Some people (like myself) don’t buy dj gear because why would i need it? I Dj in a club that has cdj2000s i only take my headphones and usbs to gigs if i had gear it’d be sitting there collecting dust.
All you are missing is the experience of using cdj’s. it’s a great experience but not one worth thousands of $ £ or € if you are going to be using digital music. Using cdj’s with timecoded CDs, USB sticks or even in HID with traktor makes them VERY expensive controllers. Great if you can afford it but you lose nothing by not having them if you can’t afford it of have better things to spend your money on!
That’s you’re opinion on the rational of running a successful business and really has no bearing on the fact the multiple corporations and markets have different standards and procedures followed by principle. Companies either provide a service or a product and in some market’s both. Not to mention making money for share holders and such is only weighed if the company has gone public. This also mean’s that just as all company’s that are successful is because of profit motive and they will achieve this whatever the means but ultimately is still reliant on the consumer! With out the consumer who will purchase the companies product or service? If the consumer doesn’t approve of the companies practices they will find a substitute product and that will put pressure on the company to change there ways. Does it always work? No. But consumers have as much of a voice in the market because they are the factor of demand for a product or service.
I’m not being naive, a free market system is very complex with many factors to it and to claim that every business is not in service for the consumer is a claim that lacks any real data. But what is fact is that the company serves the consumer weather its through products or service. This is not conspiracy! This is one of the main rules that form an economy. Shareholders dont drive profits for the company, consumers do!
Let me give a lesson in economics. Shareholders have very limited power in a company, they vote for a board of directors who make the business decisions. The shareholders are paid dividends on what the company make’s in profit because they own part of the company through funding from purchasing stocks. If the consumer disagrees with business practices they have the power to stop purchasing the product which entails lower profits. If the shareholders think the company is not doing good business they can either vote for a new board of directors or sell their stocks. Ultimately shareholders have no bearing on what a company does for business they only put their funding in the company.
Im not trying to put you down but I don’t see any market data to back up you’re claim unless you are an employee for one of the companies mentioned, and if you really are can you show financial records to prove you’re point? You’re claim according to education of how an economy works is completely false a successful business exists to serve consumers those are the principles of a free market system which is the confines of what these companies reside in. No consumer = No profits
At least as far as the S4 and the software being locked to that hardware to begin with; I looked at that much more as a public beta test than as NI seeing what they could get away with. Given what I’ve read about the remix decks, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they’re going to be the same. Have patience, friends.
Learning how to use industry standard gear which you may need to in the event that:
- Laptop/Controller Breaks or Malfuctions
- Arrive at a venue where there is no room / no easy method of setting up.
Take Graphic artists, they use photoshop because its an industry standard even if Gimp can do some tasks better and its free. A company wont hire you if you don’t know the standards why should a club.
IMHO of course - I’m aware things are changing in favor of Controllers being more widely accepted but thing are not quite there yet.
@ Gallorance
I’m not going to quote you but the fact remains, businesses exist to make money in whatever they produce. If more F1’s can be sold and the hardware lock sabotages sales of a competitors product then thats the route they will take.
Sure businesses need to serve a purpose, and NI do that pretty well IMHO. Also If people want something different though there is not really that much choice right now that I’m aware of that can provide the same amount of features at that price or that hardware setup - correct me if I’m wrong?
The issues with the hardware lockout will ONLY apply to the people who utilize their software in a way other than designed anyhow - which was to utilize the RGB color pads via HID on their particular controller
As regards the shareholders thing, a company has a responsibility to its shareholders to make profit which was my point, if they aren’t seen to make profits as you say a new board could be voted in so they will do their damnest to try to keep the majority of customers happy while locking down as much as possible so users will not even investigate competitors controllers as an option.
I can respect a decision to lock down stuff based on the needs of the many to make it simpler vs the needs of the few who want to dabble - and given that its a pretty cheap controller for the features and software that are included.
And no I don’t have any shares.
Out
You don’t need to own cdj’s to know how to use them. Your statement suggests that you can’t beatmatch on cdj’s unless you own them. This just isn’t true at all. You can learn to beatmatch on any other controller and that skill can be transfered to a cdj. If you started your quest to be a dj on turntables (like I did) and learned your skills there then the transition to using cdj’s was a very easy one!!
It’s not even like learning your way around a cdj is difficult. You have a play button, a cue button and two buttons to skip through tracks. How much time does one require to become accustomed to those simple controls.
As for preparation - first of all a dj who takes a gig without knowing what equipment is available or even what space is available for their own equipment, is just plain unprofessional and doesnt deserve the gig in the first place. Its this mind of sloppy preparation that gives djs a bad name.
