Which Of These Controllers For A Novice?

I am far from advising anybody on starting on the top end gear (usually only confuses and actually makes for a lesser experience), I am for starting with something at a certain quality and feature set.

This for two reasons: 1) using a better tool enhances your first experience and will sooner get you deeper into it and 2) if for some reason you don’t like it, you have a better chance of selling the gear on.

The controller being only one part of the equation, there is the software to consider. For most software you need the full version to activate the recording option which you seem to want. VDJ is a very expensive upgrade, but comes with life time updates (not valuable to you yet, as you don’t know if this will be a lifetime hobby or more), Serato and Traktor about the same sort of money, Mixvibes Cross is slightly less. The software version you get with your controller is usually a lite, LE or intro version that is (severely) limited.

Putting all that on the table, currently the controller that gets most points is the Reloop Beatmix 4. Very decent starter hardware, all the necessary features to last your from beginner into a bit more intermediate (so no need to upgrade after 3 months) and it comes (for a limited time) with the full version of Serato. At 299 euro (including the full software saving at least a 100 euro upgrade) it’s a very good deal.

Be sure to get a controller with a soundcard built-in. You’d need to get a separate one otherwise, so having it in your controller is much easier by a mile.

Finally, an experienced DJ can play on anything (if push comes to shove I could use the DJ 2 Go for a gig, but not with much fun 🙂 ), but if you start on a DJ2GO, you will miss a lot of the feeling of what it is really like to be playing on a more serious controller.

The Hercules doesn’t have pitch faders, which is something you’d miss quickly, imho.

The Mixtrack Pro is a nice starter bit of gear and you can probably get a mk1 for not too much money second-hand too.

Hope that helps.

Greetinx.

Hi Simon,

i was in your boat literally about 2 weeks ago, and decided to buy the Behringer CMD Studio 4A. i paid £135 for it new, really nice controller does everything you would need it to. i was close to buying a mixtrack pro 2 also a very nice controller but just couldnt afford the cost what with having to buy software aswell as. the deckadance software you get with the behringer is not the best in the world but i think for starting out its perfect as the LE version gives you full control and access to your library.

i hope this helps and good luck starting out

Simon.

I would recommend to go with the Mixtrack Pro if you want cheap and good, I would very much recommend against the Behringer.