Going from Live to CDJs...

DJ Gear & Hardware CDJ & Vinyl DJing
1

Going from Live to CDJs…

Right now im performing out of Live and I love it. I really do. But I feel like less of a man because I have never had to learn how to beat match. Im pretty sure I have lost a few inches of little William because of it. That being said, im looking to pick up some CDJs just to learn how to beatmatch. I do not plan on taking them anywhere or beating on them so I was wondering if I could go the super cheap route. Does anyone think going with some gemini cdj700s is really stupid? I would REALLY like to stay under 1k usd for a set of cdjs. Any cdj guys have any suggestions or thoughts?

2

Do you specifically need CDJs? The DDJ SX has the same layout and doesn’t cost too much.

3

I have lots of nice controllers. Im trying to get away from them to practice.

4

Don’t do it. If you get on fine with Live, stick with it.

5

Have a look at some second hand listings for CDJ 850s or SC 2900s if you need USB for your music.

6

Yea, I love performing out of live but it gets to the point where I dont feel you are “DJing”, thats kind of why I want to learn some stuff on the CDJs.

I have looked at used and im not opposed to it. I dont know how old I would go with pio CDJs. I have read alot about sticking with 900s or later. But even used pio 900s will run WELL over 1k for 2…

7

I own a XDJ-R1. You can’t use it for DVS, but it is stand-alone like any two-channel CDJ/DJM-setup. It cost me about 450€ used which is less than $1000. I love the unit, because it is by far the best deal with Rekordbox-compability. I see only three possible reasons why you might want other gear:

  1. If you don’t need rekordbox and pioneer quality than there is more powerful and/or cheaper gear by other brands than pioneer for less than $1000
  2. The pitch faders are not the best (a bit too short) , though you get used to them after a while.
  3. Only two channels and not really able to upgrade (can be used as a standalone mixer though).

There are some more aspects why people sometimes recommend 350s or 400s (eg. loop control - you only have auto beat loop on the XDJ-R1), but I’d go with the XDJ-R1 over one of them. (XDJ has hot cues a sampler, more effects than its competitors, etc.)

8

Pioneer CDJ 800’s, Stanton CMP800’s, SC 2900’s & Gemini CDJ700’s are all perfectly good for learning to beatmatch if you want a CD player. I went for the Stantons purely because my local DJ store had a deal on them. The good thing about the stantons/Denons/Gemini’s is that they are all midi mappable I believe so I mapped my stantons in Traktor so that I’m not having to continually burn CD’s or format USB sticks.

9

If you learn to beat-match, it might give you a better appreciation of the power of Live.

Live is a humongous MONSTER and if they ever implement decent timezone/DVS I’ll wet my pants.

10

Thanks for the input till and kooper.

Patch, I couldnt agree with Ill.gates more, “I would brush my teeth with Ableton if I could…”

I appreciate it a lot… :slight_smile:

I was just looking at something like this:

https://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/msd/4348463076.html

granted the speakers are not worth much to me, for $960 its hard to go wrong with 2 cdjs and a 4 channel mixer. Again, just for practice purposes.

Parties will remain to be performed with live, ohmrgb and a MF…

11

I have 800mk2 CDJs and they are fine. No USB, just cd. I use em with Traktor unless I decide to go cd only.