A First Attempt at Analogue to Digital Mixing

After holding out for decades I decided it was finally time to embrace digital music. I’ve been playing with the software for a couple of weeks and finally got around to purchasing this digital mixer to control it. (DJing is not as much fun with a mouse and keyboard)

It’s important to me that digital integrates with my old analogue equipment so I can continue to play vinyl records. I could have replaced my analogue mixer with a digital version that has analogue inputs. Instead I decided to go for a dedicated digital mixer which I was hopeful would connect to my existing mixer readily enough.

It did. In this clip you’ll see the digital mixer on top and underneath it my analogue mixer which I’m using to fade between the digital track running on my laptop and the vinyl record spinning on the turntable.

A great test, proving that everything works as I was hoping it would though I will need to introduce some delay to the audio feed to sync it with the overhead camera. I’m also intending to use a little Raspberry Pi with a touchscreen to run the DJing software instead of the laptop, and I’m waiting for a Y Splitter cable (2 RCA to 4 RCA) to connect the digital mixer’s output to both of my analogue mixer’s line inputs, so I can fade whichever side the record isn’t playing on by changing the selector between Phono and Line.

The downside of this approach is I’m expecting a higher error rate, based on my experience of having two keyboards and mice at my desk for operating different computers. I often reach for the wrong one, and operating two mixers is essentially the same process.

That aside, I’m impressed with this set up and having a lot of fun. It’s great to be deriving enjoyment from a new toy.

-SRA. Auckland, 27/ii 2025.