DJ Vintage

Could be something as simple as a bad ground track on a circuit board.

However … you did say that even with another mixer as soon as you plugged a CDJ in to USB the buzz returned. Actually you don’t say you hooked up the CDJ without USB on the other mixer.

LOL @ invoice to Microsoft & welcome to the wonderful world of IT.

And both your speakers and headphone are connected to your S2? You have all the settings inside Traktor set correctly?

I doubt you’d want to reinstall a laptop while playing out. You could install all the necessary software on a backup laptop and just carry the relevant license keys with you in a text file. But … unless you had a fully up and running backup laptop with all licensed software AND you were using an external drive for your music AND you’d have all of your analysis files and database info on the external drive, you’d be very hard pressed to get all that in working order during a gig. So you’d need to make sure everything is synced between the two laptops before you start your gig to avoid problems.

Over on the main site there is an article about disaster recovery, it shows what I (as a mobile DJ) do when certain scenario’s occur.

Clearly if you are dependent on your gear continuing to function, then having a controller with stand-alone abilities and something with backup mix to hook up to it pays dividend. This will at least buy you some time to sort out what the problem is and to either fix it or to setup the backup.

Personally I find that a controller with an iPad and your core collection can be a solid backup that doesn’t break the bank or takes up too much extra space in your car.

I believe (but VDJ is the software I know the least about, so don’t shoot me) that there is a free version of VDJ, obviously with limitations, there is a one-time purchase, life-time free upgrades option and there is now a subscription model.

Theoretically that should get you the option of your choice. All you need to do is download and install the correct version (and pay if you picked a paid version).

Just a few points here:

I’m s hobby dj that does online radio . I don’t play out but maybe one day as the station I’m on has done events in the past

Might wanna look at Yamaha AG03/06 mixer as an add-on. It’s positioned as webcasting tool and I must say it packs a lot of power into a very small unit that will happily live next to your controller.

2 channels . I’m going to digital exclusively so don’t really need 4

The two are not mutually exclusive, many controllers offer the option of swapping decks (and are called 4-deck controllers), in which case having 4 channels is far preferable to having 2. Again, if you don’t feel you need them, don’t worry about it.

Decent jog wheels as I don’t quite get these controllers without jogs . How do you adjust of a track starts running away

While I agree with your wish for jogs, on jogless units you’d either use the nudge buttons or (like on the S8/S5) a sort of needle strip. Not having tested it myself I can’t really comment, but people that do have the experience say that after some getting used to it actually works well enough (for the purpose). Since they are Traktor built, I guess lots of DJs utilize sync anyway because of all the other things they want to have going on from within Traktor (Stems, Remix decks, etx).

Maybe the short pitches on better stuff are OK but I find my mixtrack is not fine enough

Pitch sensitivty is the result of both pitch length and resolution coupled with range. Small length and low resolution leads to lesser performance, where you can only really get any kind of accuracy if you use the smallest range available (4-6bpm). By default this leads to the conclusion that long, high res faders are the best, and they are. But they take up a lot of real estate and generally speaking, high quality short(er) faders with high res will do very well, especially in the smaller ranges. So it really does depend on what kind of bpm range control you are typically looking for and even the percentage of the time you manually beat match and when you use sync (no shame in that imho).

You are well on your way of defining your workflow. And from there you can pick your software of choice. The Big Three have morphed into the Major Six as far as I am concerned:
* Traktor (works best with Traktor gear and vice versa)
* Serato
* RekordBox DJ
* Virtual DJ
* DJay Pro (Mac only)
* Mixvibes Cross

Personally I have never subscribed to the whole Pioneer hype. Lot’s of it has been marketing and outlandish pricing. And I have been a Denon DJ user since way way back and that love still sticks based on functionality and build quality. I have always felt that Denon has a better eye for what the mobile DJ wants than any of the other brands. And being a (mainly) mobile DJ that is important to me.

One of the most promising controllers for me personally is the MCX8000. Again, great for mobile jocks, bit overkill for your style of DJ-ing perhaps. Clearly Pioneer has some serious controllers. And depending on your software choice you can go for the S or R series.

As far as getting laughed at:
a) don’t worry about it. If you show up with a controller (even the big ones) you might get laughed at by the CDJ boys, if you show up with CDJs you can get laughed at by the vinyl boys and if you show up with vinyl, you might get laughed at by all the others for being a dinosaur (not likely but still).
b) let your music do the talking. Rock that house and know it and you don’t have to worry what others think.
c) the only people that even care what gear you use are “fellow” DJs, the only people in the house that really matter are the audience. Be sure you know who you are there for.
d) just shrug it off and do your thing.

You are going from software to the mixer normally in what way?