Traktor Scratch Poor (a.k.a. Ghetto Timecode Control)

So after a few hours of tweaking, I have a working timecode vinyl control setup within Traktor Scratch Pro without the Audio8, or any other pricey 4in/4out card. In fact, my external soundcard only has 2 inputs! Since Traktor only allows you to use one sound device at a time, combining your available devices involves a little bit of software trickery. Here's my current setup:

• 2 used Technics SL-1200MK2 turntables ($200 each)
• 2 Traktor Scratch Control Vinyl ($12 each)
• Four RCA female-female barrel connectors and two RCA-to-1/8" adapters ($6 shipped from Monoprice.com)
• VCI-100 1.3fw w/ Black DJTT SE Skin ($300, bought from NateD)
• Miglia HarmonyAudio 2in/8out Firewire Card ($30 from Amazon)
• Macbook Pro Santa Rosa 2.4ghz ($600, bought broken and repaired)

Oh, and a free copy of Traktor Scratch Pro from a friend who bought it and decided he liked Serato better

Total: $1360.

Here's how my current setup is connected:

1) Technics Deck A: Connect barrel connectors to phono output, then use RCA-to-1/8" to connect to Macbook Pro's stereo line-in.

2) Technics Deck B: Connect barrel connectors to phono output, then use RCA-to-1/8" to connect to HarmonyAudio's stereo line-in.

3) Onto the software trickery! Open up the Audio Midi Setup app in /Applications/Utilities and create an Aggregate Audio Device. More information here: http://www.apple.com/pro/techniques/aggregateaudio/. My Aggregate Device is:

Macbook Line-In (2 in, resampled)
HarmonyAudio (2 in / 8 out, set as clock)

You'll want to set the clock to whatever device you're outputting to, and resample all your other devices to keep them in sync.

The order of your devices in the list is that order that Traktor will see the inputs/outputs on the Aggregate Device. So if my list is in the above order, then in Traktor I would see:

"Aggregate Device (4 in, 8 out)"

...which would correlate as listed below, for me.

Aggregate Device In 0 -- Macbook Line-In Channel 0
Aggregate Device In 1 -- Macbook Line-In Channel 1
Aggregate Device In 2 -- HarmonyAudio In Channel 0
Aggregate Device In 3 -- HarmonyAudio In Channel 1
Aggregate Device Out 0 -- HarmonyAudio Out Channel 0
Aggregate Device Out 1 -- HarmonyAudio Out Channel 1
Aggregate Device Out 2-7 -- HarmonyAudio Out Channel 2-7

You'll likely have a different soundcard, and therefore a different quantity and combination of inputs/outputs, so I'm just defining the connections to clarify my example setup.

4) Now open up Traktor Scratch Pro. Set your audio device to the Aggregate Device, map your Input Routing/Output Routing, and go to Timecode Setup. Should now be seeing a timecode signal for Decks A and B!

I had to adjust my inputs until I got a strong enough signal for Traktor to read the timecode. On my HarmonyAudio box I just turned the input gain all the way up, and for the Macbook Pro line-in, I went to Sound Preferences and set it Line-In to 75% gain (just before the 4th tick). Once everything was set, I had a solid, responsive vinyl setup, with a 2.5ms latency.

Right now, I'm only using two of my soundcard's outputs into my monitors. For when I use this in a club, I would just use the HarmonyAudio's 8 outputs into the club mixer. 4 for Decks A&B into the mixer, 2 for monitoring and 2 for rec/ other line out.

I'll put a vid of this setup working if anybody wants it, but a lot of you should have similar enough gear to try this out for yourselves. Good luck!

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Charlie Tran, Brooklyn bedroom DJ / web developer