Which way to go?

[Sublim&All]

Hi there,

After having done quite some reading on this website, I decided to make an account as well and drop my 'problem' here, hoping you guys can help me out a bit!

To introduce myself at first: I'm a hobbyist DJ playing mostly house (from deep to electro) and some techno and dubstep. I also do the occasional (student-party) gig here and there, but nothing too serious yet. My current gear is a Numark NS7 with a 17" HP Pavilion dv9000 laptop. The problem I have consists of 3 parts:
1: my laptop is buggy and lacks power
2: I am sick of carrying this big mofo around, even for a gig a few kms away I need to borrow someones car to get it there
3: I lack options on this controller. I feel like it limits me in expressing my creativity.

So, what I want is the following:
1: A nice, lightweight controller(s?) with which I could steer 4 decks, sample decks etc. with Traktor
2: I want to have more optionability towards on-the-fly live remixing. Say, a piece of gear with which I could instantly add some extra drums etc. I don't have a clue yet to fill this gap in, all I know is that I would like it to be as intuitive as possible, with not too much preparation needed. Integration with Traktor would be nice I guess.

I already set step 1: I recently bought a brand-spanking new Macbook Air with i7 processor and 256gig SSD

I've been looking a lot at the VCI-400 already, also the ultraportable Xone K2 looks promising. Maschine looks nice but already seems terribly complicated to me.

So, do you guys have any advice on which way to go? Thanks alot already!

[Zhao]

Well, not sure I could help any with your laptop issues, but I think the controller you're looking for is novation's twitch. Coming from the ns7, if you can get over the lack of scratching, I think it meets all your requirements. Those pads could be remapped to sample decks. And if you want to remix and whatnot, the Serato Itch mapping has the slicer feature which you should look into. I have heard however, the effects section is somewhat awkward, at least on the traktor mapping so that being said, if you want to be more expressive with your effects, you probably would want to add a kontrol X1 or maybe the Xone K2.
Hope that is of some help

[sparkbro]

If i want to get to any gigs, i still need to drive... As i would say most would, rather than public transport? or taxis?

[Zhao]

If i want to get to any gigs, i still need to drive... As i would say most would, rather than public transport? or taxis?

Not exactly sure what you're asking. But the twitch is tiny, I bet you could fit both it and the K2 in any backpack or messenger bag.

[Dustin V]

Well if you looking for portability there are quite a few options.

Coming from the NS7 I'd assume you using Itch, but you mentioned Traktor so then you would be looking at a good Traktor compatible controller.

The Twitch is an excellent option, I have it and love it. It works flawlessly with Itch and so so with Traktor. It's the size of a 15" laptop, so it fits into any small bag no problem.

Now.... If you looking for an awesome Traktor controller you could look at the S2 or even the new Denon MC3000. They are both very portable controllers and are made for Traktor.

Which ever you choose I'm sure you'll be happy.

Cheers.

P.S. Here's a good write up between the S2 and the MC3000.

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2011/11...non-dj-mc3000/

[Chris Ross]

Kontrol S2 is light weight, full hardware sofware integration, not very small, but I think you can get more creative with it than denon MC3k.
The only flaw is that there is no back up inputs, so if your laptop goes down, there goes your performance. You can still manage to get up and running if you are in a club with cdjs if the S2 had inputs it would be my dream controller.

[Sublim&All]

Thanks for the replies so far!

If i want to get to any gigs, i still need to drive... As i would say most would, rather than public transport? or taxis?

Most gigs I've done so far were local. Next to that, I live in the Netherlands, where most places are quite easily accessible by public transport. All in all, I want something which I could fit in a bag and take with me without too many back problems

I'll take a closer look at the Twitch. It sure is portable.

The other controllers named are nice as well, but what if I want to take it all a step further? Say, being able to add some drum computer/sequencing possibilities? I've been thinking about some wild ideas:
- VCI-400, running Traktor and Ableton in the background, mapping those extra buttons for Ableton, and maybe adding an extra controller for FX etc.?
- Two Xone K2s, or a K2 and X1 and then adding something like a Maschine to enable some on-the-fly experimentation with drums/synths?

With the last option I guess it would even be possible to map them in a way I could also add them when playing on an already available CDJ setup. No idea whether anything of this actually makes sense though...