Your Questions: Can I Use DVS With An iPad?

Digital DJ Tips reader Duncan writes: “I was just wondering, is it possible to plug my record decks into my iPad and use it as a DJ system? I don’t want to use a laptop as I love using my iPad for music, but haven’t seen anything. Is it even possible?”

Digital DJ Tips says:

Believe it or not, yes – it is, and in fact we did an article and video about it over two years ago! There’s a great iPad DJ app called DJ Player that is little known but well ahead of the game on certain things, and this has for a while been one of them! So if you want to scratch with real turntables and an iPad this could be for you!

To use DJ Player with digital vinyl, you do need a sound card (it is possible to do it with a DJ splitter cable, but it’s not ideal). We reckon the cheapest and easiest way to do it is to add an Akai Pro AMX controller. You can plug this into your iPad using an Apple Camera Connection Kit (CCK), and you then plug your decks into it. An added advantage is that it gives you a basic mixer too for control over DJ Player, so you don’t have to do everything on the screen.

You’ll also need some “timecode vinyl” (the special records that these DVS or “digital vinyl systems” use in order to work), and the good news is that DJ Player works with most timecode vinyl you can get, eg Traktor, Serato etc.

Once you have these two things and get it set up right (instructions here), you can indeed use your existing record decks with your iPad powering the whole thing, which is pretty incredible really. See below for a great video showing what’s possible with this set-up:

Video demo

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Have you ever set up a DJ Player DVS system? How did you find it? Do you know of any other way you can do this?