Yet another which controller

Howdy,

well that is really hard to tell. I know where you come from being in the business 20+ years I made all transitions hehe.

I also started on Traktor and then transitioned away to Serato (which is very similar to Rekordbox DJ).
Now both will have its limits. So there really is no “right” choice, there is only the choice for your workflow.
I for one dig the Serato way with Flip, Slicers etc. more than Stems. I most of the time only need an acapella track and instrumental track to achieve what I want and I do not necessarily need the more tracks stems offer, but I just love the way the slicer and flip work.

Now that is my personal workflow, I have seen really nice mixes of our very own Steve with an S8 and stems, that I really liked, but are not my cup of tee doing so myself.

So in the end you will need to know yourself what workflow and features you like best, hence choose the software and then buy the best controller for that workflow.

I think there is a host of DJs who would not be interested in Stems, even if it takes off. As a mobile DJ it would be something I could integrate (maybe) a few times a night. Not worth the effort of learning, getting the music and spending money on supported hardware. I think Stems ended up in the right corner of the DJ Software world, imho.

As for using non-Traktor hardware with Traktor software, you might want to keep in mind that Traktor has moved away from supporting third party hardware (natively). Any support (mappings, drivers) comes from either the third party manufacturers or places like the Traktor Bible site.

It is, at the very least, unpredictable what will happen when a new version of Traktor hits the market. At this point in time I would not want to risk a serious investment in hardware that might not work with my preferred software in the near future. Again, no guarantees this will happen. Unfortunately there is absolutely no guarantee that it won’t happen either!

I own an DDJ-SX and it’s a good, well-built controller. But I have owned lots of Denon gear over the years (including MC6000, SC2900, X1600 and DN-S2000 recently) and with the introduction of the MCX8000, that is going to be my next controller.

Clearly support for Serato, fully midi, so can work with anything else. Sure VDJ will have a mapping soon, as I am hoping/guessing will Mixvibes (for Cross). It has screens as well and uses Engine software so you can use it stand alone (actually with just a USB-stick with only tracks on it!).

There is a lot to choose from 😀