Do you play a non-EDM genre with digital gear?

I play lots of non-EDM genres on my Numark V7s with Itch 2.1. While you can warp the grids in itch to account for the non-consistent drum patterns of funk/soul/afrobeat/etc. sometimes its just easier to visually see the stackable waveforms and use your ears. (Huge win for Itch in the non-EDM world over Traktor, but thats a different topic.) I have 1200s I use with SSL and occasionally Traktor Scratch Pro but I just have much more piece of mind not playing out with the ever-harder-to-find 1200s, especially since mine are luckily in top condition.

The V7s are so much fun to play out on and the workflow is so natural that its been my setup of choice for a while now. Rumors of the V7s being discontinued bring the worry full-circle again, but if something were to happen to my equipment, I’d rather it be the V7s than the 1200s.

Here in Austin, Tx, the majority of DJs are still using SSL with 1200s, esp. in the mixed format world. EDM DJs are mostly using CDJs only, with Traktor controllers a rarer second choice. A handful of DJs are still playing strictly vinyl. I see a few controllers out in the wild, (maybe 10% of DJs playing out use them) but for the most part, they are still severely frowned upon in our city (which is silly).

I’m mostly a breakbeat fan and that covers an awful lot of ground (Trip Hop, Hip Hop, Big Beat, even some Industrial and Drum n Bass) and since I’ve only ever been a laptop DJ it’s been just fine. In fact, once I switched to the VCI-300 mkII it’s probably gotten more fun since I don’t have to beat my brains out over beatgridding/warping and can just get down to it. Also, scratching is great fun. Granted, I can’t get quite the level of tight-but-drawn-out mixes that I could with Traktor or Live, I think it also forces me to make more natural choices instead of trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

Down here controllers are very few (in fact very rare, at least in clubs & in other public gigs) & lots of DJs are on CDJs running on either CDs or SSL. The rest are Virtual dj crackers running on keyboard and mouse(and a great deal of wave riding) who you are most likely to find in pubs and other drinking joints with no real established sound. Music revolves between local & international top 40, rhumba, reggae and local folk. I haven’t ever seen (or heard) a DJ down here using Traktor save for a buddy of mine who bought a Mixtrack Pro & got the LE version that came with it.

For me, one of the key reasons I went digital was to easily and cheaply expand the set of genres i play.

At the moment I am playing a lot of new wave, minimal wave, post punk and italo. Many of these records originally came out on 7inch. Serato allows me to extend the intros, enabling me to mix the tracks smoothly into each other and with other genres.

I use my Vestax controller and laptop to play all kinds of music. I play mostly Industrial/New Wave/Goth. But I have hip hip to death metal to swing jazz in my music collection. I like (and have) every genre of music. I like the controller due to the easy access, and what the article stated, that if someone makes a random request- regardless of genre- I have the song to play-easy as can be. Plus, well, let’s face it, being a girl and all, carrying all that gear around in heels is a pain in the ass. So this is also more compact, easy to transport, without the heaviness of the decks, mixer etc.

I cant get used to jog wheels whether on a controller or a cdj, so i stick to SSL with control vinyl. i havent had to change my scratch style or re-learn riding a bike so speak and the fact i can jump genre and now pull of sick juggle routines with cues makes digital the way to go, but nothing will ever beat the feel of vinyl under your finger tips

Gigging a 60th birthday this weekend. Old school rock n roll. 8) No beat matching just fade in fade out like an oldies radio jock 8)

I find digital gear, whether its iOS or controller based gives me many more opportunities to twist the tracks I want into the mix. For example, if I was in vinyl-only mode most of the funk tracks I play have a tiny break or short intro which means mixing them together was always a quick, choppy affair. With digital, I can organise my playlist according to bpm (mostly works, even with live funk tracks) and stretch those intros and breaks out using loops and multiple cues. Nothing fancy, just extending the tracks slightly to give me a little more time to blend in the next track.

As for scratching, if you can scratch with vinyl it doesn’t take long (a few hours maybe) to get used to the feel of a jog wheel that is half the size of a 12″ record and doesn’t spin constantly. It certainly feels bizarre to start with, but you do get used to it quite quickly.

Asides from the above, my music collection is way out of date and EDM probably wasn’t a term used back then!