Native Instruments Audio 2 DJ
After engineering several solid sound cards, Native Instruments has rounded out their lineup with the entry level Audio 2 dj. Its a portable card aimed at the controller crowd with 2 discreet stereo outputs. You can use one 1/4″ output for the headphones and one for the speakers or run both stereo outputs into an external mixer. With volume control for both channels, USB power, and very portable size (about the size of a deck of cards) this interface will make an excellent choice for those wanting a inexpensive sound card with good audio converters. Dj TechTools got an exclusive look at the audio 2 in Berlin and has the inside scoop on this new product.
OUTSIDE THE BOX
There are no bells and whistles here but everything you need for basic djing is accounted for:
- Volume controls for each channel
- Stereo Output level meters
- 2 stereo outputs (1/4″ connectors)
- Either output can be used for headphones with automatic impedance recognition
These renders make the unit look like is might be metallic but the surface is in fact plastic. Its well built plastic and certainly more professional looking than the competing Numark DJ I/O but not as robust as the AudioFire2 from Echo. That being said, if weight is concern- there is no other USB cards out there that are lighter and smaller than this. The Indigio Dj series (which are card slot based) are more portable but require those increasingly scarce card slots that Apple seems to not like so much. The top of the unit is a glossy acrylic surface, the same look and feel found on the vci-300 and Audio 4.
THE GUTS
I am happy to report the headphone outputs are nice and loud, and the outputs are solid. NI tells us that they are:
“studio-grade 24bit/96kHz Cirrus Logic converters and special high-power output amplifiers capable of delivering
a pristine +9.7dBu audio signal.”
We didn’t get the chance to really put the drivers to the test but since the audio2 utilizes the same chip sets as the audio4 (which I have tested extensively) then its safe to say that the drivers will have the same reliability. When compared to controllers with built in sound cards, the audio 2 dj is still going to be a step up in quality. A solid sound card in the $100 price range makes it much easier to pick a controller without a built in audio interface as the value of the package will be much better. Here is one example:
VCI-100SE + Audio2 sound card = $649 (Better sound quality and more Traktor controls)
VCI-300 = $800 (inferior sound card and vastly less controls)
Using the same A to D converters as its bigger brothers, the audio 4 and audio 8, this version sacrifices the number of inputs/outputs but not sound quality. Its very similar in form and function to the first dj oriented sound card on the market, the Indigio dj. That sound card was a great choice for many djs but with laptops frequently missing card slots, USB is a much safer bet these days.
TOTALLY PORTABLE
NI has been cranking out some very nice promo videos featuring skateboarders, turntablists and old school djs. The latest one demonstrates the audio 2’s portability as a parkour runner jumps across Berlin London rooftops to deliver his sound card to a dj spinning at a rooftop party. Check out the last 20 seconds where our very own VCi-100 arcade edition makes a nice cameo appearance.
THE PACKAGE
Inputs: None
Outputs: 2 Stereo Pairs (1/4″)
Includes: 2 X 1/4″ to RCA breakout cables
Powered: Via USB
Material: Plastic and Acrylic
Release Date: September 2009
Suggested Retail Price:$119
More Information: www.native-instruments.com/audio2dj.info
July 21st, 2009 at 10:42 pm Quote
“We didn’t get the chance to really put the drivers to the test but since the audio 4 utilizes the same chip sets as the audio4 (which I have tested extensively) then its safe to say that the drivers will have the same reliability.”
I think that very first 4 is supposed to be a 2. Not type-sniping you just kinda confused me at first. :D
July 21st, 2009 at 10:55 pm Quote
thanks for pointing that out- you guys are always way more on top of it then me. Thank god for teh DJ TT community editors. I am editing the post from a super janky computer in Taiwan so there are bound to be some mistakes. :)
July 21st, 2009 at 11:03 pm Quote
Looks like a nice bit of kit.
The rooftops Stephane Vigroux is running across belong to London, not Berlin, BTW.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:20 pm Quote
wow, seems like a cool piece of hit.
leave it to me to be confused.
