Beginning DJ – Basic Hardware/Software Advice

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

I’m not surprised you’re a little confused – it’s a real minefield these days! Well done for checking out the DigitalDjTips 2014 controller guide as it’s a great place to start.

I wouldn’t get too stressed about picking software. In the last year or so, Serato and Traktor have become far more alike and largely provide the same functionality (I fully expected to incur the wrath of the forum so such a sweeping statement!). It really comes down to personal preference. It sounds like you’ve had some exposure to Traktor, is there a store near you where you could try Serato? It’s not essential but you may get a feel for one or the other.

As many of the experienced DJs on this forum will tell you, it almost doesn’t matter what you start our with. A lot of guys (including me) will have started with a couple of belt-drive turntables and basic mixer. These days just about any $200+ controller will give you enough functionality to start out and learn the basics thanks to the controller market finally getting mature and many features becoming standard. The resale value of most stuff tends to be good too.

As I’ve posted previously, I’m a big fan of starting small/basic and working up. This ensures you don’t get distracted from learning the basics first and you haven’t spent too much cash on the off-chance that you decide DJing isn’t for you.

I hope that helps!

GP

We forum staff of digitaldjtips currently suggest for total beginners a Serato setup with the Reloop Beatmix 4 controller. As it is most bang for the buck.

Other controllers we see fit are:
Numark Mixtrack Pro I or II
Pioneer DDJ-SB

These are our top choices.

Hey, I think you covered everybody 😀

Novation Twitch, as you can tell from any picture is missing those circular thingies (jog wheels). Jog wheels make manipulating a track (nudging it forward/backward and cueing for example) a whole lot easier. And obviously if you ever want to do some scratching they are obligatory. Manipulating a track is necessary to go into beatmatching (which is mixing one tune into the other with the beats exactly overlapping). Beatmatching is a big thing in DJ-ing. Even with software now offering the sync function to take that out of your hands, you really still need manual beatmatching skills.

The thing about Serato (and a few others) waveforms is not that they have them (like Traktor also), but that they are sitting next to each other as you are playing. This offers all kinds of extra visual information, not in the least it’s much easier to tell if two track are playing in sync. You can do without, but it just makes life a little easier again.

Hope that helps.

Greetinx.

Well the Beatmix is a lot of bang for the buck for the following reasons (and compared to other entry level controllers):

– It has really good build quality even though it is mainly plastic it is a good plastic (like the higher end Pioneers)
– It already has 4 channels and unlike some other entry level controllers has separate gain knobs for each channel
– While the jogwheels are not solid aluminium like on the Terminal Mix, they share the same setup of very good profile and nice almost vinyl like feel, which makes them an excellent choice for scratching
– Due to what I got from talking to the guys at reloop the basic sound card is the same quality as their higher end offering, so sound quality should be top notch
– Also there is a full Version of Serato DJ included (for a limited time) which usually costs you 100 to 120 bucks extra to upgrade from a provided Intro version

So while it is a little more expensive than lets say a Mixtrack Pro II, this price difference is relative as it has more features than the Mixtrack Quad and comes with 120 bucks of software for free.

So this is a really good offering in my book.

As far as reliability goes, the unit is brand new, so I cannot comment on it. I played for around an hour on the unit at Musikmesse Frankfurt 2014 and it felt really solid. All faders, pads and buttons were really good.
I myself have used a Terminal Mix 4 for the last 2 years live and it has not let me down and having also used other reloop stuff (I like their turntables also) all stuff I got my hands on from them were really good and held up nicely.
Of course a plastic casing will ding more easily than for example my fully metal Terminal Mix, but that is to be expected.