@Mark: Good thing you have found what you are looking for in Traktor and your belief they are front runners. They are definitively a creative and innovative bunch (remix decks, stems, no jog wheel controllers). They are also increasingly NI/Traktor only gear supported. For several reasons that makes them very suited for a part of the DJ community and quite unsuited for the rest. In general the choice for DJ software boils down to which suits your workflow and style of DJ-ing best. The big names, next to Traktor, being Serato, Virtual DJ, Mixvibes Cross and of course late arrival RekordBox DJ. Any of those will give you very workable, professional tools for DJ-ing.
@Chemtrail: Various people various experiences. I’ll grant that I had a not so happy run-in with Traktor when I sold my controller that came with an LE version of Traktor (and I had to include that license to stay with controller) which rendered my full license upgrade useless and the only answer NI came up with was to by a new full license! Not very friendly. Would have been easier if they had offered a free or small fee transition of my full license upgrade to a full license.
Having said that, I also know many DJs that are very happy with both gear and software and have played for many years with it.
@Arturo: Smart for giving your son the option of trying it out without breaking the bank. My advice would be to read up on a few of the “looking for a new or starter controller” posts (use the search field). You will find plenty that will give you an idea how to go about picking software and gear. There will usually be a list of our preferred starter controllers.
With the advent of more and better iOS DJ software, that is becoming more of an option when paired with a compatible controller. Those are still fewer and further in between than regular midi-controllers that depend on using a laptop with DJ software.
I wouldn’t discount buying used gear either. Depending on where you are in the world, there may be a rather enthusiastic second hand market.
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