Advice for an old vinyl DJ contemplating the move to digital
Hola, first time poster here. I wanted to drop a quick question to see if anyone could provide some advice on my best options for moving forward with digital dj’ing. By way of background, I first started DJ’ing in the late 90’s and was for all intents and purposes, a bedroom DJ. I played a handful of parties in college, and one “rave,” which was my biggest audience to date. In any event, I graduated college, tried to do some gigs in vegas - failed at getting in the door, and pretty much quit playing with any regularity once I got a full time job.
Fast forward 10 years, and I still have my 1200s and a crappy numark 2 channel mixer (with the faders now cracking), along with 500+ records of tunes, all from the 90s and early 2000’s. I pulled my equipment out of storage and started playing again for fun, which has been a blast, but the music is dated and I would like to be able to play some of the new tunes. Also, being able to incorporate my setup at a houseparty with friends using a pure controller/digital setup is a consideration. Thus, my foray into the digital music world. So here’s where we get down to my request:
I am considering Traktor Scratch Duo (no need to do pro as I only have 2 decks) for DVS control, but am worried that to have any fun with the additional controls/efx that the program provides, I will likely need to also get a midi controller of some sort (Kontrol X1 or Midifighter being the best options). Is this accurate, or are there people who just use the computer to plug songs into each deck? I guess coming from such a simple set up with no efx at all, I am kind of overwhelmed with the possibilities for on the fly remixing/looping that traktor provides, but without an effective means of using it it seems pointless.
Additionally, I really have an aversion to using any amount of “sync” functionality, as I do not feel like I would have fun doing mashups or quick 30 second blips of songs (like say Porter Robinson). I am much more into the classic 2 decks and a mixer style, with smooth transitions perceptible to those who are actually really listening (i.e., Josh Wink, Carl Cox, Digweed, et al. being more my style). Frankly, in playing around with my friends mixdeck with sync enabled it’s downright boring. As I said above, that could be fun if I was into mashing tracks together and layering 3-4 tracks on top of each other, but it’s just not my style at all, so no offense to those of you who love sync. My other issue is that I want/need to get a new mixer at some point, as the aforementioned numark mixer is on its last legs. So I am faced with some options:
(a) TSD + New mixer & maybe a controller = ~$700+.
(b) Denon MC6000 as a mixer/controller ($800ish) - I could then use it to control digital through traktor but still have two channels available for connecting my 1200’s and could play wax when warranted. Anyone have experience with the denon in a mixed analog/digital environment, or any other similar such device that will work with 2 phono inputs while still having digital control? My only fear with this is that the pitch faders on anything other than 1200’s or CDJ’s will not be precise enough, as I found to be with the mixdeck when manual beat-matching.
(c) Numark N4 ($500?) - I saw on Youtube that some guy was able to rig it with traktor pro using control vinyl with his 1200’s without an audio6/8/10. Has anyone else been able to get this to work, and is that a viable (and cheaper) option than going with the Denon MC6000?
(d) ???
Sorry for the long first post and I appreciate any help/suggestions. 
To that I might add the new Native Instruments F1. The Denon DNX 1600 is also something I would also check out. Good luck and welcome to the family! (of weirdos)