Experience with the Pio 350 Rig

[DoctorMogal]

As some of you may know from my flipped picture posted in the "Show Your Setup" thread, I recently bought the entire Pioneer 350 set. Note that this will be a review from my point of view - coming from the VCI-100 and Traktor to using the CDJs and the DJM primarily with USB drives and rekordbox (AKA Standalone).

CDJ 350

I'll start with the basics: Media Formats

THE CD DRIVE is pretty excellent quality - it loads the CD very quickly and I don't have any complains here. Also I'm confident that it would play the CD at every and any angle at high quality without skipping. The classic Pioneer quality sticks with it here.

THE USB DRIVE is also great - it can load hundreds of songs really quickly (I use two 8 GB Sandisk Cruzer drives + 1 for recording). No complaints here either. It can take a second to switch from USB to CD but thats not a problem.


UPDATE: Most the software issues where fixed when I updated Traktor, it was not the CDJs fault.
THE MIDI CONTROL is where some problems lie, and what is making me give up using traktor pro with the CDJ's - i'll talk more about this later. Don't get me wrong - it works. But its not impressive control of the software at all and some of the neat features like the LED screen and beat slasher get thrown away when you use the software integration. Also everything feels a bit different - almost cheap when controlling the software and it would occasionally fuck up and somethign would stop working (often the jog-wheels). Also, because I hooked two of them up to the software, pressing CD/vinyl mode on one would make it hella wierd - especially cause the LED output would say something different (as it changes global not deck specific). But it IS functional.

Now here is my BIGGEST gripe with the MIDI control - it sucks if i want to swtich between MIDI and USB. Maybe i don't know how to do this correctly - but the CDJ only functions as a soundcard while its in PC mode. That means if i switch it to USB mode (and only use MIDI for requests) then the music stops - its also really wierd even though technically one should work as a sound card while the other doesnt so I think this is my problem and not the CDJ's problem. I'll work this out later and see what I can do about this.

Something we all know is super important: Aesthetics

This part is going to be dedicated to Aesthetics of only the CDJ-350. Let me tell you that when i was using it with the DDM4000 it looked a lot less sexy than when i used it with my DJM-350. Having the entire rig boosts is sexy level by over 9000.

The screen is awesome. It displays everything I'd want it to display and having BPM to the decimal place is pretty nice - not as nice as two on Traktor but w/e i can deal with that. Oh and it would be nice if they had waveforms - but their little beatgrid thing isn't too bad - it can often get beat 1 wrogn but thats fixed easily with rekordbox/cueing on the spot.

I enjoy the black finish and the metallic buttons which I'll get to their usability later. But they look really sexy.

I did however, prefer the jogwheel's look on the CDJ-400 but believe me the CDJ-350 jogwheel looks great too so don't let that stop you.

I wish they had made the words light up on the buttons - but that's personal preference and with some lighting its not that hard to see the buttons. Its also a bit annoying that the buttons aren't outlined but thats more of a problem on the DJM than on the CDJ.

Overall, the CDJ-350 looks pretty sexy on its own but if you hook it up with a large format mixer - eh it doesn't look as good.

Erre Erre Jog Wheel

The quality of this thing is awesome. Haters gone hate and tell you that the CDJ 850 makes this feel like a toy because its so light and plasticky. I disagree. The lightness makes it really easy to move and I actually like it MORE than the 850 jogs (even though the quality obviously IS worse) it makes it easier in my eyes to pitchbend.

Scratching is possible but if you want to scratch you're not going to go for CDJ's in general. Also the lack of tracking on the jogwheel forces you to look at the display - which is functional but not great if you want to scratch. So don't buy this over a controller if all you want is scratchability.

Lastly is the lack of tracking . Thats annoying - why'd they take off the LED ring from the 400's! Well its obvious, so they could keep the price. Eh oh well, i'll deal - its more aesthetics than actually useful for me.

You hardly have to press down on the jogwheel for it to sense that you're touching it - but pressign down definitely is a plus over the touch-sensitivy of the VCI-100 because i said so.

CDJ mode is also really cool. I know all CDJ's do this - but when you pause the track it will play each beat on repeat as you move along the track. This allows you to find cues - something that I don't know you can do on traktor. Not that its necessary though because you have hi-res waveforms on traktor.

Buttons/faders

These feel absolutely amazing. THe metallic buttons are so easy to press - they blow away the rubberized Denon buttons on the HS5550 (which i ahd the pleasure of testing at my friend's house). I have not a single gripe here (on quality). But again, a better output with light up words would've been optimal.

Faders are also great with .02% accuracy i don't really need anything more from them.

