This is by a mate of mine. Might find it useful matey.

Heres a way to build your own TCV (timecode vinyl) setup, the same as serato, final scratch, reflex, torq, ms pinky etc, but for bout 150 euro, obviously excluding the price of a half decent laptop.

What you need before hand:
Laptop
regular turntables/CD decks
Regular mixer

Now, serato (as an example) is made up of 3 parts. the Timecode vinyl (TCV), the serato box thing, and software. You could buy them all in a nice little package for around 600 euro, or...

You can order 2 serato control vinyls off ebay for about 40 euro including delivery



You can use a program like virtual DJ ( http://www.virtualdj.com/ )as your software. Or Traktor, PM me and I will tell you where to get that from.


Its supports TCV, including serato, its years old and rock solid, just in the setup select "external mixer" and you will basically have 2 decks and your music library on the screen, same as the serato software.
Lastly is the serato box. While most people think its a specialised peice of equipment that makes it all work, its not really, its just a soundcard. Bit different from a regular soundcard, found in a pc or laptop though. they usually have 2 input channels (line in) and 2 output (speakers). You will need a soundcard with 4 inputs (for the feed from the decks) and 4 outputs (to connect to the line-in of the mixer on chan. 1 and 2) You'll also need ASIO support in the soundcard, which can let you bring down the latency to as low as 2 or 3ms. The most popular soundcard for this is the Maya 44, which can be gotten for under 100 euro online.

http://www.thomann.de/ie/esi_maya_44_usb.htm



Last thing you need are 4 x Phono Y-Splitters, and 2 RCA cables, which can be got in any local audio/tv shop.

How to setup:
Connect the Maya44 usb to your laptop.
Run Virtual DJ, select "External mixer"
Enable TCV and select serato as the type.
In the setup, map the input of deck A to the first and second input lines of the MAYA 44 (stereo)
Map the outputs of deck A to Output lines 1 and 2 (stereo)
Map the outputs of deck B to Output lines 3 and 4 (stereo)

To wire it up:
Connect the y splitters the the phono cables coming from the decks, so now you have 2 stereo output connectors for each deck.
Take Deck 1 and connect one set of the cables to the phono in of your mixer (channel 1)
Take the other set of cables from deck 1 and connect them to inputs 1 and 2 or the maya 44

Take Deck 2 and connect one set of the cables to the phono in of your mixer (channel 2)
Take the other set of cables from deck 1 and connect them to inputs 3 and 4 or the maya 44

Last thing is then to connect the rca cables to link the output from the soundcard to your Line-in's on your mixer. Connect output 1 and 2 of the maya to channel 1 line in of your mixer, and output 3 and 4 of the maya to channel 2 line in of your mixer.

Start spinnin!

To use regular vinyl, switch to phono in on the mixer, to use tcv, switch to cd/line in, same as you would with serato etc...

By the way, this is a cheap way of doing it, not a poor quality way. Your using serato vinyl, virtual DJ which is a pretty established product and receives regular updates, i believe carl cox uses it, and maya soundcard, which is an top quality make of studio quality sound cards, theres nothing cheap about it, except the price.