[slinkelist] How can I...

[Thomas W. Humphrey]

You hit a line of inquiry that I have been working on lately.  Colby - I
copied you directly to make sure I have all of this right, and to highlight
a suggested new CDJ feature mentioned near the end of this message....

First of all, master-slave connections are incompatible with operation under
CDJ.  CDJ will be trying to do things while the master is trying to do the
opposite.  If you want to switch between CDJ control and a master-slave
connection, you will need to set up a switched arrangement to change the
connections of the changer when CDJ fires up and turns off.  Colby has this
described at http://www.nirvis.com/masterslave.htm.

CDJ has cross-fade controls under one of the tabs in "options".  Check it
out, it works nicely.

You need to understand that the master changer will not pass the analog
signal through to its analog output if the master is in play OR PAUSE.  CDJ,
when it pre-queues players (which is the best mode of operation), will hold
the master in pause at the next track while playing from the slave.  This
means, when CDJ is operating, no audio will be passed through the master
while the slave is playing, i.e., you won't hear the tracks from the slave
if you connect your amp to the master.  The fix for this is a rewire of the
circuitry of the master changer, which is also documented at the Nirvis site
at http://www.nirvis.com/cx255mods.htm.

A better way to go is to simply build a passive mixer and connect it between
the outputs of the changer and the input to your stereo.  This is documented
at http://www.nirvis.com/mixers.htm.

Answering your next question, in a master-slave hookup, the master changer
will NOT output digital audio for the slave.  It will only output analog
received through the analog slave audio input conneectors.  If you want
digital audio from both changers to be played by your receiver, you will
need to set up digital multiplexing between the changers and receiver, or
connect the changers to different source inputs of the receiver, and use CDJ
events to change the receiver input.  There are various options for digital
multiplexing, the best being the DXS that Nirvis sells.

Careful, however.  Right, now, all forms of digital multiplexing are in my
view unsatisfactory.  First, you cannot digitally cross-fade, and you will
just have to live with that.  Second, the receiver will take a half-second
or so to sync to a new digital stream (different changer) each time you mux
between streams, whether you do so by changing receiver inputs or do so by
muxing the stream before it enters the receiver.  This means you will not
hear the first half-second or so of the first song played after switching
changers.  Check this out by hooking two CD players/changers, optically, to
two optical inputs of your receiver.  Play audio from one player/changer
through the receiver while putting the other player/changer in pause at the
beginning of a song that starts loud.  Then, switch to the player/changer in
pause, and release the pause.  You will lose a half-second or so of the
song, no matter how long you wait between selecting the new input and
releasing the pause.  It is simply a fact that the receiver has nothing in
the optical signal to sync to until the music starts playing, and the
receiver cannot get sync'ed fast enough to playback the beginning of the
song.

One of the nice things about CDJ is the ability to switch changers on a
song-by-song basis, but the entertainment value of doing so is substantially
reduced when you lose the first half-second of each song.  A lot of my discs
(particularly the hard rock one) start loud - losing this is unacceptable.

There are two solutions I have thought of:

(1) set up CDJ to mute the receiver each time the changer switches, start
the new track, and then after one second or so of playback, pause and do a
|<< to return to the beginning of the track.  Then un-mute the amplifier,
and then release the pause.  This would give the receiver time to sync to
the new digital stream, without any audible artifact, and with the minor
penalty of an extra one-second gap between songs when switching changers.
Unfortunately, a CDJ map file cannot be used to do this because CDJ does not
support a "delay" that would permit this kind of sequence.  Colby - an
option to perform this sequence with every changer switch, would be a great
feature to add to CDJ, for those of us trying to do digital switching.
Alternatively, a "delay" command for map files could be used to achieve the
same result.  Can you do either in your voluminous spare time?

(2) Give up on the changers entirely, rip all of your discs to MP3's on a
mega hard drive (in my case, 30+ GB is needed), set up the MP3's in CDJ as
audio file albums, and have CDJ play them directly out of the computer via a
sound card with an optical output jack.  If the sound card had an optical
in, you could connect one changer full of discs to that input and have CDJ
mix MP3 and CD's.  I looked but could not find a sound card with multiple
optical inputs, so I can't see how to do more than one changer this way.

Hope this helps....

Tom Humphrey

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Holopainen" <michael@laserle.fi>
To: <slinkelist@nirvis.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 6:23 AM
Subject: [slinkelist] How can I...


> How to rig cx350 as megachanger master conrolling slave cxXXX player
> without it interfering slinke-CDJ operation ?
>
> Can I just link 1 slink cable from each play to slinke-box and one cable
>
> _______
> |cx350 |o-------o ______
> |master|         |Slinke|
> |______|o        |      |
>         |       o|______|
> _______ |       |
> |slave |o       |
> |cx    |        |
> |______|o-------J
>
> Or does this cause someshort of feedback or echo ?
> Or do I just connect one slink cable from slave to CX350(mega master)
> and another from cx350 to slinke_box ?
>
> What I want to do is use the horrible 2-way-"toy"-remote to control both
> (all) players while the pc is turned off and still be able to control
> them via CDJ without any clitch.
> Also is there anyway to use the x-fade on megachanger in CDJ ?
> One more question these mega changers only have analog in, do I get the
> slave (analog) signal from the master TOS out ?
> (in otherwords is there a A/D converter in cx350)
>
> -michael (A)
>
> --
>    --"Would you fly on airplane controlled by MS Windows ?"--
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> | Michael Holopainen | Valuraudantie 25 | Tel: +358-(0)9-35093825  |
> |                    | 00700 Helsinki   | Fax : +358-(0)9-35093850 |
> | Laserle Oy         | Finland          | email: michael@laserle.fi|
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>