Chuck Van Eekelen

Jogs for me are still the best way of manipulating the music, especially for manual beatmatching, but also for cueing up tracks and such. Still, there are examples of controllers which have touch strips instead of jogs (saves a lot of space after all). With your fear of inadvertently touching them … well …

Stay with the software you like/love/know well until there is a very compelling reason to switch. Not sure how big the jump to Djay Pro is, but the good news is they support a large number of controllers.

Backup, especially if you are a Djay Pro user, is simply done by adding an iPad to your collection. Get a small PA mixer like the Yamaha AG03/06 or the MG06, hook your controller and your iPad onto it (and a mic should you so desire) and if something happens, hit play on your iPad, open the fader on your PA mixer and you are in business again.

Hi fellow Dutchie, welcome to the forums.

Frankly I hope God (if there is one) will bless all music, but that is beside the point.

Enjoy your time here on the forums.

Quick side-note: I don’t quite agree with the notion that key mixing works with whichever result from the key detection.

A wrongly detected key can clash in two ways:
1) It clashes with a track that was correctly detected in the same key (an Aminor, with an Amajor incorrectly detected as Aminor)
2) It clashes with another track that was incorrectly detected in the same key but is actually another WRONG key than the one it was detected as (two tracks both tagged as Aminor, one actually being Amajor, the other Bminor).

Traktor according to the latest (2015) comparison by our friends at DJ Tech Tools, has the amazing rate of 47% correct detections. More than half are tagged incorrect! Compared to MiK7 (I don’t think the actual detection has changed in 8) which scores 87%. Still not perfect, but definitely the best in the business.

Back on topic.
Mixed in Key 8 is definitely different from it’s predecessors. I had (just to test) about 5.000 tracks in my MiK, divided over local SSD and HD and a NAS (1GB wired network connected). The MiK data was kept on the local HD. I found the indexing (search function) to be rather fast and not changed much (if at all?) from the speed with only a couple of hundred tracks in the database. It also searches by instant elimination, i.e. you start typing it drops everything that doesn’t match the search string. So no need to type the full word or title or whatever and hit search. If you type Kaja… you will probably already be left with only the tracks from Kajagoogoo. You can drag and drop right from the list. Can’t currently check how long it then takes to get the track from it’s actual location though, but that would be a function of the location and identical in any indexing software I’d assume.

Again, just my thoughts.

Personally I would never start learning to DJ on vinyl. I did (a zillion years ago) and it was the hard way to go, compared to the things you can do today. Also be aware that while purchasing two TTs and a mixer may seem relatively cheap, the upkeep of vinyl is higher than with any other kind of DJ-ing. Regular vinyls are more expensive and still susceptible to damage, you’ll need new needles with some regularity and if you go DVS (i.e. using vinyl to control DJ software) you will be looking at the very least at adding a 4-in/4-out sound-card (compatible with Serato or other software you intend to use), the actual software itself (DVS usually being the most expensive version or an expensive add-on) and regular sets of control vinyls.

So unless you can safely spend the money on something that looks good to you, go ahead. If you are serious about getting into DJ-ing, buying a second-hand starter controller with some software and a good course (clearly our “How To Digital DJ Fast” course is really good 😀 ) will get you up and running in about 2 months. To me that makes much more sense.

Something I have learned about buying used gear, when that “if I don’t buy this, there will never be another something like it” moment arrives and you resist the urge to buy, suddenly you see similar offers in the weeks that follow. The point being, don’t worry about learning a bit more about DJ-ing first. If and when vinyl DJ-ing is something for you, another opportunity for gear will present itself. By then you will know what it is you want and why, so in a better place to make that decision.

My three cents as usual. Hope that helps some.

I am sorry if it seems I am contradicting myself.

My personal preference is of little relevance to anybody, as – at the end of the day – everyone has to decide what is best for their particular situation.

We could have a nice discussion on these topics over a drink in a bar someday and we’d still end up agreeing to disagree on some things I think :-).

What I try to make my point is, that every piece of kit out there is a compromise of some sort. Either in price, features, build-quality, etx. It depends on what a person (thinks/believes he/she) needs which makes the decision happen.

