Hi Colin, welcome to the forums.
Jazzy said it right. Go from your workflow to a choice for software then to your budget and finally to picking your gear. I’d like to point out Mixvibes Cross as an option for software as well. If you buy a starter controller (like the MC2000 mentioned by Jazzy for example) it will come with a starter version of Serato, which might be a bit too limiting. Mixvibes offers a 49 euro/dollar version that comes with all the features you might need with a starter controller. Not saying it’s better than Serato, but it’s worth a look to see if it too would fit your workflow. You can get a free version to play around with without controller support and you can get a trial version that will work for 2 weeks WITH a controller I think.
Search the forums for some (recent) articles on starter controllers. There is a pretty comprehensive list of the ones we find work best according to our readers and us (moderators, not necessarily the blog).
And of course the 2015 Controller Buyer Guide is a great source of info when you are doing desk research.
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