12 or so years of setup evolution...

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12 or so years of setup evolution…

I’ve not posted any pic’s of my setup on here so I figured as I’ve just moved house and got stuff set back up now would be an ideal time to take some pictures!

A bit of history- started off buying my first decks back in around 2001, they were a pair of Synergy CD2000 cd decks, these were essentially just a top playing CD player with a pitch control & pitch bend buttons. No jog-wheel, and the Cue button had no memory so you could cue a track up and listen to where it was (the stutter) but if you then pressed play you had to re-cue the track. I’ve never seen another pair of these in the wild and almost every Google search result seems to be of my mentioning them so they obviously never took off, but either way I still have them as I have trouble letting go of DJ gear!

I had these with an old fashioned 4 channel mixer (not a DJ mixer), had needle-type level meters, cross & up faders and that was it (which I still have). I ‘upgraded’ to Phonic 4 channel mixer soon after (again not really an ideal DJ mixer), this had 6-band EQ’s but they only affected the master output (which I also still have…).

Anyway this was what I learned all the basics on, buying CD singles until I ran out of money each month. After a year I added a Gemini SA600mk2 direct drive turntable so I could start playing vinyl- this was a fantastic budget turntable, inevitably tainted by the vastly inferior previous XL500 series. This is very much how my setup stayed for years (I waned in and out of DJing during this time), until eventually picking up a BCD3000 controller a few years back and really got the bug again.

This was a custom case (in progress) I made for that setup:

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After a couple of months with this I decided I wanted proper decks again (the lasers were getting iffy on the CD decks so was mostly using the BCD3000) so I went out and treated myself to a pair of Pio CDJ900s and a Denon x1600 mixer, I then also acquired a pair of PDX2000mk2 turntables from my mate who had given up vinyl to go usb, and this is how my setup stayed until a couple years ago-

This was what I was working with (at our old place) a couple of years ago - Denon x1600 mixer, 2 Vestax PDX2000mk2s, and 2 CDJ900s.

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The stand is an Ikea job (more on that in a bit), the part the CDJs are sat on is actually anchored underneath so it’s a lot more secure than it looks, but normally I just used the CDJs on the main surface and had the TTs setup upstairs.

Then when the SC2900s came out I traded in my CDJ900s for a pair- the 900s were frustratingly not the most reliable of bits of kit and I really wanted some hot-cues. The 2900s do everything the 900s did and more, so given the price I got for the 900s it was a no-brainer.

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In the meantime I’d managed to pick up a 1210 M3D locally for a good price and was on the hunt for a partner for it- I eventually found a fantastic condition Mk2, which along with a Gumtree sourced SK6 battle mixer gave me a vinyl only setup upstairs, whilst the PDXs were being used in the lounge setup with the CDJs.

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I then got tempted to try out DVS, Traktor being the obvious choice having the certified x1600 mixer, so I brought a brand new laptop to run it on and got the kit ordered- this is it setup for our Christmas Eve party in our lounge last year:

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The lights are a basic RGB LED strip with remote control- ideal for our lounge parties.

Our last party in this house was a couple weeks ago, where my mate who has also recently started using Traktor brought his A10 & laptop down with him and we routed his outputs into the 2 spare channels on my mixer, giving us access to 2 Traktor libraries across 2 laptops and 4 channels! Was a lot of fun:

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Then a couple of weeks we moved again so for the summer I have make do with a single setup until we get another proper place sorted later in the year- here is the stand all re-assembled waiting for the kit. The CDJ stands are the Citronic DJP-1 and are bloody awesome. They are fully adjustable, solid as anything, come with two different sized top-plates (that can be mounted either portrait or landscape), and can either be screwed onto a mounting surface or clamped with a heavy duty screw clamp with rubber pads. They cost around £49 each here in the UK, an absolute bargain.

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Then with the kit installed:

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So for the moment the 2 Vestax PDXs are packed away, along with a Gemini SA600mk2 TT, my Stanton SK6 mixer, a Citronic CDM 7:2 mixer, and my old Synergy CD-2000 CD decks and various starter mixers. (My room resembles a Tandy store circa mid 90s)

As for the current setup, I either run the two 1210s with Traktor via DVS and the 2900s with Engine, or use the 2900s in normal midi-mode with Traktor and use the 1210s for real vinyl. It’s nice to have the best of both worlds in the setup, particularly as quite a few of my mixes use vinyl quite a lot.

