Looking to upgrade, extremely indecisive. Help?

DJ Gear & Hardware Hardware: Controllers, Mods and Gear
1

Looking to upgrade, extremely indecisive. Help?

I’ve been in the market for a while wanting to upgrade from my Traktor S2 Mk2.

I play mostly trap, various electronic dance genres, then a little side of everything else when needed.
I am more on the beginners side of things, but I want to have the most value from my setup so that I can learn a little of everything over time (live remixing, turntables, becoming a better dj overall, etc.) I just want to be able to do it all basically.

I’m now at the point that I am leaning towards the following setups (with reasoning):

-Traktor S8 (Screens, remixing, all in one, has so much growth potential, adding cdjs or turntables later will add platters)

-Pioneers upcoming RDJ-RX (All in one, NO LAPTOP NEEDED, screens with stacked view, setup is identical to club CDJ setups)

-Keeping my Traktor S2 Mk2 and adding 2 of the upcoming Traktor D2s (Adds screens, indepth remix control, new control over tracks such as pitch bending, traktors freeze mode)

-Lastly, im open to suggestions on other setups such as Traktor Z2 with turntables, etc. Whatever you can come up with.

I would like to stick to Traktor, but I am open to Recordbox. I do not want to get into Serato. Just my preference.

I know I wrote a bunch of stuff, but can anyone give me a little insight? I just want my next investment to become my new long term setup, and I want to choose correctly you know?

2

There is no correct answer, you will get opinions that’s all - and the opinion that matters most is your own.

Is there anywhere you can go try hardware out before buying?
I find getting hands on the equipment makes up your mind for you usually.

3

STOP. Do not buy anything…for a while.

Think about what you want your workflow to look like. Learning a little of everything is best done by renting/borrowing gear. Wait to purchase until you have a better idea of what you will like.

I am taking a more modular approach. X1’s, MF Twister, external mixer or A&H Xone K1 for four channel control. It works for me, I can pack it into any number of laptop/gig bags, and I can fit it into just about any available booth space. That’s me. My setup works for ME with my constraints and workflow. I started with a VCI-100, moved to an S2, then to this setup. I stayed with each setup for 2 or 3 years…and really got to know how to use them to accomplish what I wanted to do.

Meanwhile, as much as I like the S8, it looks like the size of a 1/4 sheet of plywood to me…and that would not fit into ANY of the places I commonly play. YMMV.

4

Traktor D2’s with a DJM 900 or Allent and Heath DB2 or 4. I would also rent or find somewhere to practice on the DJM and CDJ Nexus setups, have it set up to run on your computer so that you can drop into clubs, plug in and play without all the fuss for those locations where you can’t deal with the fuss.

5

I realize that it often balls down to your own personal choice, I have a local guitar center but their Traktor S8 is only on display, and the XDJ-RX as well as Traktor D2 is yet to be released just yet.

I think what my main decision choice balls down to is this:

XDJ-RX = No laptop (more crowd interation), plug and play in clubs (its framework is almost identical to cdjs)

Traktor S8/D2 = I prefer the software (i’ve often tried a friends serato/ddj setup, so much growth into eventually doing live remixs, STEMs audio format will release soon and although it is open source it will integrate into Traktor software directly)

So should I go for the professional/convenient setup or the ability to create niche mixes with Traktors unique features?

6

I pretty much did my homework on all the products I am looking at features wise. I have not gotten to physically test anything though (My guitar center has almost nothing setup to test). I would love to test everything first, just have little to no options to do so.

Ultimately I am deciding between convenience (XDJ-RX) or customization (Traktor S8/D2) in my opinion.