LOL. All I have to say is, “Wow.” I started this thread in a sleepy stupor at 5am last night and had no idea it would trigger such thoughtful insight about everyone’s DVS weapon of choice. I appreciate the constructive honesty behind the replies y’all gave. Thanks everybody.
Truth is, I agree with the good, the bad and the stank ugly that all of you mentioned about Torq.
Yes, at the time I got Torq, the low price vs. the function-bang-for-my buck is exactly what sold me. Prior to that, I was occasionally nursing the stretch marks I got on my arms lugging two 100+ capacity vinyl crates with heavy duty shoulder straps from gig to gig. I’m an old school vinyl junkie who is a major tech geek. After much research I wanted to try DJing with more lightweight gear hoping to get my mixes more complex along the way. Torq seemed like a better beginner solution since: 1.) I heard rumors while attending RemixHotel Atlanta (2006?) that the Final Scratch online forums shut down because it became a giant angry mob of people complaining how it crashed… 2.) Serato looked too rigid to have the flexibility I wanted… 3.) VirtualDJ looked like a toy for wedding DJs… and, 4.) Traktor was a bit pricey, came in too many versions and flavors, and I didn’t know much about it at the time.
I bought Torq and stuck with it since. But after reading this, I’m thinking I may have outgrown it a bit if I want to explore the techie controllerist side of things more than what I already do.
I can easily see how it can be seen as an entry level DVS system (even though I use it and I’ve been a DJ for 16 years). After seeing what y’all said, I suppose Torq is the equivalent to starting out on some Numark/Gemini belt drive turntables: Does it do the job? Yes. Was it cheap? Yes. Do you want to upgrade to a pair of Technics 1200s as soon as you save up the cash? HELL YES! … I knew Traktor and Serato had good support and are solid platforms, but never saw them as “industry standard” caliber until now.
Animus brought up something which sorta paraphrases my original train of thought regarding Torq: [QUOTE] The biggest thing holding us back is the controllers themselves although Ean and Co do a fantastic job of showing us how to work around limitations. [/QUOTE]
I agree that Ean and Co do a fantastic job at this too. The tweaks and hacks I find here for DJs is what keeps us all coming back to share what we found to go beyond the limitations of […insert random DJTT article here…]. That’s what puzzled me about the lack of tutorials/DIY hacks/workarounds/mappings/et cetera I found here for Torq because we all know Torq has plenty of bugs, quirks, and limitations that beg to be improved by users like us. (Especially since M-Audio doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to create improvements of their own.) IMHO, taking a good thing and tweaking it to be better (like finding new uses of stuff already in Traktor) is less of an impressive feat than taking a known piece of steaming rhino pooh (like Torq) and turn it into a shining freak of nature it was never intended to be in the first place. Unfortunately, I lack the tech knowledge, time, and patience to do that to Torq on my own. Before I go saving up the cash to upgrade to Serato or Traktor Scratch Pro, I suppose I wanted to find improvements/controller stuff I may have overlooked for Torq in DJTT and the forum here since the Torq forum members tend to look at me odd when I mention controllerism to them - which happens a lot.
Think of this thread as my last ditch effort to salvage the time and minimal money I invested in Torq already before I consider moving on to another DVS to learn.