I wasn’t ever intending to use the 2900s with Traktor but they integrate so tightly with it in standard midi-mode that I’ve gone to using it more & more whilst freeing up the TTs to play actual vinyl.

Apologies for the poor phone pictures- a half decent camera is next on the purchase list. If you are still reading then go have a well deserved coffee!

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Fair play…

Detailed post with a real transition / story between set-ups.

I like it!!

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Cheers!

I always enjoy reading how others have evolved their setups over the years so thought I’d do something similar.

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Very cool !

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Cheers chap, I see you’re a fellow x1600 user!

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Very nice. I’m thinking very heavily about buying a pair of SC2900s now the price has dropped. it’s nice to get an idea of how they look in use.

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They are certainly incredible value now- I don’t think there are any other players out there that will give you hot cues, slip mode, and network link for anywhere near their current price. They are built extremely well too, (noticeably more so than my previous cdj 900s) and the jog wheel is the nicest I’ve used on any player- it is attached directly to the unit via a central spindle on the 2900 rather than the system of plastic runner wheels used on the Pioneer models. It is incredibly smooth and the tension adjust is a useful addition (I use it on a stiff setting for general mixing, then loosen it right up for spinbacks or other tricks).

I still don’t think you can really compare them to the Pioneer 2000/2000nexus purely because of the full colour LED screen, but then the 2900s are less than half the price of those units.

They also work extremely well with both Traktor and with Denon’s Engine software.

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Cheers for that. Yep, at just under 600 quid for a pair I’ll happily take em over anything else. Doesn’t matter they’re not ‘club standard’ - its not as if the skills aren’t transferable or anything :wink:

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Yeah the layout, functionality, and operation are 99% identical to CDJs- anyone who came up to these after CDJs and had a familiarity problem would need their head examined!

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Bought them. Think I’m going to need to rebuild my desk to accommodate them and everything else. New mixer next!

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How do you get along with the “Engine” software? Always been interested in the 2900s, didn’t realise they could be bought for such a good price now! Thinking about selling my cdj 350s (everyone seems to hate these, but I genuinely think they are great little players, much better than my rmp3-alphas) but I’m tentative about leaving Rekordbox as I really like it.

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I think Engine is fantastic. It was big thing for me too as I’d used Rekordbox with my previous CDJ900s and loved it (when it worked).

Engine functions in exactly the same way- the layout is a little different (but all the major stuff is in the same place) but everything I did on RB I can do on Engine. There are even certain aspects of the layout I prefer in Engine such as having further criteria boxes above the main library box- where you can click any of the items (genre, artist name, bpm, year etc) and it automatically filters the library display by those critera- and they are stacking too so you could select a genre, then an artist, then a bpm and it would show just the tracks that fit those 3 criteria.

I’m sure you could probably do something similar in RB but I never got it working in ‘live mode’ enough to discover this (see below).

In terms of preparation you can do everything I could do in RB such as setting cue points & loops etc, it also shows you the big detailed waveform as in RB.

The main way I use Engine though is linked to my 2900s (via network cable) to use as a live music library to save exporting stuff to usb drives. In this respect it is excellent and it will run on the most basic of laptops (I used it initially on a small 10" netbook) with no problems at all.

It’s quite a solid performance option as when you load a track it loads it to the player and so the hardware is doing the work not the laptop like with traditional DJ software. The laptop just gives you a big browsing screen and access to all of your music. It’s worth pointing out too that when using it in this fashion you can use the 2900s transport controls to browse and select files from the laptop meaning you don’t need to touch the computer at all.

Obviously this was also possible with Rekordbox and my CDJ900s but I was only able to get it working on a handful of occasions and two of those times it crashed on me mid gig (luckily those were only mate’s house parties as I didn’t trust it for other gigs) That is probably the biggest thing for me with Engine though, reliability- Engine just ‘works’- every time without issue, where sadly RB didn’t (for me).

For what it’s worth I know lots of people who have no issues at all with Rekordbox so it’s clearly a hardware issue with users rather than the software but I simply couldn’t get it running stable on either of my 2 laptops or my high powered gaming desktop to be able to use it for live performance which is my biggest use of the two programs as I don’t do much track prep.

So yes overall I think it’s a great program. I still use Rekordbox now and again (and maintain a library) for creating the odd playlist for when I play on CDJs, and for me swapping between the two programs is just like using the same program in different skins.

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There’s a pretty good quick vid here that covers the 2900 but also gives a couple of screenshots of the Engine software on both computer and iPad: