I’ve been dj-ing with vinyl for +10 years now.
As I’m spinning more and more in small bars instead of parties, I’m getting kinda bored dragging crates of vinyl around everytime and being constrained to my vinyl collection. I love the medium but it’s a bit overkill in those places. Not to mention all the great music that’s nearly impossible to find on vinyl.
So I decided to take my first steps into the digital route.
Finding a suitable dj controller has been harder that I thought it would be. Most come with build in soundcards, which I don’t need (I have a very good soundcard already with lots of I/O).. What I do need is very simple: a long pitch fader comparable to that what you find on an SL-1200, a cuewheel to position in the track and some extra controls so that I don’t have to use a mouse.
This is more problematic than I expected.. Most controllers have very small faders. Others don’t even have them and use inc/dec buttons. It’s crazy: does the software do all the “hard work”?
I also don’t care about having 100 buttons on the thing. I just wanna spin music, beatmatch every now and then. I don’t see why I should be playing with loops, fx, samples or whatnot…
I’ve been checking all sorts of websites and brochures the past week, reading on this forum too..
The only DJ controller that seemed to fit my wishes perfectly was the EKS XP5.. It has a long alps pitch fader, big cuewheel, minimum control surface, small footprint,.. The only drawback is the built in soundcard: I don’t need it.
Another problem is that most units have a “mixer” section.. I prefer an analogue mixer over a digital midi controller anytime. The places I dj are equipped with Rodec mixers. I love mixing on them. I really don’t want to use a digital control to mix.
The VCI-100 seems nice, but is quite expensive too.. It doesn’t have long pitchsliders, and it comes with a mixersection I wouldnt use.
Every single standalone controller I’ve seen either lacks a pitchslider or a cuewheel.
I don’t get it.. I still haven’t found what I need and I think I’ve checked pretty much everything.
The best thing about the Traktor MIDI combination is that you can map everything to your own taste.
If you don’t like the pitch faders on the VCI, and don’t need the volume faders, remap pitch to the volume faders, you’ll have longer faders. You can map all the buttons, knobs and faders to your own taste, complete freedom.
If you do go for a VCI, I’d recommend a FW1.4 SE form DJTT, since you’ll need the HD faders for precise pitching.
Also, if you do decide to start using Traktor, get a copy of the Traktor Bible, this will definitely shorten the learning curve, and help with customizing your mapping.
i’m not sure i’m going for traktor, it’s full of features i wouldn’t use anyway.
yeah i thought about remapping the pitch to the volume faders, and i’ve seen the FW1.4 which looks very good with the added midi resolution. the volume faders aren’t so big though on the vci. its also full of rotaries i wouldnt use
again the eks xp5 looks pretty much ideal to me:
Though it has built in soundcard, which I don’t need. Is there a comparable controller-only product? I’ve searched a lot and seen a lot of models so far..
The eks XP5 seems to fit the bill. I wouldn’t sweat the soundcard, as it’s always nice to have a backup. I would almost see it as a plus not having to lug another piece of gear. Which soundcard do you currently have?
@Nosferatu
I have a motu ultralite.
I’d have to buy 2 xp5’s if i decide to leave the motu at home.. Not that it matters that much but its kinda stupid to pay money for soundcards when you already have a very good one. I like the motu because it has rock solid mac drivers and I have always been able to rely on it
@Hoodless
I never worked with dj cd players in my life. In any case the venues I’m talking about have really crap cd players, you know, the old type dj cd player without a platter.. with a small controller on top of the mixer and the actual machines underneath the mixer
I’m not so interested in working with timecode tbh.
bite the bullet and buy a controller ignoring the fact that it may have an audio interface.
build your own.
As far as interface reliability goes, I can’t imagine (if for example, you were to go with something like the S4) NI’s drivers are flaky in any way. The Ultralite is a nice interface indeed, but using an integrated soundcard/controller from a reputable mfr. may be an acceptable risk (if reliability is your concern)… the fact that you can leave your Ultralite safely at home is an added bonus.
Good luck to you…I can appreciate your discerning taste in controller fit…as we all know…one glitch at a gig could cost you your reputation.
I cant decide yet. Meanwhile I’ll try to use the lexicon mrc controller I already own as a temporary solution midi controller.
I did consider building my own, as I’m already building stuff on the midibox platform and I know how to make front panels and stuff.. But I’m quite over my head in projects like that atm.
I’ll see how things evolve. Maybe the VCI-100 price will drop a bit too now the mkII is here.. Or maybe new products will be announced soon. Or maybe I’ll design my own
I actually own 2 motu ultralites. One I’ve had for years and never leaves the studio.
