Lately I have been wondering when the time comes if I should upgrade to CDJs or turntables. Currently I have an S2, F1 and akai lpd8. I have played a few gigs and I am currently about to start getting more and starting to try and put up posters and do events like parties, Stag and does, maybe weddings.Hopefully I will eventually play clubs but for now just events.
Right now I am in a partnership with a neighbour that has been DJing since the 70’s and I am suppose to take over for him eventually. He hasn’t really kept up with the different gear and primarily been using just a laptop for sometime, so gear is my department. I like my S2 and its worked fairly well but I’m worried about if it starts malfunctioning or if I play somewhere with different gear and won’t be able to use my own I won’t know how to use it. So I decided to ask my fellow DJTT’ers. What would be a good idea to upgrade to? I’ve seen a lot of people use CDJ. I like the idea that with CDJ’s that you can use CD’s a usb stick or a SD card to have music.
Ok I’ve gotten beat matching down pretty good. I also play drums, so what I learned playing drums has helped me a lot out in starting to DJ. I’m mainly looking for something that is pretty reliable. I’ve noticed that my S2 audio cuts out sometimes when I’m practicing at home and I have to turn the S2 off and on to get it back which could turn out bad if I was in the middle of a Gig!
Getting a hardware mixer would be a good place to start. You can easily route something like an Ipod though a mixer if anything goes wrong with the computer setup.
Good idea with the mixer. My neighbour has a mixer not sure what kind it is but maybe I’ll just keep with that for now and playing gigs if anything happens I’ll throw my Ipod on till I get things rolling again.
The DDM is fine if you want lots of features on the cheap for bedroom use, but I think the idea of the thread was to find something solid and more reliable for taking to gigs.
See if you can have a go on some CDJ’s or turntables and see how they feel to you.
I have an S2 and was in the same position as you, got some turntables, and never really gelled with them. Then got an F1 and enjoyed getting to use that on top of my s2 and getting a bit creative.
The Denon DN-X1600 is a decent 4 channel mixer that has spare MIDI mappable knobs/buttons, and is Traktor Scratch Certified if you ever want to add CDJs or turntables in the future without needing a separate sound card.
This isn’t related to your decision, but I was wondering if you use Beaubryte’s S2 mapping? I have the same problem with audio cutting out sometimes and I’m wondering if that’s the problem.
I had the problem before I got the mapping, but I do have the mapping now. I’m debating about going back to the standard map and map whatever else I need too myself.
