I think you might be able to DJ (or PB PushButton the new kind of DJ ;-)) without joggwheels.
But it gets much harder and there is things that would take more time
and some things that might be impossible to do.
That is not DJ’ing for me.
I would possible stop DJ’ing if there were no joggwhells on my equipment,
mainly because I would be boored to death not being able to scratch!
First thing if you use NI Traktor the beatgrid is wrong in almost all tracks.
When correcting them it is much faster if you have joggwheels.
Then when finding cuepoints to set it is also much faster with joggs.
as a 30 year dj i NEED jogs!!! 30 years!! after that much time you get used to a few things and having something round to scratch/pitch bend on is #1 lol
Im using a “relative” knob to scrub through tracks when DJing in Live. Im using “pitch-bend” buttons to sync to the DJ before me when in gigs. I too would say its relatively harder to sync manually with buttons than it is with jog wheels but it has never really bothered me that much because its something I do only when playing back2back with another DJ – my set is all synced up anyways (Ableton Live)
I’ve been working with Kontrol X1 for a while and I can completely say that I don’t need jogwheels to play. in fact I didn’t mapped my Hercules jogwheels in Traktor as I don’t use them anymore, but I can’t forget that the X1 has a better integration with Traktor than most controllers do…
I mix a bit of vinyl as well, and have gotten used to the tactile feel of it, so I think I’d have a hard time adjusting to not having jogwheels and/or vinyls. (Which is funny, because the only controller I have at the moment is the X1, and I don’t run TSP2)
IMHO the best thing is to know how to handle your mixing with jogs and without them.. versatility and preparedness to any situation 🙂
So be it TTs, CDJs, controllers with jogs, X1 or even LPD8 controllers, keyboard and mouse, shouting binary into a payphone.. it’s all good if the good vibe zone is there 🙂
now the obvious thing is the use of the word “need” – now it’s just really preference, we do not need them per se but they are still a tool that if someone wants they can use and for good reason they hung around for a long time because they work. and lets face it, they will be a part of a DJs image for a long time.
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