I’ve decided to make the jump from Controllers to CDJs completely now.
As such, I’m wondering what to look for when I pick up a set of decks and a mixer?
This is mostly to force myself to stop staring at my laptop whilst playing out and hopefully fine-tune my ear a bit more.
I’m actually fairly clueless about CDJs. Like when I have to play on them, it’s literally just plugging in a couple of USBs and CUE>PLAY from track A>B. No fancy effects, loops or cue points. It’s a bit dull really
How important is it to get a solid pair? Keep in mind they won’t leave the house. Purely for home use.
How beneficial is it to be able to hook them up to Traktor?
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
CDJ & Vinyl forum, you will find many threads that answers your questions. But to get you started.
if you want to force yourself to stop looking at your laptop, without spending lots on CDJ’s traktor Preferences > decks > change deck size to micro. also turn the phase meters of. this will stop you from using the phase meter and looking at the waveform cause there wont be one and move your laptop a few feet away to the side so its not directly infront of you.
When Djing with a simple 2 CDJ and mixer setup, unless you have some state of the art CDJ’s and or mixer, you will not be able to do fancy things such as sampling or even effects. also if you are new to CDJ’s all your time will be concentrated on Beat matching therefore giving you less time to play with effects, once beat matching is second nature you will then discover all this free time in which you can go crazy with.
Some mid range CDJ’s Pioneer and Denon are both very good brands for CDJ’s. such as CDJ 400’s or even some american audio ones.
If your only going to be using your CDJ’s at home and don’t play any gigs its most probably not that beneficial to purchase CDJ’s at all, might aswell just use an ordinary controller with traktor. However if you play out requarly in clubs with installed hardware purchasing a traktor box is useful as it means you dont have to drag a controller into the booth and whatnot…
thats the basics … some simple searches can go more in depth.
I know how yo feel. Wanted to make the move myself, but I can’t afford it at the moment / I am saving up some some technics and DVS system.
My advice is buy some new generation ones. 350’s, 850’s 900’s second hand, but wait until you see them going for cheap on ebay or gumtree. Use them for a few months until you are comfortable with them, and then sell them on for the same if not more than what you bought them for.
And if you really love them and think they are worth the money you spent on them in the first place then keep them
I’m not planning on using Traktor. It’s why I want to switch. I was asking how much benefit there is in having CDJs that are compatible with Traktor.
850s and 900s are obviously a good choice. I’m just wondering how much better they are than the competition?
I mean, with durability not really being the issue since I won’t take them outside.
How much better are they than other brands for just mucking about on?
My main goal is to explore what I can do with CDJs, are pioneers that much better than the alternatives? I’ve never used anything other than 1000s and 2000s at clubs so I have nothing to compare them to
OP you sound confused buddy - what are your reasons for wanting to change?
The only one you gave above was to stop yourself staring at your laptop - seems a weird reason.
this. ive just learned to dim/semi-close/move my laptop away from me so im not staring at it. i mean if you have the money, then by all means go for it… but if budget is an issue, just close the lid of the laptop slightly so you’re not looking. or move it. or make the wave forms smaller.
My take is that his sets on CDJ’s are “dull” because when on a controller he relies on his laptop much, and therefore is out of his comfort zone when using CDJ’s.
The CDJ 850’s are great and you can find them for under $600 a piece new. If you want to do a lot of looping then go for the 900s or better. The newer Denon decks are nice as well but I don’t like that you only get one line of text on the screen, hard for scrolling through larger playlists. Don’t get any other CD decks besides these. BTW this guy was asking about CDJs and not Traktor vs CDJs. If you got the dough. Go for it.
I made the switch from S4/Traktor to CDJ 2000’s and a DJM900Nxs. For ‘me’ the switch was amazing cause I now enjoy playing music more. I dont ride the wave, I use my ears more, beatmaching has improved and I dont have anymore problems with traktor sometimes skipping my tracks. The 2000’s screen retains the advantages of a large screen(similar to laptop) with only a basic waveform. I know others wont get the same satisfaction out of it but ‘to each their own’. If your on a budget(who isnt right?) I would go with the 850 or 900 used. I got my 2000’s used for an amazing price cause im not a rich dude.
To know what to expect in the mean time, leave the browser screen on in traktor and mix with your ears.
I made the jump from my S4 (first piece of kit I ever owned) to CDJ’s and let me tell you something. After 15 minutes or so of figuring out how to use the CDJ’s I fell in love with them. I felt (and feel) a different connection to my music. I could go on for a while, but I absolutely loved the switch and I am happy I made it.
And at first the screen and browsing bugged me on the 850’s but I realize now that having less functionality on the CDJ’s and less fancy shit on the 850’s is an amazing training wheel, because now when I go to a club and they have their 2000’s my performance will only be cleaner, and I can have more fun with the features while knowing I can hold down a great set even without them.
I play out using my DDJ SX and sometimes a pair of cdj2000 (mostly in advanced hid mode) I have my laptop to the side never straight infront of me. When on CDJ2000 I never look at the Laptop screen because I can brows on the CDJ but when I use the DDJ SX I only look at the laptop when looking for a song. My advice is stop looking at the screen look at the crowed try to make contact with them. You’ll have more fun and after some time you forget the laptop and will become natural to only look at it when finding songs.
From what I read, you should only look into getting the 350, 850, 900 or 2000.
350 and 850 are more “bedroom” equipment. The 900 and 2000 really separates itself from that category. They’re a lot more professional.
Honestly though, choosing a mixer is a lot more important in my opinion. Really look into what you want. What features do you want? Do you want to manually use effects or it doesn’t bother you if it’s automatically synced with the bpm? Because only a hand full of DJMs you can actually manually control the filter.
Here’s a comparison list of the 850, 900 and 2000.
I’m still studying so my budget isn’t massive. But I’m allowing myself 1.5k for two CDJs and a mixer.
Cheers buddy.
Yeah, I agree that Pioneer are definitely the way to go. I’d obviously prefer the 900s over the 850s but every so often someone sells a pair around here for under 800 so I don’t think I can pass them up
The only reason I would switch is to get rid of DVS… I do not see the point of cdjs and the use of any DVDs system PERIOD. Especially if its the new ones with USB and networking options. Hybrid mode or not you can do the same thing within the DVS so why make it more complicated and use both.
New mix vibes cross promo with 4 CDs and DVS in hybrid mode…WHY OH WHY
