Whats the differences between CDJs, Vinyls & Controllers?

a midi controller has less parts as it has only a midi brain and a bunch of knobs/sliders/leds/buttons and sometimes soundcards… modern media players have all that plus hardware to decode and play music from cd/usb/flash drives, they are generally bigger and have a lot more R & D which ends up in the final pricing.

But you should also realize that nothing in this world is priced on it’s real value of parts and labor,the price is determined by what people think they could get for something, but usually the people with the least invested and the most to gain are the stores that sell them, that’s why you can always get a discount on professional items like cdj’s and mixers…

But midi controllers are there for consumers so already incredibly cheap in comparison. The problem is they are not built to last like an allen & heath mixer, cdj2000’s or technics 1200’s. so yes you could spend about $4000 on professional gear that will last a lot of years or you could buy 5 or 6 controllers for about that much to last the same amount of time. plus you need to buy a laptop or two & dj software upgrades if using traktor.

In the long run if your serious about djing as a career after getting your feet wet with controllers your better off investing in the professional gear that you will use in clubs.

Any function for a controller is all software, the benifit is you can upgrade your software easily, the negative is hardware companies want you to also update your controller often so they don’t make them as strong as traditional gear. You need to weigh up what is better for you.

Tradition is one thing.
The other is that a high end turntablist will be able to do things on vinyl and record decks, that are very tricky to perform on a high end controller, some are unmatchable. However many turntablists have also gone to use digital vinyl with timecode and software….
I tend to disagree in one point with synthetic: I think that high end controllers (like NS7) are also built extremely well and lasting, however you still will want to upgrade as they gain more features in new generations… but that is the same for CDJs. A CDJ 2000 will outclass a 350 by long shot… and have more features.
Honestly with how everything works today, I fail to see the advantage of CDJs, except being able to use them in a club that already has them in place. So it is good if you know how to use them, even if it is only for backup, but I can honestly say I have not touched my old CDJs in ages since I went for controllers. I can however see the advantages of using a record deck to perform things, but I am no high-level turntablists that needs those features and the jogs on my TM4 are sufficient for the few scratching things or juggling tricks I do.

synthet1c, post: 22301, member: 1107 wrote: But midi controllers are there for consumers so already incredibly cheap in comparison. The problem is they are not built to last like an allen & heath mixer, cdj2000’s or technics 1200’s. so yes you could spend about $4000 on professional gear that will last a lot of years or you could buy 5 or 6 controllers for about that much to last the same amount of time. plus you need to buy a laptop or two & dj software upgrades if using traktor.

Strongly disagree with this point. Just as you can buy low end CDJ’s, you can buy low end controllers. The reverse also applies, and I can attest to my Denon MC6000 being every bit as solid as any top end CDJ on the market today. You get what you pay for.

Nawaz, post: 22327, member: 2433 wrote: examples would be nice

Advanced scratching and beat juggling. Yes you can do much of this on controllers with decent jogwheels but there are some things that are impossible with current technology. Vinyls (not timecode) do have a slightly fuller and punchier sound to them.