A little help?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

A little help?

I’ve made a mistake!

I was surfing the Pioneer forums and listened to everyone over there and purchased the CDJ-400’s and a DJM-400. They are great, absolutely fantastic, but they aren’t what I thought they would be. I thought they would be able to be used “natively” with software, but quickly realized all the claims over at the Pioneer forums were completely false and more of a “some day it will work”.

I got my equipment and started surfing around for some solutions and stumbled on this site. I love it, there are no payed employees hyping a product which is great for the truth. This community is exactly what I was looking for.

Well, anyways, I realized I purchased the wrong equipment, I can’t use it like I wanted, and when I do, it just becomes a midi controller and I lose all the functions that I payed the money for.

I am going to be sending everything back tomorrow. I’ve done my fair share of research but I have a few questions and I would like to do a direct exchange.

What I initially wanted to do was mix songs together and call vocal samples from a pad type system on the fly. I am having a hard time figuring everything out. How would I go for the sampling aspect while keeping it in time. What I mean is I would like to have a song at 102 BPM’s playing and load an acapella with a catchy chorus or “call and response” type thing and utilize some type of “key” lock on the voice track but just speed/slow down the BPM of the sample. I would also like to pull up a song at 92 BPM’s and play that exact same sample. I may be unclear with exactly what I am trying to get at, I hope what I just said makes sense.

What truely is going to be the best solution for me? I’d like your opinion!

I’ve been viewing the VCI-100 with a M-Audio Trigger Finger and it seems like it is what I need. I realize there are other controllers JUST around the bend, but I am extremely anxious to get started.

Again, I usually don’t ask for specific advice on MY setup, but I pressed for time on exchange. I don’t want to make another mistake, I just want honest opinions and advice from someone that doesn’t see money from giving advice.

Http://www.djtechtools.com has been extremely helpful, you have quite the site going here Ian, keep up all the fantastic work!

2

The simple answer: use Ableton Live.

The DJM400 does not have any midi capability (from what I’m reading). The CDJ400 does. Are you trying to use it with Traktor or Serato or something like that?

What kind of software have you looked at or tried?

I generally also tell people not to buy midi controllers until they realize what it is they want to do…put a lot of time into research. Seriously.

3

Thanks for the input!

Currently I have tried out Serato, Traktor, Virtual DJ and Pioneer DVS and Ableton.

To me, Traktor seems like the most powerful solution for me. Ableton is nice, I’ve actually created a few mash-up’s in Ableton, but my mixes are going to include hip-hop and rap with real quick cuts, baby scratches, etc into the next song.

I actually like how you can throw samples in Virtual DJ, I absolutely love that aspect of VDJ, but Traktor has so many possibilities for looping and what is being to referred to as “controllerism” which is going to be a huge part of what I am trying to do.

Thanks again in advance!

4

depending on what type of functionality you need, you can use both cdj400’s to control 4 decks in tracktor AND play regular cd’s

it’s all in how you set up your midi functions my man.

why not look into an allen and heath xone:1d?

5

Again, thanks for the response!

To tell you the truth, I would really like to get away from CD’s…

I played my first house party the other night and I midi mapped my CDJ-400 to control Traktor but $2000.00 is a lot of money for a controller, ya know? I didn’t switch to CD mode once and realistically I could have done all the controlling from my computers keyboard, although it would be a pain in the butt.

I really am thinking about going with the VCI-100 OR the Novation ReMOTE 25 SL for a controller. I am a little hesitant to go with the VCI-100 since the 300’s release is just around the bend. I may just purchase the Novation with a nice external sound card and go that route for the time being.

6

I have the Remote25sl…it’s great…i bought a foot pedal and i can just switch between 4 decks if i wanted

Whatever works for ya man…just keep looking and reading to understand the technology.

7

Oh, and I see you are from Detroit! I used to live near the D about 6 years ago, I lived in Allen Park, Mi.

Are you going to Movement?