First set of CDJs

DJ Gear & Hardware CDJ & Vinyl DJing
1

First set of CDJs

Hello folks, this is my first post so go easy on me.

I have been DJing for the past 3 years or so, using midi controllers and traktor. I have started landing some half decent gigs and have realised that using midi controllers in a club is a pain in the arse with finding space for my equipment and having to lug it around.

I want get some cdjs so I can just turn up with my cds and play on the house equipment. I would prefer to spend as little as possible (£800 max for a pair), so would probably be buying second hand. What cdjs should I be looking out for and things to watch out for when buying second hand??

Cheers for any advice

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If you plan on going straight CD without the need for using the computer, CDJ-800’s would be my first look. Otherwise if you’d be okay with a smaller platter, CDJ-400’s have the HID capabilities that would allow you to use them with Traktor fairly seamlessly.

And before someone pipes in with Denon being cheaper than Pioneer. Pioneer IS what’s in the clubs. So for me, that’s the big deciding factor right there between the two.

Other CDJ’s are more expensive. Just looking at prices here in the USA, I imagine those two CDJ types would still fit within your budget.

I don’t own them, so I can’t give you any pointers on what to look out for.

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You’re probably best going for some CDJ-800’s, I had a look on ebay and you’ll be able to pick up a pair within your price range. I haven’t personally played on a pair but I know friends who own them and haven’t had a bad thing to say about them

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Someone near me is selling two Pioneer CDJ 1000 mk2s for £400 a pop. I gather these are pretty old, so is there little point in buying these?

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Are they in good condition? That seems really cheap, definitely worth looking into if I was you

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They seem okay, a few scuffs but they are in full working order. So would they be worth getting over some new gemini cdjs?

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cdj 1000s are pretty nice. Nice jogs, etc.

I have own 400s,and now own 2000s. This is my ranking of CDJs in terms of quality. I’ve played out with ever CDJ out there.

CDJ 100-200. just too old, not worth owning anymore, no vinyl scratch more. I don’t think its fair to compare this to new ones.

cdj 350 is the worst of the bunch, imo the platter feels like hell. Plays USB drives, works with rekord box. Its not terrible, but the way the 350 feels is just a turn off to me.

CDJ 800 I like this CDJ, but I’ve seen so many have issues breaking. If you find a good deal and its a mk2 its worth it.

CDJ 400 Love this CDJ has all the capabilities of the larger guys, just smaller and a toy feeling jog, but still feels good. Plays USB drives. Screen maybe too small to read text all the way. HID/midi capable. On traktor its pretty damn cool, other buttons could be mapped. Plus it has built in effects which can be really fun as hell to use.

CDJ 1000 great platters. Get mk3 for mp3 capabilities. Club standard for a long time for a reason. Jog tension adjustment.

CDJ 900 good platters. USB, SD, Rekord box, quantize looping, slip mode. Pretty damn awesome. I almost went this route to save money until I found an amazing deal on 2000s. Work with next gen mixers well. Has Link cabilities to play off one thumb drive, SD card. HID capable.

CDJ 2000. Pretty much as good as it gets right now. Jogs of the 1000s, all the USB, SD, etc abilities, everything the 900 has plus more. Look amazing. Needle drop on tracks. BEAUTIFUL Screen, you can see everything so easily. Most of the button are lite up for easy viewing and pressing at the club. Work with next gen mixers well. bummer is its $$$$$$ and no slip mode.

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1000 Mk2’s do NOT play mp3 cd’s.

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yup sorry my bad. I forgot.

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I went to check out the cdj 1000s, they seem to be in good work order, is £400 for each deck a good price?

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is it the 1st gen cdj 1000?

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They are mk2’s

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That’s not a bad price for mk2s but they are missing quite a few features that you find on more modern decks. I have CDJ-850s which I got for £500 a piece (a little out of your price range but if you scour eBay and gumtree you could get lucky), and they’re great. They play all kinds of CDs and USB sticks, and they have midi and HID support. I use mine with serato and the response is brilliant with HID, but if you’re planning on using trad CDs anyway that’s probably not an issue. They have a nice big 1000 style jog wheel.

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fullenglishpint - like you say 1000mk2s are seriously out of date now and newer cdjs so many more features, I am struggling to justify the cost. How did you find yours for such a good price?

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I got them individually about 2 or 3 weeks apart, if I remember correctly one was from gumtree and the other was eBay. The key is to look for items that are local pickup only within a few miles of you (do you have a car? It helps, both of mine were from people in London). Local pickup limits the market and keeps the price down on eBay, and there are often people looking to sell quickly on both the aforementioned sites so they don’t charge full price.

I think I paid £970 in total for both and they are still in mint condition, I also got my mint DJM-800 for £670 with a bit of good luck on eBay. My biggest piece of advice is to be patient - there are normally quite a lot of these available and they go for quite a surprising range of prices, so don’t get caught up in a bidding war when there’ll be another one along soon.

Best of luck!

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Out of curiosity why is MP3/ USB playback such an important feature on CDJ’s. As most PC’s have a CDR burner why is it more convenient to have a tune on a dongle or whatever. I assume that on a USB device you could store dozens more tracks than you could on a CD (and at a high bitrate too), but is it not too much effort trying to locate your tracks when there’s so many of them on the one device. I spoke to a DJ a few years ago who said at first they were tempted to have 20 tracks on every CD in their record box but for the sake of clean organisation it was better just to only have a few per CD, sort of like how it’s rare for a 12" to have more than 4 tracks on it.

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Well you can organise a USB stick into folders however you like, so instead of carrying a wallet of 50 CDs around you could (if you wanted) have a USB stick which fits in your pocket with 50 folders. Then all you have to do is scroll, which is much quicker than messing around with CDs. A USB stick can’t get scratched either.

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That sounds okay. I suppose I was thinking in terms of it encouraging DJ’s to show up with their ipod full of shitty sounding illegal MP3s at atrociously low bitrates. Is sound quality an issue, ie. do the files on a dongle sound as good as CD’s.

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If they’re the same files they’ll sound just as good. You can’t plug an ipod into a CDJ anyway.

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I’d buy CDJ-1000s over any of the new ones if I were sure of quality.