theres a few [programs out there. some needing external control units, and some you can also control using your mouse.

ive never really tried any apart from traktor 3 which was ok. you dont have much feel with it using the mouse and its so automatic you dont have to do much more than click a few buttons.

also i dont see how you could seperate the audio so only one channel plays thru headphones for monitoring.

tbh, if you wanna start mixin its worth forking out for at least some cheap direct drives and a mixer, which can be for as little as 140 for some older vestax or older numarks on ebay. theres no real substitute for the hands on feel and control you get with vinyl and youll end up getting hooked.

I realise market forces and technology are pushing people towards digital (once worked in the TV industry as everything was transitioning over, but I still prefer analogue).

I’ve had this argument many times over the years (I agree btw) – the reason (IMO) that digital sounds too clinical, and doesn’t reproduce the sound the way analogue does is usually that the sample rate is too low… When CD’s were first invented, the hardware to reproduce at 16bit and 44.1KHz was astronomically expensive – it was basically thought that the sampling rate was a good compromise (after all, the highest frequency encodable is 22,050Hz which is higher than the audible range of most human hearing)… The trouble is we are capable of experiencing musical frequencies that we can’t actually “hear” (sub bass is the obvious one here, but I have always thought that the same applies to the upper end as well)…

Upping the sample rate and bit depth to 96KHz and 32bit is a good solution – I tried it once with one of our recordings, and everyone who heard it remarked on how much better it sounded than the other recordings which were all done with “CD quality”…

Back on topic – +1 to the suggestion of getting a cheap set of turntables – there really is no substitute…