Buying a midi controller

[Marsupian]

I'm about to buy a midi controller and I'm looking for some advice. My budget is 200 euros (250 max). At the moment I'm leaning towards the Behringer BCD3000 because of it's low cost and good amount of buttons but I'm concerned with the quality/feel of the buttons. There is a chance however that I will combine it with a nanoPad which will let me map more impartant functions to the pad so that the feel on those functions is still good.

Other options I have been thinking about are:
1. An external mixer with a midi controller like the trigger finger and an audio interface.
2. A BCF/BCR 2000 (sadly have endless rotary knobs)
3. An Akai MPD 24 to which I can later add an external mixer.

What option would you recommend?

Edit: Forgot to add what I will be using them for. Mainly using Traktor pro (preferably 3 decks but I can get creative with the mapping to get that working on a bcd3000 as well) and just mixing songs but sometimes live remixing with the hotcues/loops/samples/effects and the likes. I also have ableton so I might try to get some hot stuff going on that as well.

ps. Any info on the quality of the BCD3000 is more than welcome.

[DvlsAdvct]

For your budget I would say get an inexpensive interface and something like the BCR and the nanopad. If you decide this is the route you want to go and you save your money and eventually buy something for more deck control (VCI-100, Remote 25, etc.) you can still use everything you have bought, just need to redefine them. If you get an external mixer and decide to go the internal route it will collect dust. And having those two pieces of gear should give you the control you need.

[Marsupian]

Thats true, do you know if the build in audio interface of the BCD is any good? I was hoping to be able to use that one.

[laurens]

I have a bcr200, and it's cool, bit plasticy. I would personally go for a separate external soundcard. Maybe you could look at the X-session pro? I also have one and it's really nice, super cheap too. You can just change the pitch faders to be volume faders, and there's four decks with volume control. then use my bcr2000 for the 4 deck eqing and effects. It's still a work in progress tough.

I tend to stay away from gear that has it all built-in because if it breaks you don't have many options. It's a bit of a different story once the quality of te product goes up i.e. vci300.

Just my personal preference, I'm sure there's alot of happy bcd owners out there.

[tekki]

BCD owners group, is a mixed bag of happy and angry owners.

BCR, well, I don't have to go that one again?

If you have 250 euros max, I would seriously consider buying a Xone:1d.
You are able to pick one up 249,-.
If you can't find it for this money, let me know, and I'll point you to the correct webshop.

BCR is really cool and will remain cool too!
But I am look for some of the things the xone offers. (Metal casing, jogdial, faders).
And ofcourse trying to be different from the mainstream here.

[Marsupian]

I have looked into xone as well but the price is a bit high for the amount of controls you get. I know there products are all high quality but I'm just starting out so I'm looking into more low budget stuff and once I start getting really serious about it I'll upgrade/expand my setup.

[deepstereo]

I started with UC-33e, which is pretty cool and works great with Traktor 3.4 (haven't adjusted it to work with Pro yet) but I wanted to try some dj-dedicated controller, so I bought a BCD3000 about a month ago after not being able to afford VCI100+soundcard.

I should say that I'm quite satisfied about the quality and reliability (I dj at a relatively small venue). It comes with Traktor LE, but you can easily find mappings for Traktor 3.x or Pro on NI forums or elsewhere and adjust them to your needs. The mapping for Traktor Pro that I currently use allows me to fully control 2 decks, FX1 and FX2 sections and browse collection and load tracks into decks without the mouse. I guess it's possible to configure it for hot cueing, samples etc.

The controls are quite intuitive and the buttons are conviniently big and feel all right, although everything is made of plastic. Jog wheels are rubber, but they are not suitable for scratching - too small, but they are good for cueing, etc. The soundcard is great for me, I heard it might produce unwanted noise if BCD is used as an analogue mixer, but I only use it as a controller and haven't noticed any noise even when I played at a large club with powerful soundsystem.

I'm still planning to get a VCI100 with a firewire soundcard, as it seems to be more "professional" and durable than the BCD, and besides it will look better next to my macbook pro )) But at the moment I'm very satisfied with Behringer. I bought it new off ebay for $180, so it's really affordable and does the job.

[Wuz]

I'm looking into more low budget stuff and once I start getting really serious about it I'll upgrade/expand my setup.

The BCD3000 is a good place to start then, plenty of controls in a nice package.
I use one and expanded my controls with a korg padkontrol.

I intend on upgrading to a better main controller and soundcard at some point but this thing has done a lot of house parties over the last year and done them well.

[Marsupian]

Thanks for the replies, I'm going to buy a bcd3000 with padKontrol.

[Wuz]

I wouldnt fully recommend the padkontrol, i got it cause it was cheap second hand, there are probably better options out there. theres a pad controller run down on the site somewhere ill try find it

EDIT: http://www.djtechtools.com/2008/08/0...ler-smackdown/