[QUOTE]You don’t need to own cdj’s to know how to use them. Your statement suggests that you can’t beatmatch on cdj’s unless you own them.
It’s not even like learning your way around a cdj is difficult. You have a play button, a cue button and two buttons to skip through tracks. How much time does one require to become accustomed to those simple controls.
[/QUOTE]
I agree wholeheartedly, its not rocket science little about DJ’ing is, and I don’t necessarily mean everyone (or anyone) should have CDJ’s at home, but everyone should be comfortable in using “standard” DJ gear and being able to use it proficiently IMHO.
And for the record, no I don’t own Pio’s - I probably would buy an Aero for the Rekordbox feature perhaps, I could simply not justify the size or price of a CDJ setup for home.
[QUOTE]Learning how to use industry standard gear which you may need to in the event that:
Laptop/Controller Breaks or Malfuctions
Arrive at a venue where there is no room / no easy method of setting up.[/QUOTE]
What I probably should have said perhaps is:
Shit happens and you’ll still be expected to play, and play well on whats provided at the venue - so get comfy.
I’ve never seen a “Kontroller” last more than a year of sustained playing out. CDJ-2000s may cost you approximately 4x as much for a full setup (assuming you already own a high end laptop), but the CDJ-2000 Mk1’s are going on 3 years strong. I’ve played on CDJ-1000 Mk1/2’s (with a fresh laser, Jesus knows how long a USB drive will last) that are pushing a decade old.
You may be paying “an absurd amount,” or whatever the euphemism of the night for CDJ prices are, but the fact remains that you will without a doubt get at least 5+ years out of your investment, if you don’t decide to sell it for most of what you paid for it. With the Kontrol series, you’ll get bargain bin components that fall apart in your hands over the course of a year or two of outboard use.
So realistically, if you plan on DJing for any extended period of time, you’re literally wasting your time and money by buying an S4 over CDJs. Your Kontroller will wear out and break, and you will have to replace it with another. CDJs very rarely “break,” almost never beyond simple repair, and virtually never wear out. Kontrollers get broken and scrapped, CDJs get retired for updated gear.
Another one of these CDJ vs Controller threads. Just great.
I agree.
It’s like, what is the OP expecting to happen? Why do we have a collective responsibility to promote CDJs?
That’s what’s in clubs now but it used to be 1210s and everyone said “let’s fight to keep vinyl alive, don’t use CDJs”.
If you came from vinyl you’ve seen this all before. The future will be what it will be, regardless if we say to every newbie “use CDJs”.
The future will shape itself and it’s obvious controllers are part of that future which is why Pioneer are making controllers too, for every level (Ergo, Aero, DDJSX)
The truth is CDJs ARE controllers anyway. They control digital files
Returning to the initial topic of newbies being too vocal, asking too many questions and thinking they’re awesome, this is my view.
There are always going to be newbies who should have read the manual more thoroughly before posting. There are also always going to be guys who think they know everything after playing with their friend’s S2 for an hour. As more senior forum members with more experience, we could be dickish and just reply to everything with an RTFM, and as a mod I could simply delete all the stupid newbie questions. But that is totally against the ethos of this forum. If people had answered my questions like that when I joined I doubt I would have stayed, and even though the membership of DJTT has more than quadrupled since I joined (I’m member #20000) I like the fact that people are still mostly friendly, unlike a lot of other forums out there.
You don’t have to answer simple questions, no one’s forcing you to. Fortunately there are other people on the forum who are more helpful. Personally if we’re going to lose members somewhere, I’d prefer we alienated unhelpful and unfriendly people rather than discouraging new guys with put downs and disparaging remarks.
And whiskeyflip, you say one of the problems is anonymity, but you go on to state that you “have written thousands of posts over many accounts”. Would you care to mention what your former usernames were? You seem to be throwing quite a lot of stones from a rather fragile looking glass house.
Technically, what we hope will happen is controllers stop being atrociously made, and CDJs stop being the only durably viable solution for a standalone setup. It’s not really “CDJ vs controller” as much as it is “Cheap shit vs quality gear,” it just so happens that CDJs are a quality landmark over 99% of the controller offerings on the market. The paradigm is pretty much irrelevant, it’s the quality of the products in question that’s the issue.
Saying “controllers are part of the future” is rather pointless, because the laptop involved will always be a serious break point in a setup. Seeing a gravitation towards high quality standalone gear, or even reasonable solid controllers, and carving out a professional standard would be a great thing. Meanwhile, “Just get an S4!” the cycle continues, equipment with a shelf life continues being profitably popular, and hence this thread.
It’s also very depressing to note that 3 massive landmarks in DJ technology: Tank beginner controller, viable standalone system, and theoretically bullet-proof controller, have all been made by… Pioneer… Ugh.
