Slight Miscalculation

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No issues if they work to your satisfaction .. I'm just used to seeing them more like:

s-l1600.jpg

I see what you're saying. Mine is a completely different kind of construction than that one, though. I was looking at the weight when I bought mine, and decided to go with the lighter polyethylene plastic, rather than wood. Without having put anything in it, it made sense. However, knowing what I know now, with all the gear mounted in the rack, the weight of the rack really doesn't make so much difference. I would probably buy one like the one you posted if I was buying today.


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ODJT Never Ending Story

Not quite... I'm almost done.[emoji4]

I started this project (and thread) on June 4, and in just two months, I completely rebuilt both my small and large DJ systems. A lot of that time was spent waiting for things I ordered for these systems to be delivered. After I finish testing out the new large system, I'll wrap up the thread with a recap, then... then I'll have to start a new project. I have one in mind already.[emoji4]
 
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Got nothing tested today... sometimes plans don't work out.[emoji1] I started cleaning up all the stuff I accumulated during the rebuilds of my two DJ systems, which took quite a while. I had several boxes of parts and cables I ordered, and everything needed to be put in its proper place. Then I got to the 2U computer case that had been my Video/Light Control Computer. I had already taken all the unneeded computer guts out of it, so it was just an empty computer case. The plan was to transplant a more modern (and powerful) computer into the 2U case, and mount it in my server rack. Since I couldn't find a good place for the case in the interim, I decided to perform the transplant today. So I did, and it was a success. The patient is resting quietly in the server rack.[emoji1]


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Sooooo... I brought in my American Audio controller and monitors, and set them up to start testing my large system yesterday. My DJ computer works fine, but that should be no surprise, since that is one of the few components that has not changed.[emoji4] The new Denon DN-410X mixer is working too. I can't really tell much difference in the quality of the audio... sounds pretty much the same as before. I'm no audiophile, though; it sounds pretty good to me. I'm still loading software and trying to get my video computer set up the way the old computer was. I should have done a better job of documenting how the old one was set up because I'm having trouble remembering everything I had done on it. Probably would have been a lot smarter to keep the old computer in tact until this new one was working, but NOPE, smarter is not my operandi.[emoji1] I'll try out the microphones here in a bit. I don't anticipate any issues with them. I have each mic plugged into it's own channel on the mixer, rather than using the Mix Out jack of the wireless microphone system. That's the way it was before, only it was a different mixer and only two wireless mics. Setting these mics up is quite a bit different from my two mic system. Change... don't ya love it?[emoji1]


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Change... don't ya love it?[emoji1]


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I prefer them paper bills over change, myself. Glad to hear the audio side is working. Good luck getting the other machine back to the way it was. I always find when redoing machines, you can get close but always miss something somewhere. And I usually figure out what at the worst time. Hope your results are better then mine. Good luck, sir.
 
One microphone... Everything worked perfectly in my large system except for ONE microphone.[emoji1] OK... not perfectly. I killed 6 batteries. Apparently, when the display on these new handheld mics goes off, doesn't mean the microphone is off, so I left 3 of them powered on, and the batteries died.[emoji1] The one microphone that didn't work was no big deal... the 1/4" jack end of the patch cable was not seated all the way in the mixer. Popped it in and IT WORKED!!![emoji1]

With ALL the Audio side working beautifully, now it's time to work on setting up the video and lighting side. Got some work to do![emoji4]


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All I can say is WOW... I'm playing music on the new VIDEO computer, and it sounds FANTASTIC!!! It's NOT going through the controller; only hooked up to the 7/8 channels of the Denon DN-410X mixer. Not sure whether it's the computer or the mixer making the difference (both are new), but this is a HUGE improvement over the way it sounded before. My Video computer always had a copy of my music library so it could serve as a backup in case something happened to my primary DJ (Music) computer, but I was always glad I never had to use it because the sound was just mediocre. But this new computer (or mixer, or both) is BITCHIN'!:laugh:
 
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All I can say is WOW... I'm playing music on the new VIDEO computer, and it sounds FANTASTIC!!! It's NOT going through the controller; only hooked up to the 7/8 channels of the Denon DN-410X mixer. Not sure whether it's the computer or the mixer making the difference (both are new), but this is a HUGE improvement over the way it sounded before. My Video computer always had a copy of my music library so it could serve as a backup in case something happened to my primary DJ (Music) computer, but I was always glad I never had to use it because the sound was just mediocre. But this new computer (or mixer, or both) is BITCHIN'!:laugh:
Connected directly from the headphone jack or through a USB Soundcard?
 
