Good article from Digital DJ Tips on jogwheels and if they are still needed

[Jack Rabid]

AS a beginning controllerist (I'm using this term loosely at the moment, I'm only a bedroom dj at the moment) I find the jogwheels pretty useful for beatmatching tracks, because sometimes if I drop tracks that are the same bpm, I might drop them slightly out of sync with the beat of the first track, and the pitch bend (phase? don't know the actual term) makes it easy to get the tracks back in sync without having to try and restart it all over again.

Of course, having it set to work more like a vinyl track might make it more effective, but at the moment I haven't gotten the chance to map my own controller how I want it. Point being though, the jogwheel is useful for quick adjustments to the beat, especially with tracks that have irregular buildups/breaks/etc. Beyond that of course is mapping the jogwheel to other effects, but as has been said, for most people 2 extra knobs would be just as equivalent.

[popoff44]

I personally don't need jogwheels for anything. Browsing and loading can be done differently. You don't need jogwheels for that. As for FX, I'd rather have 10 regular-sized knobs instead of one giant one, a.k.a jogwheel I'm hoping for more all-in-one controller options in the future with more of a classic dj layout (like S4), but with no jogwheels.

[MuzicFreq]

Have we forgotten the meaning of JOG wheel?
You dont call the records , slipmats, platters Jog wheels do you?
Jog Wheel is more like a scrollwheel for scrolling through the track, wasnt really ever meant to scratch, just some people decided it would be a cool idea.

[Remington]

I think the author wrote this article because I asked him the question in a message in his review on his site about 4 decks controllers, all which had jog wheels..

Then again, it's probably nothing to do with me!

I can't imagine controllers without jogwheels. Not having manual control over your tune?

I guess it depends how you learnt to DJ. Being older I learnt on vinyl and CD, so having jog wheels is natural to me.

Can't imagine twisting some nobs and autosyncing. Yuk. You may as well be a mouse DJ.

What's a mouse DJ? http://www.challands.com/PC-DJ.html

A guy who only has a laptop and a mouse. Looks terrible.

In the future, we'll have touchscreens only, if we don't already have them.

[itskindahot]

I can't imagine controllers without jogwheels. Not having manual control over your tune?

No jogwheels DOES NOT imply no manual control over your tune. E.g., beatjumping mapped to two rotaries (one for performing the actual beatjumps, the other for setting the beatjump size) is awesome for navigating through tracks (so are needle drops strips). And hot cues provide massive creative control over the flow of the playback (imo superior to a jogwheel).

[Remington]

Not sure I explained what I meant properly.

As I never autosync I use jogwheels to jump the tunes in line with each other.

As a mix can be slightly off (even with BPM indicators) I use the jog to pull it back very slightly or jump it forward. I may spin back too.

That's just that way I've always done it.

It sounds like you're talking about stuff I already do (needle drop)..I don't use the jog wheel to find parts of a track! That would take too long.

I just use them to get mixes right and adjust mixes on the fly.

[Remington]

Just to clarify the digital dj tips guy says:

"Good jogwheels “feel” nice to use, offering tactile control over the music, which is a big part of what DJing has been about up to this point, after all."

I was referring to tactile control over the music. I would totally miss that.

[itskindahot]

As a mix can be slightly off (even with BPM indicators) I use the jog to pull it back very slightly or jump it forward.

Sure. But imo, nudging the track using pitch bend buttons works nicely, too.

[Remington]

Yep, I just don't like doing it with buttons.

Got too used to the wheel.

As soon as the likes of me retire from DJing (in 80 years) the jog wheel may be redundant.

But I think the future is Minority Report style mixing anyway.

[keeb]

Best part of not having jog-wheels since I don't use my VCI anymore: I don't get random drunken idiots coming up and going "cool! I know how to use those - *wikki wikki wah wikki wikki wah*" then proceeding to do their best to screw up my mix by 'scratching'.

--My 2c.