For example, the XDJ-RX has indeed the extra FX section, but it offers up other things (price for example and -arguably- build quality, but definitely 2 channels) for it. Now, if you are big on FX use, the XDJ-RX will probably appeal more (although the MCX8000 allows you to stack 3 FX with their own parameters PLUS the filter which Pioneer considers and FX too). If you like cue juggling, flip, slicer and such, the MCX8000 offers 8 high-grade pads per deck as opposed to the (imho) lesser 4 on a XDJ-RX.

Another example: Denon is currently launching the Prime series. They are absolutely awesome and -to me- represent the next wave in high-end DJ gear. The feature list is very impressive, so much so that guys like Laid Back Luke, Paul Oakenfold, Tiesto and Oliver Heldens all have changed their rider. But … before the units are physically shipped to customers, over at their forums there already is a feature wish list for the next release/update/upgrade. Which only goes to show that even if you launch something really new (to CDJ users, us controller jockeys already where used to a lot of this LOL), there will be people coming up with features they “miss”. There just never will be one size fits all.

So, what might be my best recommendation to someone based on their question/situation, might not be the best for someone else. The reason we never talk about the BEST software or the BEST hardware is because there is no such thing.

Which leaves the standalone/modular versus all-in-one controller argument. I’ll stick with my conviction that media players with a regular mixer are not as feature-rich as controllers. Personally I really LIKE the form factor and have actually had a 2x SC2900/X1600 combination. It just no longer ticked all the necessary boxes having gotten used to all that controllers offer.

As for the laptop argument. I bough my first MBP for 700 euro (about 550-600 quid) and it worked perfectly. Only when I had some money I upgraded to my current i7/16GB version with 256SSD. That set me back about 800 quid, but I sold my old one for about 450. So not all that bad. That said, I played the years before that with a simple dual-core Dell business model I had picked up somewhere for next to nothing. And it did (for me!) what it needed to do. Had it hooked up to my MC6000 controller and never had a problem. And assuming most people already have a laptop, that is usually not a deciding factor.

Finally thank for your comments. Good when people keep me sharp too and make me re-evaluate what I post.

Hi John, welcome to the forums. Enjoy your time here!

Be sure to read up on some of the posts on picking (digital) starter gear. Another tip is to take a (money-back guarantee) course like “How To Digital DJ Fast”. It will fast-track you into all things digital. Combine it with a 100-150 dollar used starter controller (plenty of posts with our list of potentials) and in 2-3 months you will fully equipped, based on that new knowledge and your experience of yesteryears, to come out and make the right decision.

Just my three cents as usual.

I am not particularly knowledgeable about OBS per se, but in general you need to follow the routing starting with the source (or the final signal, but source is usually easier). Leave your windows default to whatever it was before, you shouldn’t need this changed for your purpose.

You said nothing about players, so I am guessing you are doing everything inside the laptop.

In that case your source is the laptop. You can set the audio output from you DJ software to correspond with channels 1-4 (setting under the input tab of the DJM utility software and in the output section of the DJ software).
At this point you would hook up speakers to the main output of the DJM and be up and running. So, this would still be the first step. Fire up the DJ software, drop tracks in all decks you intend to use and hit play on them. Set trim/gain, listen for a signal in your headphones by cueing one of the channels. Check that all switches at the top of the channels are set to USB. By turning up your mixer channel faders and master level you should now have sound over your speakers. Or you can set your headphone cue/master mix to master if you don’t want to hook up your speakers.

If this works, the first part of your routing is ok. You get the sound from your DJ software to your mixer in the correct channels and can mix with it through the faders.

Now you should set rec out in the output tab of the DJM utility (which you say you have done). Effectively I would think (not sure though) that this will send the same record out (stereo) to each of the 4 available return channels. It COULD be that you get 4 different record feeds (one for each channel) but I don’t think so.

Now you should go into the OBS software and as input pick channels 1&2 from the DJM. If you are on Windows that would be an ASIO driver. Remember that record outputs are normally pre-fader (master) outputs. This means they will react to the channel fader levels, but are independent from the master settings. This is handy, cause you can turn the master up or down while listening (or answering a quick phone call) without affecting the level of your recorded mix.
So, play a track on deck 1 (corresponding with USB 1/2) and open the channel fader, again for monitoring purposes you can open the master as well, and check if you have incoming signal in OBS. Once that works, turn the channel 1 fader down and repeat for channel 2. If this also works everything is set up correctly and you should be able to play tracks in your DJ Software decks, mix them on your DJM and send out the final mix live to/through OBS.

Hope that helps some.