I bought a 2nd one recently to take along for gigs and mobile recording situations (I’m a producer too), and because they have USB nowadays.
In any case, I thank you all for thinking along with me.
yup, for what you’re talking about these seem perfect. no soundcard and denon gear will piss all over the EKS, ive tested em, plastically as hell.
It’s a false economy to try and save £80 on a proper bit of kit.
If you go for a seperate controller, you probably want to go with traktor, it’s the best dj controller software there is. even just to use simply, rock solid. And you can map with any midi device.
if you want to use dvs u can debate serato vs traktor scratch but you dont.
with the denon you can easily change between deck a and b easily etc and once you try the fx on traktor, regardless of what you say now, you will love them, adds creativity.
Then adding another Denon down the line.
Though to me it sounds like you’d benefit most from a VCI-300 (mkii) with ITCH. Much more straight forward, use the mixer section on the VCI300 and everything. Not for me personally but I can tell would be perfect for your needs.
Get down to somewhere that has these all on demo and have a play
It doesn’t matter how long your pitch faders are with MIDI. You’ll only get 128 steps anyway, unless you go for something with a higher resolution. Like the VCI 1.4.
yeah i’ve seen with the denon that it’s easy to own only one and switch between deck A&B
about the VCI-300, I really wanna keep the mixing part analog on Rodec / Ecler, I can’t imagine being comfortable mixing digitally.
about using traktor or not.
I know for sure I wont be using any of the effects
I’m planning to use an atom based netbook which isn’t good enough to do anything like that. Just playing and pitching stuff is fine on it though, depending on which software I use.
I tried djay which works very nicely. I also tried mixxx, which was a disaster (although I did try mix with the internal soundcard).
I’m a bit afraid though that traktor will be too demanding for my system.. And I’m not serious enough about all this digital dj-ing to invest in a new Macbook at the moment.
the pitch slider on the Denon also has 14-bit resolution.
I don’t know about the EKS though.
You guys got me semi-convinced about the Denon. I’ll definately check it out.
I came into digital djing reluctantly from vinyl too… once you step into the light though…
anyway, re mixing internally vs externally it really is 6 of one half a dozen of the other.
volume goes up, volume goes down…
this article from the blog is worth a read:
i’d still say go and actually check out for yourself the gear, and have ago on a VCI300.
You’re looking for a straightforward alternative to using vinyl that’s not fx heavy.
Rock up, plug vci 300 into 1 channel on club mixer, plug in laptop, spin tunes.
Boom.
Just to say netbook for djing is plain insanity, you’re asking for a world of fail. I’m not gonna say you should get a macbook, but get a laptop with some ram in it and an intel processor for god’s sake
well i’m a vinyl collector and enthusiast in the first place.. Dj-ing is just some byproduct of that.
about the analogue mixing:
I read the article.. it focusses mainly on quality. I’m not concerned about the quality of digital mixing at all. I know digital will be better, quality wise.. I just prefer the analog mixers because of the directness and (sometimes) positive color it adds. It’s hard to describe.
As a producer I’m also working mainly with analog gear and mixing desk / outboard / fx. I record on the computer, but I mix analog mostly.
I tried the digital mixing before and it just doesn’t work out for me.
Also I might combine vinyl and pc in the future, to play unreleased music from myself or friends. I know there’s controllers/soundcards with phono inputs but I have more experience & trust working with rodec’s & ecler’s.
call me crazy then
the netbook runs on an Intel ATOM 1.6 Ghz cpu with 2GB of ram. It’s quite good actually. I know it can handle playing 2 tunes without any problem. I also know many people will be skeptical about that It’s not like dj software didn’t exist years ago, when most “high end pc’s” were actually worse than a current netbook.
changing the speed of something isn’t processor intensive at all (unless you are using algo’s to keep the tune). the processing for that (up or downsampling) happens in the soundcard.
If it doesn’t work, well, then it doesn’t work. But so far my tests have shown it to perform better than I expected, and pretty damn stable too.
If I was to make a lot of money dj-ing i’d get something much better.. but that isn’t the case, and I’m not planning to, I enjoy playing and mixing music but I don’t have any career intensions in doing so.
Fair enough dude, you’ve obviously got a clear objective of what you want to get and why.
Just putting it out there from my experience but the beauty of djing now are there so many options to suit everyone.
I actually sold my decks a while ago and regreted it, so bought myself a 1200 and plugged back in my pioneer 600. I now run my mixer through the audio through feature on deck C of Traktor, so I get to use my large vinyl collection with traktor.
I got into fx by using them on my 600, mainly echo, which i just love on the end of a mix. I love traktors fx and the fact i can now use them on my vinyl.
This is now my set up
Hourses for courses dude, good luck with what ever you decide to get
