New controller not too expensive but good enough to use in club

Hi Mark,

First off I moved your post to the DJ Gear forum as that is clearly where it belongs.

Second, there are several recent posts on the subject of club grade controllers (if such a thing exists).
But to answer your last question first. I don’t think there are any clubs that have their own controller for you to use. Several reasons for that. Controllers are not plug and play, so you might show up with your laptop and have to set drivers and all kinds of stuff, add mappings and settings perhaps, all very awkward. Not all DJ software supports all DJ controllers. Be a tad odd if you showed up with your copy of Serato to find a non-supported controller.
So in essence the answer here is: you bring your own controller (many clubs are starting to expect people to bring their own, rather than use club CDJ/DJM gear) and play with that.

Back to you question. You failed to tell us what controller you have now, so hard to say what qualifies as an upgrade (if you are using a DDJ-SX now for example, the number of real upgrades is rather limited, whereas if you are on a Hercules thingie that cost you 75 bucks, almost every serious starter controller would be an upgrade). Also you fail to tell us what your DJ software of choice is and if you want to keep using that or are willing to consider a change. Say you use Traktor, then the path to follow should almost certainly include NI hardware.
Finally you don’t mention what kind of DJ you are. Do you scratch, do you do a lot of mashups, are you a heavy FX user. All these things come into play when deciding what your best controller choice should be.

On a general note, I personally believe that it’t the carpenter, not the hammer he uses that determines the quality of the furniture. Even the most elementary serious starter controller (MC2000, DDJ-SB, Mixtrack Pro 2, etx.) has a sound card that is good enough for club use (CD quality) and mostly enough features to run a perfectly good gig. I am quite convinced that if you were to give someone like, say, Terry_42 a Mixtrack Pro 2 and stuck him in a club with it, he’d rock the house like you wouldn’t believe. By the same token I know a few DJs I could send out with a 2000 dollar DDJ-SZ who probably would trainwreck the entire night.

Hope this helps some. If you want more specific answers, provide us with some more specific information and questions.

Denon MC3000, Mc4000 or MC6000 are all you need, brah.

I’m a Virtual DJ user and I used to have a mixtrack pro (still do but it collects dust) but I’ve upgrade to a Gemini g2v. You can get one for a pretty decent price these days. Some may have other (better) recommendations but that’s mine.

@Danny: Yes, I know for sure there is at least one Keymaster/Moderator on these forums that will quite adamantly state that from just about anything to Gemini is not an upgrade 😀 And while it may be a bit harsh, I can’t really disagree with most of his arguments. On the other end of the spectrum, if it works for you, it works for you, right!

@OP: No, the new Mixtrack Pro is no more pro than the current one. It would be updating more than upgrading imho and a waste of money. The MC3000 is no longer for sale (although you might still find one in stock somewhere. The jury is still out on the MC4000. It’s pretty much an MC3000 with performance pads.

The main question here that remains is, what is it your are missing specifically. And by missing I mean some feature that you feel you really need/want to progress to the next level of your DJ-ing game or something that is lacking that you find is holding you back in some way. If there is nothing there, I’d say take your Mixtrack Pro out to whatever gig you can get and practice in front of a live crowd. That’s where the real DJ-ing is learned after all.

And only when you truly know what you want from your next controller, it’s time to start looking around for something more expensive.

As for others judging you by your gear, show them you can spin and make your audience happy. They really couldn’t care less if you were playing for them with matchboxes and rubber bands.