Single Deck Vinyl Control

Single-Deck Vinyl Control

Summary and Rationale

Status: This feature is implemented in Mixxx v1.11.

Allow both players to be controlled via a single turntable with vinyl control. At least one commercial DJ application offers this feature, and Mixxx would be more competitive with it.

Use Cases

DJ Fred only has one turntable but wants to use Mixxx's vinyl control feature. He needs a way to control both players with a single timecoded vinyl.
DJ Laura is thinking about buying turntables and wants to experiment with vinyl control first. However, her parents have an old record player in her basement and she wants to see what it's like with Mixxx.

Design

Toggling Between Players

How does Mixxx know which player should be controlled by the timecoded vinyl?

Single deck mode works by setting both decks to use the same audio input. The DJ then alternates activating vinyl control on one deck, then the other. This feature is designed so that when deck control is disabled, playback continues without interruption.

It is theoretically possible to mess up and activate vinyl control for both players, and thus have vinyl input affect two decks at once, but in practice it's easy to turn off control on one deck, and on on the other.

It is also possible to forget that you've changed the pitch on the turntable, and reenable control on an old deck. The playback speed suddenly changes, with disastrous DJ-fail results. Just don't do that.

Indicating Active Deck

With the new vinyl code, there is a special vinyl status light that can indicate much important state information. A solid green indicates "active," for instance. With single deck mode, the DJ looks for which deck has an active indicator lit. The indicators should be large and prominent, making it easy to see at a glance which deck is active.

Preferences Dialog Considerations

Setting up single-deck mode is as simple as choosing the same sound device as the input for both decks. There is no special "single deck" button needed.