How does a Pro DJ use turntables to control music on a laptop?

i was in vegas at a lil club called Moon up top The PALMS. I saw the DJ's set up. He had 2 turntables a mixer and a mac laptop. i watched him as he mixed through several songs. I assumed he was choosing his music on the laptop, cause he never switched the records that were on the turntables. he was able to control the speed and was able to scratch the song he chose from the laptop on the turntable??? i'm puzzeled. what software? what turntables? can it be done with a pc or just a MAC?How does a Pro DJ use turntables to control music on a laptop?
I believe it can be done on both. They are using the computer to select the songs and it also shows them all sorts of things so they can beat match / manipulate a song very easily. They still have two turntables and there are ';blank records'; on them that stay there all night and spin. The system can pick up the movement of these records and transform it to the music, so they can still scratch and do all the things that they used to do as well. The difference is that they do not have to change the record for each song, the computer has the songs and the turntables with the record are used to manipulate them.





I also believe you can do it with any good turntable, I suggest a good one / quality one since you would be manipulating the thing and it should have a good arm on it and needle. Anyway as for the software and stuff I am not so sure, but my friend has been doing it for a little while and the setup looked pretty easy. He told me the name of the software but I forgot. It is really cool though and works great as he let me give it a try. No more lugging piles and piles of records into a place anymore, and way easier to manipulate by hand and add your own touch. You also do not have to be a Pro if you are interested it is fun anyway just to try it out. For some reason I think the software was about 300 dollars but I am not sure, that number just sort of comes as a educated guess.How does a Pro DJ use turntables to control music on a laptop?
They have turntables that connect via USB ports,





Check it out
i cant tell you the first part but i think it is mac
Here's the answer from someone who mixes with it everyday:





Most professional DJ's and nightclubs use either a system called Serato Scratch Live (Rane) or Native Instruments' Traktor Scratch. I'm quite sure that Moon uses one of these two. DJ AM uses Serato at his club LAX and everywhere else he spins. Serato has been around for longer and is more widely used, so most nightclubs use Serato, as it is compatible with most DJs' laptops.





(There are also numerous other solutions for this available for less money, but since you asked about Pro DJ's, I'm telling you what pros do. Also, they are NOT using USB turntables! Those are only for transferring vinyl to digital formats, not for controlling music!!! They use interface boxes that connect via USB, but the turntables are regular old audio tables, playing special timecoded records.)





Serato and Traktor Skratch work basically the same way: special records that just make a high-pitched tone send their squeeky signal to an interface box (expensive) which sends a signal to the computer. The interface interprets the speed and direction of the record by the sound of the high-pitched noise, and the interface sends a control signal to the computer through USB, telling the computer how fast to play the track and what direction to play it in. This happens SO FAST that any touch of the records, slowing, speeding up, or even scratching, is perfectly duplicated by the file on the computer.





The computer sends the music back to the interface, which has RCA outputs that connect to the mixer, allowing the DJ to fade, mix, cue, and cut just like he would with regular records -- it's just that there is an interface and computer in between the turntables and the mixer, whereas normally the turntables feed the music directly into the mixer.





You can use any turntables or cd players to control the interface box, as long as you have the special timecoded records or CD's. I use Technics 1200's, as I feel they are still unmatched in terms of turntable quality, but you can use any.





There are other options that use interface boxes and some that even allow you to feed the timecoded audio directly into the computer with no interface box at all. While these cheaper solutions are ok for playing around, they simply do not cut it in professional environments. Other interface boxes are not widely used in clubs, so a DJ using Final Scratch or another interface box will not be able to use their laptop in clubs, unless they install Serato software as well. Cheapo solutions that connect with no interface box require a preamplifier for the turntables and a 4x4 sound card to run two turntables. On top of that, these solutions require more processing on the part of the computer than solutions using an interface box.





Trying to run a solution less that Serato or Traktor Scratch will just end up costing you more in add-ons, computer power, and frustration. Just drop the cash to buy the real stuff.





95% of the time that you see a pro using a turntable-controlled laptop, they are using Serato Scratch Live.





Serato Scratch Live and Traktor Scratch Pro run on both Macs and PC's. I run Serato with a very modest $400 PC laptop, and it has never given me any problem.





Serato costs about $500 including the interface, while Traktor costs about $600. You can buy the Traktor interface without the software, but you cannot buy the Serato interface w/o software.





One last note: Native Instruments has a line of SOFTWARE-only with various Traktor names. Unless it says TRAKTO SCRATCH, it does NOT include the interface. The prices for both Serato and Traktor Scratch are pretty much embargoed, so it is pretty tough to find them cheaper, unless you go used.





Hope this helps!