Hey, was planning to buy a vci-100 for christmas but saw some one selling some Pioneer 100’s and a mixer on ebay for a good price and so now I am tossing between the two. Wondering what peoples advice is for someone like me starting out and which one do you think is better. I was leaning towards the vci-100 because I can connect it to my laptop and just play any song I like instead of burning cd’s and having to play them in the cdj’s. But then the Pioneers on the other hand might be better in the long run if I intend to upgrade to some better Pioneers and then having had that experience of using the 100’s. Tell me what you think.
i dont really know wat you expected posting that on this forum but ahh i think you’ll find that pretty much everyone will say go the VCI. I dont know if you’ve had a look around the site much but you mighta noticed all the VCI talk lol
but anyway, welcome explore the site, get inspired and i think the decision will be easy
obviously this is forum for controller heads so i would expect most peeps to say vci.
and i’d agree.
basically, laptop djing is the future. we can debate if it’s 100% there yet and i still love cdjs for clubs etc… but i prefer my vci and digital djing is the future.
Pioneer CDJ-100’s are basically CDJ-500’s, which I had a pair of, and neither feel anything like CDJ-1000’s which are the standard
I also wouldn’t because unlike CDJ-200’s and CDJ-400’s, CDJ-100’s have larger increments on the pitch fader (can’t remember the exact figures) so learning beatmatching will be more difficult than with better CDJ’s anyway; nothing beats learning to beatmatch on vinyl imo but that’s another topic!
I learned beatmatching on a vci…
I had to because i had a club gig where i had to play on cdj1000. And everything went fineeeee, just missed all the stuff i could do with my vci…
I would be soooo bored with shitty cdj100’s… first the only thing you can do is beatmatch (because they can’t do anything) then even at beatmatching they are not the best…
i call bollocks on that, a) you can beatmatch manually with vci, which means b) you can learn it and c) that kind of talk doesn’t help given the anti-controller attitudes still floating around.
on topic, it depends (as i always say) what you want to do in the long run? yeah you’re starting out new, so learning the basics is the main goal right now, but you may feel limited later down the line. based on that i say vci100
however if you’re thinking about upgrades later, would you be considering dvs? mabe with a controller attached for other functions? or straight 2 cds and a mixer? in which case get the cdjs.
look around and see what set-ups grabs your fancy, and then make the decision based on which will be the best foundation toward building up to that.
if it helps, i had a 2 cdj & mixer set-up with a pair of fx500’s (one for each cdj), and in comparison that felt more limted than my vci/traktor combo.
I started off on turntables, progressed to 1210’s (vinyl) then moved to Serato, - sold all that and now I’ve got a VCI, and I’d recommend that over the 100’s any day!
I’ve had a quick go on the 100’s ( around an hour) and they’re **** for beatmatching, the VCI’s however are pretty good, I beatmatch on my VCI all the time (@ 8%) - Though it still doesn’t beat the feel of Vinyl/1210 (IMO)
So for beatmatching I’d say hands down the VCI wins…
Plus getting the basics down is important, but learning to beatmatch can be frustrating at times, especially when things don’t go your way! - This is where most beginners give up! But at least with the VCI when you are starting to get frustrated learning to beatmatch you can still get your hands dirty playing with effects, cue points, loops etc enabling you to still have fun, (which is what it’s all about at the end of the day) and if your having fun your more likely to stick at it, and see it through till the end!
explore the site, get inspired and i think the decision will be easy 