Patent ID: 7133531

Claim:
A device for mixing audio tracks of sound recordings that are in compressed digital audio data format and which eliminates the need for a disc jockey mixing console, a plurality of turntables or a plurality of vinyl LP records, said device comprising: a disc jockey mixing console with two or more audio tracks and having analog controls including, for each audio track, a slider for adjusting speed and a main output volume knob for adjusting volume heard on a main speaker output, and including a preview switch for audio tracks, two audio outputs including a headphone output and the main speaker output, said two audio outputs each including a digital to analog convertor, the headphone output also including analog controls for adjusting a volume of a final mix analog audio heard on the headphone, said headphone output activated by the preview switch, an LCD screen and buttons on the device for selecting and queuing sound recordings that appear on the LCD screen in each audio track, a computer, including a processor, ROM storage means, RAM storage means, a hard disc to store audio sound track files, and software for decoding each audio track from compressed digital audio data format to digital format, applying special effects to each audio track based on speed parameters supplied by the sliders mixing the audio tracks heard on the headphone output that are in digital format using volume parameters provided by the analog controls to generate a final mix digital output and sending the final mix digital output to the digital to analog convertor of the main speaker output to be converted to final mix analog audio, and mixing the audio tracks heard on the headphone output that are in digital format using a preview switch to generate a headphone mix digital output and sending the headphone mix digital output to the digital to analog convertor of the headphone output to be converted to headphone mix analog audio, each main output volume knob and each slider being connected to an analog to digital convertor to translate the analog position into a numerical value for the computer, said single device allowing a disc jockey to manually mix and manually adjust the speed of compressed digital audio data sound recordings with a level of manual dexterity typically used in the mixing of vinyl LP records, said level of manual dexterity far exceeding the level of manual dexterity provided by a computer pointing device, including an interface between the device and an external personal computer for uploading sound recordings from the personal computer to the device.