Todd Oddity

Well, first things first: Yes, I think you’d be more than happy with the Reloop for a very long time. If you are satisfied with the workflow of your current rig overall, the new mixer wouldn’t radically change that but you’d have a much higher quality piece at the core (both in terms of sound output and actual build). Plus, as you mention, this route gives you financing options others do not.

I’m a modular guy myself, so I’m loving the sound of your Frankenstein’ed together system. BUT… In the interested of balanced opinions – Vintage has some serious options you should consider. Any of the controllers he lists would give you a full four deck system with a lot less hassle during the setup – the controller would replace the mixer, the Orbit, the Hercules, and the two Numark decks. For shows where you still had need of CDs, bring one NDX along and connect it to the controller. All of the controllers Vintage mentions are VDJ compatible, so you’d have no software issues (I’m never as sure with Traktor as I don’t get a clear read on the direction NI is headed anymore – but if you prefer VDJ it’s a non issue anyway).

The drawbacks? Well, obviously money if you can’t get the same sort of financing arrangement. Also, all of those controllers operate the software decks via a midi mixer mode instead of as a hardware mixer (they do operate as hardware mixers for the external inputs). So you lose a little bit of room on the audio sculpting with that, and you are introducing latency onto your mixer components. But with a well running laptop those drawbacks are minimal and most people will tell you they can’t notice a difference. They bother me, but as has been established elsewhere on this forum, I’m an insane person. ;-P

You won’t really be going wrong with any of these options – so don’t stress about making the wrong choice. Just think about what you are currently doing, and what you’d like to be doing a year or two from now, and pick the route that gives you the workflow to get there. Good luck!

There was a quick overview video here, but for more detail Mojaxx over at DJ City did a comprehensive review a week or two ago, and the short version is he loved the thing.

I know the SR has a line level aux in, I don’t believe it has a phono in which you would need for connecting to most turntables.

I’m not following what you want to use a Launchpad for? What do you want to control with it?

If it helps at all, I have a Launchpad Mini that I’ve connected to Virtual 8 in the past. I wrote my own map for it and used to to control video effects and transitions for when I was VJ’ing a show. It worked well enough.

Ya, I’d be interested in hearing a little more on what you are looking for as far as music format goes… It sounds like a neat idea. Shoot me a message via my Facebook page if you want to chat: http://www.facebook.com/djoddity

I’m an open format DJ, and over a third of the tracks I play are pop40 remixes that no one’s heard before

Now that I’m agreeable too, my sets are much the same way – but your original advice was to “pick tracks that no one will have heard of”. You may have meant remixes of known tracks, but it reads as pick obscure tracks no one will know.

Before you drop that kind of money – ask yourself a few VERY important questions:

– What are you hoping to accomplish with this gear? What are your goals? Where do you want to see yourself a couple of years down the road?
– This is a large sum of money to spend on units with kind of a narrow set of features. Have you been DJing for some time? Are you comfortable and familiar with all the various technologies out there? What have you used before?
– Is there a reason you want to go this route instead of the more standard route of a controller with laptop? You say “no controllers please”, but why?

Some on here will slam going the CDJ route. I tend to look at your overall goals before I think it is fair to make too many suggestions. BUT… Most of the time, there are far more affordable options available to do what you want than anything that has a “nexus” on the nameplate.