Hi. My name is David. I'm seventeen and an aspiring controllerist DJ. I currently play clip- and drum rack- based practice sets. The material is in the form of full songs that I mildly sidechain to my drum clips, bass clips I have produced (mixed in key with the songs) and 16-pad soundpacks, primarily of my own production. The method is very mixing-centric and involves many things going on at once of varying volume and frequency.
The gear I used to do this is as follows:
APC Mini for clip launching, clip track mixing and master output volume control
MPD18 (Original version) for soundpack playback
and, that which is in rather desperate need of upgrade/overhaul: a heavily remapped Numark Mixtrack Pro II that is mapped to the following functions:
-Session view song launching
-Overall Mixing (Faders and EQs)
-Crossfading between songs/soundpacks
-FX control
-Soundcard
Now, on to the prospective replacements. The Mixtrack was my first controller, and it's good for a very beginner setup. I'm looking for something hopefully with a similar layout, such as the S4, however my concern there is that I want to ditch jogs if possible, as they would not be terribly useful in the type of ableton setup I'm running. In simple terms, my preferred criteria are these:
-It should have a general DJ midi controller layout like the S4, DDJ-SX, or similar.
-It must (of course) be a midi controller.
-It should have a reasonable quality soundcard.
-It MUST have four channel strips with three-band EQ, faders and Filters. Preferably a second gain stage as well.
-It should have a standard FX section (four knobs and four toggles).
-It must have reasonable build quality.
I am most seriously considering getting an S4, but I have considered APC40 II and DDJ-SX2. My budget absolutely maxes at $1000 USD and I'm fine with remapping something to within an inch of it's life. Any other suggestions? Does anyone else control ableton in a similar way or use it to similar purpose? I haven't saved all the money just yet, so I do have some time before I'm chomping at the bit to find the right thing.
Thanks guys. I know it was a bit of long-winded post, but I wanted to be thorough. I appreciate any suggestions anyone has.
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