virtualbox.org

About a year ago I bought a really old DJ controller to use on my windows 8.1 laptop, but it turns out the drivers are so old for the controller that they dont work with 64-bit OS's. So, im trying to use VirtualBox to install the drivers and programs needed to run the controller. Is this possible?

I doubt that you'll find anyone here that will tell you for sure that, yes, it is possible. Mainly because you didn't even mention your equipment or the way that you it is supposed to interface with it.

Generally speaking (and that is loose) direct hardware control of equipment has a 30/70 chance of working. Mostly it depends on the hardware requirements and more specifically on the timing requirements between the VM and the equipment (and there is not a lot you can do about it).

There is only one chance of finding out for sure; you have to try it. Do you have anything to lose?

To be honest I wouldn't really recommend VirtualBox at all in this application. A virtual machine is not what you need to reliably control actual hardware.

I would suggest some kind of dual boot configuration. In this day and age that needn't even be particularly invasive on your laptop, e.g. you could boot a 32bit OS from a 64gb nano flash drive. It could have all the drivers you want. Have you checked what drivers exist out in the ether for this device? If it had Linux drivers then that would open up a bunch of options.

Also, what is the interface type (e.g. serial, usb?). I'm not convinced it should even need drivers - in the old midi days you could use a serial connection.