Features

It has all the features you could want except hot-cues but i've gotten used not to use those and autoloop :P

I love the beat slicer - its pretty awesome. I don't really use their Master BPM Lock thing cause i dont see the point of not being able to change your BPM but whatever floats your boat. I honestly don't see anything that the CDJ850 has over the CDJ350 featurewise - even the 900, all it has is slipmode really (inb4 trolling on the 900s I HAVEN"T USED THEM, and i don't really know much about them so I don't care if you say i'm wrong - its just an impression)

Rekordbox

<3

i love rekordbox.

It's shittily written but it does what it needs to do - even if its slow it gets BPM right almost every time and its great for organizing music. It is slow though, very very slow.

Overall

The feel is great - to know that you aren't dependent on software. It makes me feel like i'm really DJing - i just enjoy it more than controllerism IMO. People are going to hate, but its how I feel. And its worth the extra money - the feel is everything for me.

Is it worth spending extra money for the higher quality CDJs?

I don't know. If you want the industry standard than yes - but other than that you really are set with the CDJ-350.

Is it worth getting over the CDJ-400s?

I think definitely yes. It's newer technology. Its better technology. Looks better. And has rekordbox. What is it missing? HID serato support and jog wheel illumination.

I'd say go for the CDJ-350s.

I'll be back soon for a review on the DJM-350 and how the setup works together.

Peace out,
Mogal

[DoctorMogal]

Pioneer DJM 350

Faders and Curves

I don't know much what to compare this with, but I like everything I have. The upfaders have good resistance for EDM mixing and you can definitely scratch with the crossfader. You have three settings on the XFADER and thats thru, sharp, and smooth - so you can do whatever you want.

Also, fader-start is a really nice addition for you scratch fanatics out there. I use it for fun but haven't found myself seriously using it.

The curves are fader, not rotary - so it'll start by moving it slowly then quickly toward the end. It's pretty standard and I didn't know till i did some extra research on it.

In's and Out's

One of my gripes with this mixer is that it has no XLR out's :/ what a bummer. It's got RCA though which i just use two converters to convert to XLR and it sounds great.

Effects

Another gripe (that i learned doesn't actually matter that much) is that there's no channel effects, only master. This means you can't filter one channel but not the other for transitions but it seems to work out for me

The efx themselves are really good. Gate is super sexy for trancey things and i love the sound of their flanger (they call it jet). The filter sounds typical, not as nice as the filter's on my friend's xone of course but they're decent. And lastly is the crush, which combines white noise generation with a filter (i think?) and sounds good for build ups and what not. I'm not too much of an effect whore, other than filters, so i didn't feel the need for anythign else.

Mic

I haven't used the mic input, but know that it is a 1/4 in input and not xlr. Silly pioneer. But that way it fits the overall look of the unit so oh well.

EQ's

YAY! They are full kill eq's. I love bass-kill transitions so this for me is big. Other than that they sound really natural and smooth. I have no complaints for the EQ's. It is a 3-band EQ with a gain on top but thats not saying much.

Record

I didn't realize how amazing this was until i got it. It records WAV so its brilliant quality and you just plug in a USB and you can record for as long as you want more or less. There is also a track-mark feature that splits the recording but doesn't add a break - making it easy to label which track is what on a promotional CD.

You can also have playback features of your recording so you don't even need to plug it into a CDJ to hear your recording on your live speakers.

Headphone Section

No complaints, but nothing special either. I would've prefered the headphone jack to be on the mixer's face instead of on the side but thats not too much of an issue.

Sex Appeal

A) Pioneer Logo
B) Sexy VU meter's (which are very good BTW)
C) Light up buttons could light up a bit more but look very sexy

Overall it fits perfectly with the CDJ-350's and is a great buy!

[photojojo]

Nice write up.

[DoctorMogal]

Nice write up.

Thanks

[M.Beijer]

Good points, agree with you on the "feel" and simplicity. If you don't want all the bells and whistles of controller+computor then the set is awesome.
I don't scratch but I still get sad with the feel of cdj 350's jogwheel..
Got the 2000's now and there is such a difference, even from the 850. The 2000 is heavier, sturdier, better pause/play buttons and better feel overall. Like the leds+screen on it also. Link is quite sweet too(not that usb drives are expensive or so, but still).
Im using djm 350 atm (ditched my djm 800 cause of space issues).
and I have to say, the quality of sound from the mixer beats the 800 hands down and im kind of a audiofreak.
True, sad with bad ins/outs on the mixer.. no xlr etc but i don't have any xlr in in my amplifier anyways!
Was planning to have this mixer for just a little while, to get a xone mixer later on but hey, its quite fun to use and record function really appeals to me. The effects only on the master channel sucks balls tho.
Another good thing with the 350 that u didnt mention is the mix/aux switchable channel which it has, with EQ control. Makes it easy to fire up samples from example your ipod!