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Connected directly from the headphone jack or through a USB Soundcard?

No USB soundcard... Just into the headphone jack on the motherboard. It's incredible. Much better than I ever expected. Same speakers, so it has to be the computer (motherboard) or the Denon mixer making the difference.
 
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No USB soundcard... Just into the headphone jack on the motherboard. It's incredible. Much better than I ever expected. Same speakers, so it has to be the computer (motherboard) or the Denon mixer making the difference.
Newer computer .. probably a better audio circuit (mine has Beats circuitry). Still, a USB soundcard will usually be better still.
 
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Newer computer .. probably a better audio circuit (mine has Beats circuitry). Still, a USB soundcard will usually be better still.

I have a nice external sound card. Got it to use with my backup laptop. It could be used with my video computer, but would have to go inside the rack. I'd need two opening spots on the patch panel to do it externally, and there are No available openings.


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Progress... not much.[emoji1] Still working on my video/light controller computer. No rush, since I currently have only two DMX light fixtures, both are Mini Kinta's. Won't be the case for long, though, as I ordered an ADJ Dotz TPar system last week. All my other lights are non-DMX, so they probably won't get used much anymore, if at all. I'm dragging my feet a little loading software on this light control computer because some of my licenses have expired, so I need to re-license a few of the applications in order to load them on a new computer. That's another down side to upgrading to a new computer... even though I'm no longer running these apps on any other computer, some of them can't be installed on the new PC using the license I originally purchased. It's a racket! I'll eventually go ahead and buy the licenses, but I won't be happy about it. These are all Music Visualization applications that I haven't started using yet anyway. I want to make sure they'll work before I want to use them, but I'm in no particular hurry. I think running music visualizations and projecting them on a big screen behind my booth would look really cool, but it involves carrying and setting up more gear, and will require more of my attention during the event than I'm willing to give it. I have an event in December I might use it for the first time. However, I need to get it all working flawlessly here at home (and practice with it) before I do that.


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Back at it today... practicing on this new large rack system. I can't get over how much better this system sounds with all the new components. My subs seem to have a lot more UMPH! One other really nice improvement is there's no noise from the computers. With my old computers, I would get loud static noise when copying files between computers or performing some other operations on the Video computer, often causing distortion when playing music on the DJ computer. I had to be REAL careful about what I did on the Video PC during a performance. I'm not getting any of that anymore; YAY![emoji4] I thought I was going to have to buy a USB isolator to see if that would fix the problem, but it looks like it won't be necessary.

I'm still sharing a keyboard and mouse between the two computers using Synergy. It's working fine, and I have never had a problem with lockups before, but I've been reading where other users have complained about it, and it has me a little nervous. I certainly don't want two keyboards and mice. That would clutter up my small work space and look like crap, so sharing is really my only option. I may consider ShareMouse or another option though. I can't risk lockups.

I have almost all my software installed now, and anything else will get installed today, so then it's just a matter of waiting on my lights to get here so I can set that up. Almost done, though.[emoji4]


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This one isn't free, but offers more features .. even redirects audio ... Multiplicity | Software KVM Switch | Stardock

I have seen that one, but really don't need all those features. All I need to do is share the mouse and keyboard between the two rack-mounted computers. Having cut-and-paste capabilities between the two would be nice, but not really necessary. Both computers are plugged into an Ethernet switch inside the rack, so they are on the same network and share drives.

On my home office computers, I'm using ShareMouse... on a Windows 10 computer with dual monitors and my iMac. It works pretty good, as it should for $50.[emoji1]


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