Using an external mixer you would want 4 outs, 2 stereo pairs. Very nice that the cables are provided for that.
But using traktors internal mixer, one stereo pair would be for mixer, and the other for headphones.
So why does the NI website give different audio specs for the “Line Outputs” and the “Headphone Output”? Shouldn’t they be the same?
If output A & B are the same, then its a piece of kit I could use. But if they are different and one is more designated for headphone and the other, that wouldn’t make sense to me.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:30 pm Quote
Yo,
This seems like a really great device and cheap too! But I don’t think I will eve give up my Fast-Track Pro. For $50 more, you get a bunch of I/Os, dedicated headphone jack and some really great sound quality.
But I might buy it as a back up.
Congrats on the Cameo on the commercial. But I think the Arcade SE needs its own full trendy commercials… don’t ya think?
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:46 am Quote
As long as it has good sound quality and cheaper than the indigo dj I’d buy it =). It would’ve been better if there was a mic input though =/ something that the audio 4 lacks also!
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:47 am Quote
So can someone tell me the benefit of 4 analogue outputs compared to just 2. I have an Echo AudioFire 2 and was just wondering that maybe a 4 output soundcard would be better?
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 am Quote
Who is the DJ in the vid? Cool shot of the vci-arcade
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:17 am Quote
nice piece of gear. might just purchase one as a backup for my tried and tested audiofire2.
July 22nd, 2009 at 6:26 am Quote
this is exactly what I need to make the jump from single to dual-computer djing. excellent release!
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:31 am Quote
Nice work from NI here, they are doing really well at reducing the cost of entry into their line of products while still keeping the quality decent :)
Traktor Duo for instance is still pretty decent compared to the other pieces of software on the market and this sound-card is still pretty decent and does just what it needs to.
I personally like my internal mixing so i only personally need a card with 2 outs.
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:16 am Quote
Yeah man, thats London, you can see Parliment and The London Eye, plus most of the stuff he’s running on is down South Bank.
The rooftop he ends up on is in Old Street/Liverpool Street, called “Queen of Hoxton”, used to be the Industry Bar and was very good! Now it’s full of trendy kids and £5 beers :(
Oh yeah and the soundcard is dope! I like them using 1/4 jacks as well!
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:10 am Quote
The Spec is differnet depends on what impedance is loading. for lower impedance like Headphones, the Output drive much more power.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:07 pm Quote
With two stereo output is it possible to use 4 mono decksin external mode on traktor using and a 4 channel mixer?
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:57 pm Quote
i’ll better stick with my Audiko Kontrol 1 :)
July 22nd, 2009 at 6:30 pm Quote
Looks good, and at that price, they are going to sell lots of it, thinking of getting one myself as a back up and to not have to plug my M-audio audiophile since the Audio 2 is USB powered.
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 pm Quote
tipo assim eu num vou poder usar ele com os cdes time code que nem o audio 4
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:35 am Quote
@DJ Nvidia: Fast Track Pro has -10db outputs and same amount of outputs. FastTrackPro only has more inputs (that will degrade your output quality if you want to record while mixing) than A2.
“Dedicated” hedphone output is still shared with one pair of line outputs so it is no difference unless you are stuck with mixer that does not have headphone/cue.
FTPro soundcard is unreliable in live-gig environment and uncomparable to this product(different worlds).
@bento: word, I’m thinking of buying one as a present.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:27 am Quote
Shit, I just bought a DJ I/O literally two days ago. If NI had e-mailed me a week sooner I would have waited for this to come out. But so is life and the endless advancement of technology.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:21 am Quote
I sometimes need a mic..what would be the best soundcard for gigs that require you provide a mic..i am currently lookin into upgrading my Numark dj i/o
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:43 am Quote
Indeed. I’m trying to take the line where i exhaust my resources and use them to their full potntial before getting all excited and buying something new. But its far too easy to spend money on new gear!! arghhhh
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:44 am Quote
was only meant to quote DJedge above ^
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:46 am Quote
..i mean Jelanirobot. i will go now lol
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:29 am Quote
I just found it in Berlin store
http://www.cyberport.at/item/4440/1086/0/144684/native-instruments-audio-2-dj-audio-interface—macpc.html
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:16 pm Quote
this is what was posted on the NI forum. I guess it’s like how a thermos keeps hot stuff hot & cold stuff cold.
