nobody, and it's a reasonable compromise.
Another wrinkle to this set-up: The venue's amplifier was on the other side of the space, and they had an Airport Express. To get audio over to their system, I'd have to run 50 feet of cable or use the iPad's built-in AirTunes support, but the latter would mean a horrible 5-second delay between the live mix and the audio being heard - which obviously rules out real DJing.
My ideal imaginary wireless DJ situation would have the live mix going via AirTunes to the speakers, and cue output on the iPad headphone jack. However, it seems iOS only lets you route audio to one output at a time - and even if so, I imagine djay might have a tough time routing two different audio streams to different outputs. Maybe they'll be able to have cue-type audio going through the accessory port in a future version, with headphones for the live mix (or vice-versa.)
Overall, djay is a damn impressive app by itself, without the controller or anything else. Using just the iPhone version, you can pull off a pretty decent mix just about anywhere. The app also has a record feature that captures the live mix, and appears to write things in a rather wacky AIFF-C (compressed) WAV-like format which you can transfer via iTunes.