DJ Vintage

Google has some good advice for you. I tried for 3 minutes and found both top 25 Halloween hits with mostly some older stuff (but more than just Thriller 😀 ) but also some house tracks for example.

Hi Joe, welcome to the forums. Have a good time exploring.

As for speakers, if you read up on that topic here you will find many instances where “In PA you get what you pay for”. There is no reasonable speaker for that kind of money, certainly not a pair. So if you wanna gig, borrow or rent something decent. For practice at home either a set of “DJ monitors” (like the KRK 5″or 6″) will be good, but they are totally unsuited for “the road”. Alternatively you could try to source some used 10″ PA speakers from a good brand. Those you could use both at home and for the occasional small party.

Don’t get lured by 100 bucks a piece speakers with great marketing model names and brands that you can find on Amazon and such, it will only lead to utter disappointment imho.

Just my three cents as usual.

Thanks for your input, Maxy. Imho, it’s not all that confusing.

The OP said he has Technics turntables (most likely 1200s) which have only phono out. To get the sound from those into a computer and into your software, you need a mixer/sound card/controller that can transfer phono-in to USB-out, in general this means DVS capability in the hardware (not talking about the software) as DVS needs exactly that, phono-in sound into your DJ software through a USB connection.

The XDJ-RX does not have that option, nor do the Technics have USB. So these pieces of hardware used in combination or apart will not let you rip vinyl (to the best of my knowledge, but I love to be proven wrong).

Clearly he can get a new turntable WITH USB (like the Pioneers you mentioned and some other brands), in which case he needs nothing but his laptop with software and the turntable. He can also get a DJ sound card with phono input(s) and hook up his current Technics and then his computer. Finally he can go out and buy a DVS-capable controller instead of his XDJ-RX (like the MC8000, the SX2 and quite a few other, higher-end ones).

All these options require other gear than what he currently has. His question was not “what do I need to buy to make this work”, the question was “how do I configure what I currently own to take advantage of the option of ripping vinyl in RekordBox (DJ)”. The answer remains (until shown differently) that with his current gear this is not possible.

Terry and I are brand new parents to an MCX8000 (one each, don’t get any ideas!), so yeah, we would say that LOL.

More on-topic though:

MC7000 offers dual-USB (DJ-handover) option that can only be found on the SZ/RZ from Pioneer. A non-feature for me, but for some important.
It also has a way better mic integration than the SX imho, but that is because I use mics a lot and the shared fader option is not one I like (everytime you switch from mic to CD, you have to reset EQ and trim and the CUE button becomes a ducking button). One of the things that happens to me is that I quickly need the mic, I flip the switch to mic and I sound like someone cut of my delicate parts because my low end EQ is still set to mix out a track. Or I hit the cue button to listen to a track and since it’s still on mic the music will drop 15dB with people on the floor looking at me funny.
The MC7000 also has split-cue. This is a feature that was on almost every mixer back in the day, but is found almost exclusively on Denon controllers. To me it’s essential if, for whatever reason (silent disco?) you have to mix in your cans all night. The option of having master in one ear and cue in the other is priceless to me.

Quality-wise I am a total Denon fan. I have had/worked with their gear since forever and I can say for a fact it’s built like a tank and made for the road. Another something that may or not be important to you.

Clearly both controllers don’t have stand-alone capability (meaning laptop-less operation, they are both stand-alone mixers) or displays.

Other than that, I am confident that both have great sound cards regardless of exact specs and both will get the job done quite nicely. Showing up with either won’t leave you feeling ashamed.

Once you get passed the fact that they are both significantly larger than your MC6000 (which I also owned/used before my SX), you will love the extra space to put your fingers and the generous lay-out, the performance pads, the bigger jogs and the overall spacier feel.

BTW, my claim to fame here is that I was using an SX (not the 2 but differences are not that big) til I got my MCX80 delivered. Which truly is a mobile DJ’s wet dream imho.

In general and stated in all courses as well I think, emphasis is given to “know they tunes”.

Many of us come from vinyl and early days of CDs. No waveforms (not on CDJs til way later on more recent models) or even displays at all (apart from a basic bpm read-out). Knowing your tracks intimately was not a luxury but a necessity. It had another major advantage too. While my ears were listening to the track as it played, my brain already knew when, where and how to transition into the next track (of which I knew when, where and how to transition into), giving me lots of peace of mind and time to interact with the crowd or be browsing for other tracks that would follow the next one nicely (often two or three which I knew had nice “hooks”).

To this day I can still tell you from many of the -then- popular stuff from my collection where the breaks where, what (re)mix had the best intro/outro, where the vocals where, what special sounds they had (like sirens, applause, yells).
Visual mixing (i.e. using waveforms and other on-screen tells) is helpful with dealing with unknown material. However, the whole point about “know they tunes” is that there is no unknown (or even unfamiliar) stuff in your collection.

Am I guilty of occasionally peeking at the waveforms? Sure, if only because I was doing three other things at the same time like taking a request and fixing some lighting setting. Looking at the waveform will quickly “snap” me back to where in the track I am. And it’s a nice looking visual indicator to indicate time left on your track.

That said, as always, if it works for you, it works for you. At the end of the day it’s rocking the place that counts.

Recordbox (DJ?) might very well let you rip vinyl … but … you’d need a controller that is DVS capable so it can forward the sound from your phone inputs to your computer/software. The XDJ-RX does not support DVS if I am not mistaken. It will just let you play external sources like line in/phono in through the mixer part, but not through the software. This has to do with the capabilities of the built-in sound card, or rather the lack of certain capabilities.

Unless someone else has more info, my take on it is that you don’t have the right gear to make it work.

Hi Kalob, welcome to the forums. Enjoy your time here.

Use the search function to find many of the (recent) articles on both selection process for new software/gear as well as music pools. For the latter the opinions vary, not everyone is so sure that it’s a good place for music discovery and paying a (usually substantial) monthly fee is the way to go.