Over To You: Sound Cards For Recording As Well As DJing

Digital DJ Tips reader and beginner DJ Jesus Reynoso writes: “I am thinking of starting DJing with just a laptop (just in my bedroom) because I can’t afford a controller right now, so I was thinking of buying a sound card like the [dj-io] to be able to use my headphones for monitoring in addition to the main output. Does this sound card support electric guitar? If not, please recommend me a sound card that is able to separate signals for DJing and also be able to plug in a electric guitar in order to record it at good enough quality, again the cheaper the better.”

Digital DJ Tips say:

Lots of people begin digital DJing with just a laptop, but you’re right to identify that you need to find a way of splitting headphones from speakers. Any sound card with “4-out” or “2 stereo out” will work for DJing – but as you also need inputs (and the DJ iO doesn’t have them), it’s not the card for you. You could consider using a splitter cable and then simply recording your guitar through the mic/line input of your computer for the ultimate minimal set-up as you get going.

We’ve not yet reviewed sound cards that have inputs that musicians can use, so over to the readers – do you have a sound card you use for DJing and for recording guitars etc into your computer? Which one? Can you offer any recommendations to Jesus? Remember he doesn’t have much to spend on this.

Please leave your advice in the comments below – and many thanks for helping.