Yes, both outputs are the same. For each output, a headphone amps is engaged automatically if a headphone is detected.
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:16 pm Quote
@DJ Edge: If you are mixing internally, I advise you to buy inexpensive mixer with few channels (like behringer Xenyx or alesis/tapco or soundcraft compact4). The added benefit is equalisation of your master output (which I required so many times).
If you are mixing externally: I can’t remember many mixers without a MIC input.
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:04 pm Quote
This thing looks perfect. All I ever need are two lines out from a decent quality card and this delivers that. Extra plus on the compact size.
I’m getting one as soon as it hits the shelves.
-Rob Ticho
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:51 pm Quote
Thanks Tos: I am using the vci..weddings and birthday parties require mic..I have the Dj I/o but want to upgrade for better sound quality. I appreciate the info
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:12 pm Quote
Hey Guys, was jes wandering, had the fast track pro, got problems with it, shipped it back. was testing it at home, left it playing, switched off the lights and it stopped palying, any spike or dip in current affected it. thereafter while playing got a constant static sound. using the i o dj right now, but after some time the sound card just dies and the sound becomes distorted. can this be a result of the various soundcards or my pc, was looking to get another sound card but saving up for a rme. my laptop is a hp with a amd turion dual core 2 ghz, 1.74 gb ram running xp pro v 2002 sp 3. don’t have a fire wire port so strictly usb. from my research nothing could touch the rme fire wire sound cards. is there any comparable usb card? if not would have to get a mac book pro as well…$$$$ mind u, i looked at echo, motu, roland etc….
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:30 pm Quote
Both soundcards did not work right because of your flakey laptop USB power(I have HP too and had FTPro with many same problems). It is not laptop’s problem, FTPro died on desktop AND external power. Don’t swap laptop. Try this: http://tos.network.in.rs/pages/posts/m-audio-fast-track-problem6.php (plz don’t fry anything)
The betterness of (any)firewire card is that is is not bus powered. Wait, that’s not better that’s more stable. But you need extra power outlet, one more cable on desktop and quality wallwarts are heavy to lug along all equipment (My gig bag is 7kg hwy).
July 24th, 2009 at 3:02 am Quote
If I hadn’t bought a Fast Track Pro for $75 a couple months ago, I’d be all over this.
July 24th, 2009 at 11:15 am Quote
is it just me, or the Audio 2DJ exactly the same as the guitar rig mobile, just with different labelling?
Clever NI…
July 24th, 2009 at 5:40 pm Quote
Guitar rig has one stereo input and one stereo output.
July 24th, 2009 at 6:54 pm Quote
of course it does! silly me..
still, clever NI :)
July 24th, 2009 at 10:21 pm Quote
i wonder if i would be able to:
use bcd3000 line-in for dvs-control input into the pc and use A2 as output. I still need the input on the bcd… any ideas?
July 25th, 2009 at 6:38 pm Quote
the audio kontrol 1 is a pretty good deal in that case, especially if you care about the bundled software.
August 4th, 2009 at 11:15 am Quote
This is perfect!!! I always plug into a channel at a clubs mixer, so now i dont have wasted outputs, cool. Now its time to ditch the RMX (sorry buddy, it was fun while it lasted lol)
August 20th, 2009 at 11:15 am Quote
It’s a shame there isn’t a jack for an external power supply.
I know MacBook’s are notorious for not having enough power on the USB bus to drive soundcards properly. Has N.I. had any problems running these on Mac’s?
September 29th, 2009 at 8:16 pm Quote
Its really good for my needs since i dont use any input (i dont use timecoded sources).
All i ever wanted is 4 stereo channel outputs with no inputs, and my only choice nowaday is still the pretty weak gigaport ag.
