The Lowdown
Numark has updated two of its smallest controllers at once. Party Mix III ($149) keeps the light show that made the original Party Mix a fun little device, but adds stems control and crossfader effects. MixTrack Go ($99) replaces the DJ2Go2 Touch and is the smaller of the two, dropping full EQ but keeping stems, hot cues and a filter that doubles as a bass cut. Both are built for phones and laptops, and both now handle acapellas and instrumentals, the biggest difference from their predecessors.
Video Review
First Impressions / Setting up
As ever, size is the first thing you notice about these controllers. Party Mix III is small, Mixtrack Go is smaller still, and next to a full-size controller they both look more like accessories than DJ gear. That’s rather the point. The finish has moved to a white and black design with a small touch of red, and I liked it more than I expected to. Build quality feels consistent with previous Numark budget units, solid enough for the price.
Set-up is about as simple as it gets. Both units are USB-C bus powered, so a single cable to a laptop or phone gets sound and power in one go. There’s no driver installation to worry about, and Serato DJ Lite and Algoriddim djay both unlock free features the moment you plug in, which is the sensible way to get someone from box to first mix in minutes.
Numark includes two small but useful accessories with both units: a fold-out stand that turns out to be for propping up a phone (it took me longer than I’d like to admit to work that out), and a short 1/8-inch to RCA cable for connecting into speakers that only take RCA input.
One thing missing from both: a microphone input. Not even a basic 1/8-inch socket. If you want to talk over your mix, you’ll need to find another way in.
In Use
The headline update on both controllers is stems control. There are dedicated instrumental and acapella buttons on each, and a pad mode that splits stems further into bass and drums. Numark says these are the first entry-level controllers to offer this. It’s a useful addition.
Party Mix III is the more capable of the two, of course. It keeps full three-band EQ and a filter knob, which the smaller MixTrack Go simply doesn’t have room for. It’s doubled its pad count to eight per deck, and added Beat Align indicators borrowed from Hercules’ beginner controllers, a nice touch for anyone still learning to line up two tracks by ear rather than relying on sync.
There’s also an onboard library browser, letting you flick through your collection without touching a laptop screen, something the similarly priced AlphaTheta DDJ-FLX2 doesn’t offer. The light show that’s defined Party Mix since the original is back too, switched on and off from a button on the side, and it still does the job of making a bedroom or hotel room feel a bit more like a party.
MixTrack Go has to work harder with less. There’s no EQ section, for the simple reason there’s no physical room for one, but Numark has cleverly let the filter knob switch to act as a bass cut EQ instead, which is a reasonable compromise. What surprised me was how much survives the size cut: the tiny jogwheels still support capacitive touch for scratch performance and side nudge for pitch bending, and four of the pads remain, along with all the cue modes and the same instrumental and acapella buttons found on the bigger unit. For something this small, that’s a lot retained.
Fade FX appears on both units, letting you trigger an echo or filter simply by moving the crossfader across, which is a nice way of adding a bit of drama to a transition without reaching for a dedicated effects section.
Both controllers work happily with a phone as well as a laptop. Algoriddim djay is unlocked for free on iOS and Android with every feature visible on the controller itself, including the fade effects and stems buttons, and the same unlock applies to djay Pro on a Mac or PC.
Serato DJ Lite is also free but more restricted: on MixTrack Go, for example, only four pads are usable in hot cue mode, with the rest needing the paid version of Serato to unlock. VirtualDJ is supported too, provided you already own a licence. Since these are casual controllers, that will likely be well received: most people picking one up will already have a Spotify or Apple Music account and just want to get to their music, which all three software options allow.
Bluetooth Midi is a clever inclusion. It lets either controller talk wirelessly to Algoriddim djay running on a phone or tablet, with no cable at all. Bluetooth audio itself is too laggy for DJing, which is why the physical connections are always there on DJ gear, but Bluetooth Midi only sends control data, which is small enough not to suffer the same delay. The catch is headphone monitoring: go fully wireless and you lose it, since there’s no cable carrying audio back to the unit. I’d still plug in with a cable where I can, since it means proper headphone cueing, USB-C power from the laptop or phone, and no need for a separate battery pack or adapter.
Neither controller is built for serious DJing, and it would be unfair to judge them as if they were. The controls are fiddly by design, because the whole point is fitting a DJ set-up into a bag or onto a laptop tray table. Judged against that brief, both do what they’re supposed to.
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Conclusion
Party Mix III and MixTrack Go are aimed squarely at casual DJing: messing about at home, a backup controller thrown in a bag, or a properly portable set-up for a hotel room or a plane’s tray table. Neither is for anyone chasing pro-level or looking to gig regularly, and the missing microphone input will be a dealbreaker for some. Within that casual bracket, Party Mix III is the more rounded choice for $149, with full EQ, more pads and its trademark lights, while MixTrack Go at $99 earns its keep as the more pocketable option, retaining a surprising amount of functionality for its size.
For anyone wanting built-in speakers too, Numark’s own Party Mix Live is worth a look, at a higher price. But if stems, fade effects and phone compatibility are what you’re after in something this small, Numark has made sensible, useful updates to both of these controllers. In short: two well-judged updates to Numark’s smallest controllers, with stems control finally making it down to entry-level prices.
