XDJ-RX or wait?

That’s a question only you can really answer. What are your needs for a controller? A lot of guys are all about 4 decks. I am a Wedding DJ and I do small-medium sized gigs and I actually prefer two decks. I own the XDJ-RX and I LOVE it. Would I upgrade to something else? That’s hard to say. It would depend on what features a newer piece of gear would offer. If it’s four decks, I wouldn’t spend the extra money, but again, that’s me.

As others have said, a lot of it comes down to personal preference, BUT if you can afford the 1000’s and a mixer over the RX, you’d be getting a modular system with much more flexibility and future proofing. The trade off of course is that it would also be a lot larger and heavier should you be trying to take it on the road.

I just got one a few days ago, and after several false starts and misfires (lets all just firget about the ergo shall we), Pioneer have absolutely knocked it out of the park into another county. I think Pioneer actually did the best thing by not trying to get in on the controller action on the heels of Traktor and Serato and plow their own route. You CAN actually download a Traktor TSI officially from Pioneer website, but as yet there is no advanced HID and the thoroughly re-enigineered from ground up rekordbox 3 is awesome, using Pro-Link to connect direct to your laptop just to access the library. Whether you like Pioneer or not I think they are still doing a fantastic job of remaining relevant, and this unit for the money is beyond superb.

I have a MAcbook Pro retina, so no bloody ethernet! Am waiting right now for a thunderbolt to ethernet adapter so I can try prolink but havent had a chance to use it yet. I am really hoping though that you can still search via the unit’s screen and not be limited to only using the laptop screen as TBH my whole point of getting into Rekordbox is to get back onto a standalone DJ platform and away from the laptop and the laptop’s screen, so I am more than happy with Rekordbox enabled USB sticks as the file source right now.

I think the complaint about a single knob as a search problem is probably utter bunk and just people looking for problems… what do they want a mouse? Then stick to a laptop! Since I stepped away from CDJs and went digital I have been using Denon MC3000 & 6000s with Traktor (superb controllers by the way, built like tanks), and they use a single search wheel which is more than sufficient if you have your library well organised. If you can’t use a single rotating knob (with push) and a simple back button to search your library then again… stay on a laptop! (obviously I don’t mean you personally but any of us). There are two schools here really aren’t there. Those who think you should prepare a ‘crate’ beforehand, and those that want to have access to every track they own. While its nice to be able to be spontaneous and play THAT track when inspiration strikes and yes it is more convenient to use a keyboard for this, Rekordbox does have an option to input letters via the wheel so you can do a search which I think is a great function considering the entire raison d’etre of the unit is to get the DJ away from the laptop (or at least the laptop screen). For me it comes down to this, if you want to use Traktor and a large screen this may not be the BEST controller, although of course it does have an excellent Traktor TSI file for it (I haven’t tried it yet myself but my understanding is functionality is excellent you just don’t get to use the inbuilt screen), or you want to step away from the screen and use a modernised very digital friendly evolution of the ‘traditional pioneer club workflow’. Of course Pioneer may in the future offer full HID support for Traktor on this unit as do the NXS CDJ900s/2000s & NXS DJMs which would truly be the best of both worlds! Just my two cents.

My USB3 ehternet adapter arrived this morning, so I shall be testing the ProLink + laptop this weekend, I shall report back to you! 🙂