DJ System Upgrade help

Hey Keith, that is quite a list you have there. Frankly, I doubt playing out on a tablet is gonna be a real option. Haven’t heard many people that can get away with just a tablet when playing out. If anything there is the sound quality. If you use a tablet, you have to use a DJ splitter cable and take the sound from the headphone output of the tablet. It will be mono (cause half of the output needs to go to the headphones) and I am sure we can all agree that the quality coming out of a headphone jack isn’t quite up there with a serious soundcard.

If you want to continue with vinyl, be ready for some high maintenance costs. We estimate that in DVS it will be upwards of 100 bucks a month (needles, timecode vinyls) and you’d need to add the substantial cost of regular vinyls if you choose to play those.

Investing in CDJ-850s is something we (moderators) really don’t promote here anymore. It’s obsolete technology from an era gone. We sympathize with the “crashing laptop” fear, but there is ways to solve that. Millions of digital DJs do it after all, including some of the biggest names in the industry and plenty has been written (including on these forums) about redundancy and fallback options.

I’d say something like the DDJ-SX2 or the SZ are good options. They both offer 4-channel standalone mixer capability, DVS support (so you can hook up your SLs) and good jogwheels and lay-outs pretty much similar to club setups for your CD-playing buddy. The SZ player section actually mimmick the CDJ2000s pretty closely and it’s mixer section the DJM900. It also offers some standalone FX and the option to hook up TWO laptops simultaneously, so you can switch (back-to-back) or even do split (at the same time).

You can use the tablet option as backup, plugged into one of the line inputs.

Obviously you could just have all different setups and hook up a smallish PA mixer to connect everything up to.

The XDJ-RX could be an option as it offers Rekordbox capability. But it’s only a 2 channel unit and doesn’t support DVS.

There are many other options and I am sure our readers will come up with some.

hello I just bought a pair of dxr12 and I Want advise on which sub to buy any reccomendations?

Highly recommend the Pioneer DDJ-SX/SX2. It has a 4 channel mixer which isn’t dependant on software so if the laptop crashes you can fall back to an CDJs/ipod/vinyl if you have to. That should keep your CDJ buddy happy about potential laptop issues. As far as your newbie DJ buddy maybe download Serato remote App for his Ipad and give it to him to have a bash on the effects/looping/sampler/velocity pads when your playing out. That will still keep him involved and feeling part of the team. Just tell him to go easy with the effects or things might get a bit crazy!! Or maybe you could give him a triangle or a tambourine and get him to strut around the stage aka Bez style! 😉

@Solrak: the SX is not a good option as it has no DVS support.

@OP: There are DJs that prefer the DDJ-SX2 to the SZ due to it’s more manageable size. The SZ is a large beast. It does feature stand-alone FX (albeit is somewhat limited compared to DJM900 mixers and the likes) that you can use for whatever source you use (like regular vinyls, CDJs should you choose to hook those up). The DDJ-SX2 is lacking that. The two laptop option is nice but not really a game changer, unless you really need it.

So, is it worth the extra money? I’m not sure (have the SX and have played around with the SZ once or twice), but I am leaning towards suggesting the SX2 and sticking the remaining money in something else like better headphones, flightcase, monitor speaker, cables, DJ stand, better laptop. All those things make more sense (to me) than spending the extra money on the SZ.