This one looks nice, but i still need 4 ch. c’mon, im the only one who likes mixing with 4 channels and do not use any input?
the audio dj 8 is too much for me (i’d waste the 8 inputs, midi and mic inputs…).
what do you think about getting two A2? too much power consumption? a stupid idea? i’ll run out of usb’s ? its worth to have two of them by 200$ rather than 350$ for a single audio 8dj?
October 29th, 2009 at 7:45 pm Quote
Hey guys i wanted to know if i can connect my M-Audio Bx5 Monitors to this interfase?? pls if someone could help me. because i know how to route it to play live sets or traktor. but i dont know if i can route this or there is a cable that i can use to produce some music. maybe one stereo output and i use a cable that separates L & R please let me know guys
November 3rd, 2009 at 6:16 pm Quote
If you run it thru a powered usb hub it should be fine.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:18 am Quote
This is just what i need amazing NI pull through again like the look of tthe traktor controller coming out soon aswell
December 30th, 2009 at 1:41 am Quote
I just picked this up yesterday. My buddy has the audio 4 dj, and I gotta agree with Ean here
, the sound quality is just as good! Its amazing to finally be able to take my entire set up with in my backpack and even slip this little guy right in my pocket. Overall, it’s a great sound card to go with if you can make your set up work with two outputs.
January 3rd, 2010 at 1:15 am Quote
I just bought the NI DJ 2 after having numerous problems with the Numark DJ I/O. I was sceptic at first but I must say, I was very impressed with the sound quality and with it’s performance. It did not stall once through out the 7 hour gig. That was the problem I had with the DJ I/O. If you are uncertain whether you want to purchase this interface due to performance as I was, let me assure you, it works great! Hope this helps.
January 19th, 2010 at 4:04 am Quote
Hey, i’m wondering can i use it with my behringer ddm 4000 I only need 2 chanals
February 10th, 2010 at 1:56 am Quote
I’m thinking of getting one of these. Can anyone confirm that with the Audio 2 I’ll be able to properly monitor/cue either deck on the headphones – separately to the mix? i.e. like traditional cue monitoring on a mixer.
February 16th, 2010 at 9:23 am Quote
Can someone someone confirm compatibility with Windows 7 64-bit?
February 18th, 2010 at 2:23 pm Quote
@dejanos
yes it works fine with windows 7 64 bit…i have the same…
February 22nd, 2010 at 3:17 am Quote
Just a quick question, is this device ASIO 2.0? What sort of latency are we talking about here escpecially for scratching.
March 4th, 2010 at 9:20 pm Quote
I’ve had an Audio 2 DJ for a few months now. It doesn’t have a lot of extra fancy features. But, the few features it has are perfect for controllerism with Traktor.
For me ‘A’ is master stero out and ‘B’ is headphone monitor. I only mix inside Traktor, and no mic inputs are necessary for me.
The easy volume control directly on the Audio-2 for each channel is nice. It’s really helpful getting things set up in different situations.
The best thing about this little soundcard is that I no longer even think about it unless I want to adjust it’s volume. Other than that, I just open Traktor and get to it!
Before the Audio 2 I had an older M-Audio with lots of input and outputs, it was more than I needed, and yet didn’t have a simple 1/4 jack to connect headphones to. Plus, it would crash from time to time, usually if I left it on for a long time. It really wasn’t the right soundcard for my needs. It needed a real recording studio, so I had to let it go….
cool,
dangerboy
March 11th, 2010 at 12:40 pm Quote
hey everybody. is there a way to do what i’m about to describe?
i’d like to use the audio 2 dj to route the output from the line out to 2 xlr cables to plug directly into a set of powered speakers while i use the headphone out to cue (and use Traktor’s internal mixer).
i’ve searched for adapters, but i’m not finding quite what i need, so i was wondering if anyone can help.
i do have a mixer, but i’d like the flexibility of just being able to pack my laptop, audio 2 dj, vci, and speakers and just roll, if it’s possible.
so, a 1/4″ male to 2 xlr adapter
or a 1/4″ male to 2 1/4″ adapter (if i really have to use 1/4″ plugs, i do have a set of those for my speakers, as well)
thanks so much for anyone advice :)