Todd Oddity

My advice would be neither. Some things to consider…

~ Do you need CDs? You’re adding a lot of weight to any potential system if you insist on having CD drives in your hardware. I’d figure out a plan that involves ditching the CDs and making the most of this new portable gear you want to invest in.

~ Both of those units you’re looking at are rather dated in the feature sets they offer. If you’re taking the time and making the effort to switch over to Serato anyway, no reason to intentionally lock yourself out of all the bells and whistles. Even if you don’t think you’d use them, having them available at least gives you the option to experiment and play around a little.

~ Broadly speaking, if you are considering the modular route (media players, plus mixer, plus whatever else) it’s because you are trying to integrate something otherwise not available in all-in-ones, or are trying to insert a much higher quality component into your performance rig (think fancy-pants mixer or such). Or alternatively you could just be a crazy person like me who enjoys bringing ten thousand parts to every gig – but that’s a terrible plan. Don’t do what I do. I’m crazy.

So all that said, my advice would be to look at something like the Mixtrack Platinum or NVII. Or step it up and look at something like the Denon MC4000 or Pioneer SB2 or SR (depending on budget). All of those options would give you a serious portability advantage over the options you are considering, and would still deliver a pretty solid “2 decks and a mixer” feeling for you.

** Edit: Thinking about this a little more… Look at the Denon range of products. If you do a lot of mobile they really are hard to beat.

I picked up a used Akai AMX last year, had problems getting it set up and stuffed it in a desk drawer and forgot I bought it.

Fast forward to last weekend, and I had a show that really didn’t require me bringing out my big setup, so I pulled this out and took the time to get it set up properly and was really impressed with how good it sounded. Very solid little unit, I’d recommend adding it to your list of considerations – plus it comes with a full Serato licence, which is almost unheard of at that price point.

I bought, downloaded, and converted something to mp3 a few weeks ago (all within iTunes) then moved the file over to my “iTunes-shall-never-ever-touch-this-machine” dj laptop. No issues.

When you first install v8, it reads your v7 database and automatically converts it. Note that after installation, both versions will be using separate databases and are not linked (so if you install 8, but then keep on using 7 for a few more months, none of the changes you make to tracks in 7 will be transferred over to 8).

Note: As always, good practice to back up your VirtualDJ folder before doing anything.

Lesson to be learned here: Check that equipment is supported by software you want to use BEFORE you buy equipment.