Marco Solo

If you’re talking about the internet then it almost becomes irrelevant where you live. You can expect a DMCA takedown or the location of your track will be omitted from any google search.

If a track is not under a creative commons license, you can assume it’s copyrighted. At least under US law it makes no difference how long, short, old or new the sample is. Technically, you could be sued for singing “happy birthday to you” in a public space.
This stuff is all locked down I’m afraid.

I can’t name a specific model, but all I can say is you don’t need a top spec laptop for djing. Dj software doesn’t require that much performance. It only requires a somewhat decent processor. If you start to go into DAW’s you’ll need real power.

You’re not exactly correct on your Traktor and Cross analysis Michael. You can use any midi device ever made in the history of mankind with Traktor (and with Cross too). Cross has a HUGE list of controllers where they provided a mapping for. Enormous.
If the controller is not on the list of either program, you can map it yourself or find a mapping on the internet. Both programs offer many options for mapping. Pretty much any function is mappable.

Serato on the other hand, not so much. You have a limited choice of controllers (albeit a good one), and nothing on those controllers is mappable. You can add controllers next to the main Serato gear and map it, but only a few functions are mappable at the moment. Previous generations of Serato had more options, but even those had less than Traktor or Cross.

I would therefore say that Serato is the Apple of DJing. You’re only supposed to use it the way the designer intended it to be used.

I wouldn’t trow everything out and start over. You can also start making playlists ordered by genre, time of the evening, etc and work your way through your current collection this way. Take your time, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

I have done this. This was my first setup for live gigs. I can even give you my super deluxe 4 channel mapping if you want. But beware, it’s pretty complicated. You can download a basic mapping on the numark site. Works pretty good.

But yeah, you can’t legally get Traktor LE if you don’t own a controller that has it included. It wouldn’t work anyway, since you can’t import custom mappings in LE.

I know those are the rules, Vintage. I was really under the impression I was using facts as much as possible (the whole Traktor paragraph alone was pretty much all fact) and that I said these were my reasons for choosing (=opinion). But I’ll use more ‘opinion indicators’ from now on. You can disagree with me as much as you like. In fact, I like it when I disagree with somebody, it gives us something to talk about.

I didn’t mention the parallel waveforms intentionally. I did at first, but it would’ve made the post twice as long. So I decided to just post the reasons I had for choosing. The remix decks also fall under this category, I don’t really care how many dj’s use them. I know Cross has samples, but they are not as useful for me as the remix decks, because they have 8 instead of 16 samples. Hence the Ableton reference. Ableton would be the most versatile in my book as you can use 16 at once instead of only 4 in Traktor. You can use 8 at once in Cross, but the 16 per page in Traktor trumps that for me, especially for fingerdrumming. Nothing is perfect, apart from maybe the Ableton drumrack 😉 I recently mapped my F1 to Cross, so I might have a go at fingerdrumming in Cross. Never tried that before.

I didn’t know about the age of Mixvibes, althoug I do know they were the original creators of Rekordbox. Thanks for the addition.
The preview option is somewhat simmilar to the one in Traktor, although I will concede the one in Cross is more useful.

My intention is not to claim victory for one dj software over another, but simply the reasons for me not to choose Cross as my weapon of choice. Although you thinking I did maybe means I’m quite convincing 😛
It’s good that we have a choice. It gives more power to us, the consumers.

Are you planning to learn to beatmix manually? I ask this because the Instinct does not have tempo faders, but something of a switch instead. I imagine this would be a nightmare to beatmatch manually with (I’d love to give it a go though!). But if you’re just going to use sync anyway, it won’t be a problem. Another annoyance for me would be the lack of a master volume. Apart from that, I’m sure you get a lot for your money.