Peter Lindqvist

We will have to agree to disagree here Terry_42 🙂 . Partly because it’s obviously differences between our countries when it comes to pricing and availability, but also because I value time equal to money. After buying CD’s for almost 20 years, I’ve spend countless hours ripping, renaming, converting and validating my music since 2009 and I’ve ripped and made backups of my most important CD’s long before that. Still have more than 2/3 to go through but I do manage… still find goodies every time I dig in. For me who, has DJing as an income, it makes perfect sense to rip as much as I need, but if it’s only a hobby, and time spend is more valuable behind the decks, then a couple of CDJ’s is a reasonable investment.

This time atcwalker654@gmail.com clearly stated that it was the larger jogs he wanted for the job and a controller with that big sized jogs would be too expensive. About the pricing I can only refer to what I know is a fact here in Sweden. In one of the Swedish DJ forums on Fb this week there’s been one ad for 2 CDJ-1000MK3’s in condition as new, price equivalent to £450 GBP, and one ad for 4 1000Mk3’s in good full working order, priced at 59 GBP each, or 194 GBP for all 4. The first one’s are gone but the other ones are still available https://www.facebook.com/groups/472597932811212/permalink/1322746534463010/?sale_post_id=1322746534463010. Normal price for them is usually around £300-400 GBP for the pair. That has been the same for the last three years.

Three years ago I got myself a setup, 1 DJM-800/2 CDJ-1000MK3/Case/Cables for £812 GBP. Newly serviced and new cue/play buttons on the players. I then added a Rane SL-1/Serato, £90 GBP, so now I can use it for all my CD’s and play new stuff from my laptop. A perfect backup solution for me and on the cheap side. 2 weeks of gigs and it was all paid. Profit every time since and will be as long as they work. I use the mixer with a couple of Nexuses as my travel kit, so the mixer has paid off really well with more than 100 gigs already. I realize not everyone play to primarily get paid, but to just have fun, but I think this gear hold it’s value very well if you already have the music in one digital format that works for you, for now.

I have been in projects where this have happened a couple of times. Not my mixes but when supporting a good friend and producer as an adviser, it happened twice. One pure theft like what happened to you, and once where he was offered a partnership and asked to write and sing the vocals of an instrumental progressive EDM track. Fortunately he came to me for the ”judgement call” on the result, and I recognized the track as one of Maison & Dragen. It was a great vocal, but we reported the faker and got away before being dragged in to shame.

While being flattered and angry at the same time, hang him out to dry. Put links to the scammer and tell everywhere what a fake he is, while also linking to your original mix. That way you can pick up some followers that he might have gotten on your behalf.

You need to upgrade your Rekordbox to Rekordbox DJ and the DVS expansion pack. You also need to get the DVS Vinyl. The 900 Nexus is also certified for Serato and Traktor, which means that you also have the choice to use them and you need to get the respective software of course. No other external sound card needed for this mixer. For Serato you get all you need with the Club kit. For traktor I’m not sure, but someone here will know the answer to that. You can also use your CDJ’s in HID or DVS mode if you wanna use them with software once you get into that.

B.t.w, you can always buy a second hand solution to get more options now with most vendors creating more or less closed echo systems. I got myself a Rane SL1, cost me about 90£, to get some extended life out of my CDJ-1000Mk3’s. If you just want to be able to play your tracks from your laptop, it works absolutely flawless. It only supports Serato Scratch, but I run it on my AMD 1,6 Ghz 4 core laptop with Windows 10/64. It just works :). No more burning CD’s for backup.

Furthermore, I can use that box with just about any turntables/players/mixer i want. All I need is the DVS signal/media. I’ve invested all I can manage for the next 5 years in my NXS2 setup, so this was the cheap backup solution I could afford and I’m very satisfied with how easy it was to setup and how solid it seems to be.

Using Rekordbox, the analyzed music will show you the very exact BPM of each track. Setting the pitch fader is usually done the moment the track is loaded in the player. It takes only a second and there’s no need to check if the speed is the same unless you play tracks with variable speed like old disco tracks. I use the 6% setting on the pitch fader and adjust the pitch by raising it to the exact same frame/BPM on both tracks. Like 124.2. Each decimal has 5 frames, so it’s important to set each track the same.

