I am so used to trim/gain knobs after 39 years on the decks (almost) and I don’t trust/use autogain in DJ Software, that for me it would be a dealbreaker not having gain knobs. Especially if you ever run into a situation where you are expected to play on other gear (analogue club setups for example), you’d be so used to having autogain and not worrying about track input levels, that your volumes would be all over the place.
Clearly as a starting DJ, you probably won’t see the inside of a club booth til you are far along the path to upgrade your controller. And most more advanced controllers do have gain buttons. At that point I would strongly suggest switching off autogain in your software and start practicing gaining tracks yourself until it becomes an automatic thing you do when dropping in a track.
I do cheat a little these days, I use Platinum Notes which I allow to autogain my tracks (this is a more elaborate and advanced way of autogaining than DJ software uses), so the tracks themselves are all close to the same level. In case I ever forget to use the gain knob, the differences won’t be too big. But even with my tracks prepared like this, like Todd I am always checking and adjusting.
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