Hello – Sitting, researching and waiting

Welcome to the forums!

I am sorry to say: It will not be happening. Laptop DJing is the future and I cannot see anything on the horizon from NI in that direction, also talking to them, they seem to focus even more on the laptop side and things like combining Maschine with Traktor and Stems.

It is still unclear if stems really will pick up. We will see in a few years if it is a concept that is staying. I would say at least one other major DJ software player would have to pick it up.

The thing is: Waiting is actually against you in this case. The laptops might get smaller and lighter, but they are here to stay (or will become tablets or whatever).

Hi Paul. Welcome to the forums. Enjoy your stay here.

One thing though: don’t repost (ever), it’s against posting guidelines.

Hello!

Yeah, laptops and/or mobile computers are going to be needed as it pertains to Digital Djing for the foreseeable future. The S8 didn’t do what you need a computer for, which is processing the tracks and any effects you’re adding. All it really did was what the Pioneer 2k Nexus system did & what the Numark NV was trying to do, which is let you close your laptop & dj. But you still need a laptop if you don’t want to be limited to what’s on your usb drive and with the NV, you couldn’t actually close your laptop lid as it might put your computer to sleep or shut it down.

I’ll be honest, I don’t really see Stems taking off. It requires a lot of people to change how they view & think about music, labels have to have the resources to create stems files, (Or if NI decides to do it, that might help a lot but I doubt they will since they still haven’t figured out Traktor Pro 3) & hardware manufactures would have to change how they make controllers & most hardware from the ground up. Which is too cost prohibitive for all but Pioneer (and maybe the company who owns Akai & Numark) & they seem to really like Serato for 3rd party software & their new offering, Rekordbox DJ, which I’m sure they’ll be heavily investing in.

So I guess it comes down to asking yourself this: Do I want to stick with Rekordbox, possibly adding the DJ program software in the future (Which supports the RX as a controller, the hardware is it’s own system if you don’t want to use a laptop at a gig, and is a standalone mixer since you want to try DVS) or jump ship & possibly rethink how I DJ with the S8 not having jogs of any kind & relying on touchstrips & knobs & having a good enough laptop?

I’d say that you just go for the RX based on the fact that you seem to want to avoid having a laptop all the time and while it can’t do Stems, until there is mass adoption of the format, (or not) it’s pointless to keep waiting if you’re wanting to upgrade now. Plus, Pioneer is working on getting DVS for Rekordbox and it can be used standalone if you wanted to try it out with your turntables.

Best of luck & welcome again to the forums!