Mario McQuay
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Mario McQuay
ParticipantThanks DJ Vintage! Can you tell me where I can find information around this course? I’d like to look into it.
ParticipantHi Terry,
Yes! I’m glad you mentioned that and I’ll do my best to clarify. So, I’ve been DJing for over 25 years; I come from the world of mixing with two turntables and a microphone 🙂 A lot has changed over the years and when it comes to DJing, I had a very difficult time making the transition from turntables and vinyl, to what we use today. I make money as a mobile wedding DJ but my passion and love is all about mixing House music at a bar or club.
Fast forward to 2017, and I’m basically new to controllers. I’ve only been using them for about 4 years. I recently moved from a Traktor S2 to a new Pioneer DDJ-RX so I’ve got a lot to learn to get as good on my new Pioneer as I am on turntables.
Ideally, now that the tech is available to do a lot of things we simply couldn’t do on turntables, I want to learn how to do em. Making a song shorter on turntables was always a manual process, of course, but it wasn’t always perfect either. So, some of my manual cuts would be on time and sometimes, too early or too late. Now that we have the tech available to us, I’d like for all of my cuts to be on time, all the time.
I hope that makes sense and I totally get what you’re saying. Yes, I can definitely go manual, but then, there will be times when my cut to a breakdown in a record (breaking the song down from 7 minutes to like, 2), will be on time, but there will be times when its off. I just think that these days, with all the tech available to us, dance crowds are less forgiving than they used to be because tech has allowed DJ’s to sound almost perfect. Back in the day, on vinyl, dance crowds were a lot more forgiving because the general sound of a good DJ; it was all manual, so it was expected that not everything would come out perfect in that person’s set.
What do you think? Am I wrong or thinking about this waaaay too much?
ParticipantHi Bas Van and welcome!
I agree with what some of the other posters mentioned here. If you don’t mind spending about $1,400 (U.S.) for a controller, then the Pioneer XDJ-RX is an amazing controller! I only worry about this choice because it will be your first and this is basically the “Cadillac” of controllers, but it’s a wonderful piece of hardware that doesn’t require a laptop and the Rekordbox DJ software is my personal favorite (out of the big three: Rekordbox, Traktor, and Serato).
If you’re looking to save a bit of money and go with a more budget device (especially since this will be your first controller), take a look at the MixDeck Express by Numark. This is also a standalone piece of hardware for about $499 (U.S.) and it comes with Serato DJ software.
Let us know what you decide to do and if you have any other questions.
ParticipantHi Todd,
Thank you very much for your response. I’ll try your suggestion by turning of quantize and practicing how to hit my cues on time. With quantize off, sometimes I hit the cue a little too early and sometimes, too late. But you’re right! Practice makes perfect.
I also like your idea about pre-editing my set before an event. I have a Valentine’s Day hour long guess set coming up. I have Wavelab Elements and can pre-edit my tracks so that they’re shorter and then dump them into Rekordbox. I hate that this will definitely take some time, but the end result will be worth it.
Thank you for your help.
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