Hauzer

Maybe a good controller to start with but I’ve never used it. Vestax isn’t a well known builder of midi controllers, I’d also check out some other brands like for instance Numark. It’s the same with software, check out de different possibilities, I’m a Traktor fan, but maybe other software suits you better.

Just start playing! Dj’ing isn’t rocket science. Train your hearing on beats and work on developing your own style. So build up a nice music collection and get to know your tracks inside out. What kind of music do you play?

Try to find somebody that already did this. It’s not that difficult to set it up. The difficult part is getting your label out there so people really start buying tracks.

Always difficult, I’m into (deep/tech) house kind of stuff:

1. Sneak
2. Kenny Larkin
3. André Galluzzi
4. Deetron
5. Jimpster

Good stuff! Nice mixes and some big tracks!

eros, post: 13316, member: 536 wrote: Agree 100% with you Hessler they may as well not even have a beatgrid, it is always wrong and “off beat”.

The other thing I hate is the “gain” or “autogain” .. totally useless !

Why do you call this totally useless? Every track is mixeddown in another way so I think the autogain is nice feature!

I totally agree with Papa Bear on the fact that you should be able to fit Traktor to your screen in a better way. I wasn’t thinking of stretching but rather push certain elements to different places. For instance put your decks on one screen and the library on the other.

I’ve to say I got used to it and addressing options as full screen and library overview to knobs on one of my controllers made it less annoying.

Hey Sumir, I wouldn’t start with the midi-controller but with the software. For me the only two professional programs are Serato and Traktor. Serato is mainly used in North America and some parts of the UK, Traktor has became the standard for the rest of Europe. Serato is almost always used for timecode vinyl/cd. Traktor has two products, Traktor Scratch, it’s the big competitor of Serato and Traktor Pro, totally aimed on midi controllers.

I prefer and use Traktor because it works better for me (more options and really good digital technology), I don’t use timecode but only midi controllers. The controllers that I’ve purchased are meant for Traktor and therefore work well with the software. So I recommend you to first find somebody or a store that uses/sells the different software types. Try them out, make a decision from there in terms of software and go from there in your search of good midi controllers. After testing software you will also know how you want to dj from now on (timecode or totally midi).

At this picture you see a timecode setup: http://herr-z-berger.de/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ts_setup_05.jpg. You can see two decks, a mixer, a soundcard and a laptop. How does timecode work? With the software and the soundcard you get two vinyls that haven’t got any music on it, only a really simple tone in one rhythm. Via rca the turntabel is wired to your soundcard. The soundcard reads the tempo of the vinyl, so if you move de pitch or perform a scratch, your soundcard wil read that and will give that information to your laptop/software. In the software a track is played, the software pitches the track when it gets a signal from the soundcard that the vinyl is being pitched. It works exactly the same with cd’s. Hope this makes it a bit more clear.

If you don’t want to buy turntables/cd-players and not even a mixer, then you can choose for a complete midi setup. A midi controller on it self works exactly the same as for instance a keyboard on your computer. Every knob sends it’s own information and in a so called midi-map you can add function to every knob. Example: when you press the letter ‘w’ on your keyboard in word the letter ‘w’ will turn up. The nice thing of midi is that we can change that for everything we want, so now we can press the letter ‘w’ on the keyboard and the letter ‘f’ or digit ‘4’ appears on the screen. This is exactly what is happening with midi controllers, they can only send an d receive digital commands.

Thats why you always need a soundcard with it to be able to dj. Some midi controllers has got one build in to the controllers, some don’t. So thats the first thing to watch. After that you can check the amount of knobs, faders etc on it. Some controllers are specifically made for a certain type of software, but keep in mind that you can change the meaning of every button! Do you want to use FX? Make sure there are enough rotarys on the controller. Do you want to use a lot of cue points/samples/loops, make sure there are enough buttons on it. Do you want to scratch? Make sure the controller has got jogwheels on it. Do you want a highly precise pitchcontrol? Make sure there are faders on it and preferably faders that are meant to be used as pitch (move more stiff then a normal volume fader).

So a lot of questions to ask yourself before deciding on software and controller!