I’m old enough and level headed enough to not care what people think about how or why I do something. I also have the seemingly rare ability to ignore the things I don’t like rather than stress over them.
At this point in time I really can’t see any reason why there is completely standalone “cdm style” controllers with all the bells and whistles of traktor/vdj/serato etc already being built … the CPU power is out there to do it considering you’d only need one effect engine per deck , the effects engines exist, the sceens are there, the hardware is there and CDJ’s still have bloody CD drives.
No Doubt pioneer have built this device already and its in the works to be released in around 2020 after the failure of the CDJ4000 nexus with optical cue tracking that never worked properly when operated by DJ’s who have lazy eye from too much JD 
Thank you. This is a place for information and happiness for newbies. I’m glad I can turn to this community for help or I can help others with the knowledge I have.
and that’s why we’ll never work as a couple 
You guys are putting words in my mouth about CDJs..Read what I said. I don’t think I even used the word CDJ once… I’m not saying professionals use CDJs or anything like that at all. I’m saying that people should be building better, more informed setups. Some people would benefit from vinyl, from CDJs etc, some peopel wouldn’t. Build the specifics however you like. I don’t own CDJs myself and don’t plan to. The point is that the shitty all-in-one platform is not the most conducive system for nearly as many people as own them, they just buy them because they’re new and uninformed. It’s not a necessary step at all. If they asked what to buy, and people who actually know what they’re talking about answered more numerously than other newbies telling them to buy S2/S4’s, they’d be able to get a set up they’d be happier with, probably for the same price. If you want to, you can build yourself a setup that is MUCH better tailored to what you want, for WAY cheaper than buying a shitty all-in-one controller and a midi fighter to spam trigger effects on…
When you buy a shitty setup like that, because people told you they’re great, you naturally adapt to the limits of the controller, instead of finding fault in it… Which you should never have to do. I can attest to this, I bought an S4 when they first came out and thought I loved it, and then eventually realized I was adapting the way I wanted to play based around it’s limitations.
Fullenglishpint etc:
My two or three last posts explain why it is important for the culture to be educated… Because it influences the meta-scene. For example, it’s just like why we should be talking about progressive things like alternative fuels etc. to make them more mainstream concepts.
There isn’t a problem with newbies ASKING questions, the problem is newbies ANSWERING questions, and speaking as if they knew what they were talking about. I just explained the tangible repercussions of this, with the S2/S4/F1’s locked-down system that doesn’t serve the customer as well as it would if the community was more vocal about not letting them get away with it.
Whisky, are you new to the internet? EVERY forum I have ever been on, whether surf, skate, dj, guitar, and on and on and on, there has always been one thing: new people with more stoke about something that they have just found than an entire board of people that found it years ago. This new stoke means that some of these people are going to regurgitate any information they have read/ heard. As a forum, a community, it is our job as older members (not you, welcome to the forum by the way), or educated members (you?) to help out these newbs who are making mistakes.
If you don’t want to help, don’t join a forum, or at the very least, ignore their posts.
On the topic of gear: one of the main reasons that the S2, S4, launchpad etc etc gets recommended so much, is there are a lot of people here with that gear, and with that comes support for someone new who is having issues.
Mellow out bro, you were new and ignorant about something at some point in your life and had to learn somehow.
I’ve been on this forum for years now. And it’s something that I love. I don’t always post all the time, nor is it always useful.
But I started out as a guy who was listening to music and wanted to take things to the next level. Through various means, found myself here.
Now I actually am getting some (paid) gigs. Which I’m so proud about and love.
But without DJTT? I wouldn’t have gotten here.
I research the shit out of things. While I ended up going with a Serato, 1200’s, Rane TTM-56 setup… the information here and the help has been golden. Everyone NEEDS to make the final decisions for themselves.
But as far as helping people learn? Why not? Why not encourage the fuck out of innovation and new ideas? If they suck, let them know it. If it doesn’t? AWESOME.
No need to worry about new people learning other than helping them get to the point of being awesome. I’d love to be blown away by every DJ I see. If this doesn’t happen, then it gives me (and I hope others) more motivation to succeed.
If people are willing to come here and ask for help? Well fuck, awesome.
I’m no guru. I’ve grown up here just like a lot of other people. But what I want? Awesome music and people dedicated to bringing that to people at shows. If people are willing to ask for help, then damn, I’ll do what I can. And I’ll also ask questions myself, this is a hobby/profession than never stops evolving.
Well yes.
The way i see it, there is a loose.
The more money a person is spending on gear the more established and skilled we expect the DJ to be.
Key word there is EXPECT