I play Tech, Deep and Progressive House. I’m still waiting for a good deal on CDJs-2000 because without them, I can’t use all of the features on it, but it’s already pretty amazing with my CDJ-400.
Right now, I love using the screen for the effects. I find it a lot easier to control my effects with a x/y thing (a bit like the Kaoss Pad and other similar effectors). I also really like the “kind of” loop recorder/sampler (I unfortunately don’t know how they call this feature… but Pioneer uses it in some of its demo videos). It’s so easy to control the length of the loop and with which beat you want to play.
I can’t tell you I fell in love with that mixer months and months ago and been waiting for the perfect deal. I bought it with the intention to re-sell it after the party I’m hosting in a few weeks. But I can tell you that now I’ve played with it, it is not leaving the house. EVER. If you have the chance to play with it before you buy it, do it. For me, the screen is an amazing tool, but if you’re not gonna use it, go for the 900 + rmx. I know that most of my friends wouldn’t buy it, but for me, it’s the most amazing piece of equipment I own.
Big ups man. You really love this thing. I live in a small town so it might be tricky to find a place when I can audition a 2000 next to a 900+RMX side by side though.
When investing this type of money, it might be worth the drive (I don’t know how far you live from a bigger city, but I’m 1hr away from the closest DJ store, so I know what you mean, we’re not just a bus ride away). I would offer you to stop by here but I doubt you’re near Montreal LOL.
If it really is impossible for you to try it, look at every possible YT video you can find and compare your workflow, your genre, how you use effects with what you see in the vids. There’s unfortunately not that much you can do without having it at hands.
On this, good luck! Hopefully you will pick the right one for you!
-Yup, as explained above, the sound card has a few different “modes,” but recording and 4 stereo outs are both catered for.
-The screen has 6 “modes” Ill break them down and summarize.
“Mix” mode, the default screen. When turned on, acts as a crossfader between 2 selected channels, split between 7 frequency bands from high to low. Basically allows you to blend between channels at a “7 band EQ” basis, rather than a “volume” or “3 band EQ” used by default on a mixer. Also meters by the 7 bands, so an interesting way of visualising tracks even when you’re not directly mixing with it. Fun fact: when mixing in the headphones, this has a tendency to sound a little “resonant” as in slightly screechy when pulling the lower harmonic bands out before the root sounds (use a high pass filter with medium resonance to hear what I mean), but in the recording/master mix, it sounds rather smooth.
“Sidechain Remix” mode. Has a variety of sounds and such that can be triggered by a 3 band sidechain (selectable between all 3 bands) on any channel. A fun way to add some volume to an otherwise sparse track, or just mess around with loops and such. Also recently added a manual trigger, so you can do Kaoss Pad style patterns.
“MIDI” mode. The screen can act as a lemur style controller if you use a DIN/USB MIDI output (doubled up with the sound card) to a DVS or Ableton. There are 4 styles of screen, with two pages (two duplicate, numbered pages) per style. In the manual, there’s a full diagram of what the styles and each layout of the screens look like. Its extremely well suited to Ableton, but also maps intuitively with Traktor. If you’re using Traktor alongside the 2000, combined with the sound card, you can really play comfortably with no extra hardware, allowing you to ditch the X1 and external card.
“Beat Slice” mode. This is a new one. It grabs a 4 or 8 beat sample of audio (quantized) and loops it. From there, it acts like a slightly more expressive version of the Twitch’s slicer mode, with 4 different time intervals to instantaneously repeat from any one of the quantized beats recorded. With full visualisation of the loop and what you’re repeating. It lets you slice and mangle a loop without much effort involved.
“Sync Master” mode. Also a new one. If you’re using Nexus decks with sync, it acts as a sync control for any Linked in deck, and allows you to set the master from the screen, as well as use an independent clock on the mixer for the master. Basically makes the two sync controls on the Nexus decks redundant, and saves you the trouble of buttons back and forth. If you use sync, the ability to use the mixer as the master clock alone gives you Traktor level sync control.
“Live Sampler” mode. This is a bit of a secret in that it’s not the most useful thing in general, but awesome when you find a use for it. It basically records an 8 second sample of the raw mic input, or the master output, and saves it as a temporary file that can be loaded to any Linked in deck. Think of it as a slightly cut down version of Traktor’s loop recorder.
-An RMX doesnt really give you much beyond a different set of effects in addition to what you have onboard. It doesn’t address any of the issues with the 900, but it does add to the horsepower substantially. It won’t fix your filters, or give you any increased control over the basic effects, but it does add to your effects “flexibility.” In my opinion, they look like a lot of fun, but Id rather put off purchasing one in favour of having a much more solid foundation in my setup. “More” effects may be awesome, but the extra ~$500 you’re paying for the two won’t make the mixer’s basics any more versatile.
Nah, I just have an affinity for hardware. I’m actually relatively familiar with a large amount of equipment, I just happen to own a full set of 2000’s.
I’ve noticed that the signal processing of the 900 has a slightly warmer sound than the 2000. the touch screen overtime becomea more of a distraction then a tool. remember the djm909? go with the 900nx mate. have a blast on it. its a fun mixer and can take some heat.
What do you mean by warmer? I also feel this way about the Touch Screen, it has a lot of very redundant control it seems next to my custom mappings I already use for my other controllers.