Done that, I can start the track a minute before the transition is supposed to happen, take off my headphones, and still know that I will be in perfect sync during the whole transition. This is the ”new” way to do it and it’s possible because the new club gear is so exact. Most of us older dudes that started with vinyl still does it the ”old” way Terry_42 describes it. That’s because when playing vinyl, the speed shifts slightly over time, so during long transitions, you have to adjust the speed or nudge the platter during the transition. It works, but you can hear the DJ nudging the platter as the tracks goes out of sync for a ms each time.

Playing soul/funk/disco originals, this is still the way I play, even on the latest club gear, and for some people it’s actually the way they want to see the DJ play. It makes you work the platters through the whole mix, versus playing new house music where you can focus on using the mixer/effects instead, or stand there waiting until it’s time to change tracks… doing the hearts and throwing cakes or whatever is your way out of boredom 🙂 . Some DJ’s just speed up their mixing giving people 30 sec’s/track to avoid the waiting… Whatever fits you and your crowd 🙂 .

Hello Karlton!

The easy way to recommend USB sticks is say ”buy usb3, the expensive ones”. That will in most cases give you fast and durable sticks with 5-10 years warranty. They also come in all shapes and form. I recommend the smaller ones because it’s lesser risk of someone bending it destroying the stick or/and the usb port while playing.

Since a year back I have moved to SSD’s in external 2.5” usb3-case. I have 2 identical 250 GB SSD’s. I store about 12000 tracks that I bring with me at all times. They work perfect with all the XDJ’s, 700/1000/1000Mk2/RX and the Nexus’s/Nxs2’s. The older 350/850/900 and even the first 2000 has problems to read that many songs/playlists. You get the not so fun ”WAIT” when switching between playlists. The 2000’s is ok, usually not more than 3-5 secs WAIT, but he other models, no. For those I still use my USB-sticks up to 32 GB, if I have to use them, or I’d rather bring my own players. I’m fortunate to have the Nxs/Nxs2’s that I can bring when needed.

My preferred sticks has been The Patriot Supersonic Rage XT. I used them for almost two years updating them every week and still have them for backup. I think they are replaced with a newer model now.

The benefit of using SSD’s is several. 1. Extremely fast transfer speed when moving music to them. Sometimes saves the day 🙂 . 2. High quality SSD’s + external case gives you twice the space for half the price compared to high quality sticks. I use the Samsung 850 Evo. 3. It’s usually enough space to bring both Rekordboxed music and plain folders that you can use for Serato or any other software. 4. Still small enough to fit in your pocket and also easy to tuck away while playing making it harder for someone to steal it. 5. If you discover that SSD’s wasn’t for you, you can always use them for your computer 🙂 .

Note. The slow performance I experience with older CDJ’s could be related to which file system is used. I use Fat32 for best compatibility and I use Windows computers. It could be that the Apple file system is better, but I cant say because I don’t use Macs. Perhaps someone else has knowledge to share about this.

I’ve been playing alla sorts of electronic dance music since the 80’s. I don’t think you should think about it like you have to mix Trance in a certain way. Every track has parts that make them special. That can be a vocal, drop, break/build up…. or anything really. Those are the parts you want to be in the mix. If you take it to the next level, live gigs, there you really have to use the part of the track that makes people dance. If you mix your sets up with other genres the same rules apply.

Hello. A cheap and easy way to get started is ”CDBurnerXP”, and yes, it’s not only for windows XP 😉 . It’s for all the latest windows OS’s. Easy to use interface. Drag & drop your music files. Conversion to CD format i automatic. For audio CD’s, use ”Audio”. For mp3 CD’s, use ”Data”.

Make sure your file names are in order. That way, when you go to ”Cover”, the program will import the file names and voila, there’s your tracks on the cover, ready to print out. Several possibilities to make the layout your own.

Burning: Rule no.1 Always use the slowest possible burning rate. 4x is usually Ok.
Rule no.2 Don’t over burn. This is possible to do, but can render the hole CD unreadable for some players.

Brand of CD’s. I’ve been using Verbatim’s for a long time. Other brands will probably work just fine, but I know that my Verbatim’s I burned 15+ years ago still plays fine.