Review: American DJ SDJ -2

[pagan_flame]

While wandering around the DJ show (Clive / CRS1's) in January, I was contemplating the possibility of a digital playout controller; I already have had, for a few years, laptops with OTSDJ; however I invariably get bored with moving the mouse around and revert to CDs once the party gets started.

So the solution was to find a hands-on controller to eliminate CDs to the realms of backup only - such an item for OTSDJ is hard to come by! The Hercules controller, as far as I can tell, has no screen at all, you will have to look at the laptop to see what's going on... and No Thank You I don't want to abandon my beloved, stable, user-friendly OTSDJ for something else!

So, let's get Denon controllers out of the way first - seen 'em, tried 'em, and I don't like 'em. If you have one and like it, good for you; I have Mackie SRM450s and like those but accept that there are plenty of people who will deride me for my choice.

So, please accept that I'm not about to punt out a grand for a Denon bundle, and let's move on, shall we...?

I did have a look at the Numark system at the show - very tempting but was told in a quiet aside that a new version was imminent with a mixer built-in, and Lo! Just today an email pops in telling me all about the Numark HD mix - only a grand with keyboard and flightcase...

...so in the end I got a top deal from Clive (CRS1) on an American DJ SDJ-2 player.

Take it out of the box - it is a 3U standalone racking device with twin screens, jog wheels - basically everything you have with a CD controller; in the middle is a basic mixer, plus two card slots and a USB slot. At the back is power input, microphone input, and two outputs - you can either take two separate outputs into two channels of your main mixer - or take just one output into one channel of your mixer, and use the onboard mixer and headphone socket for mixing purposes - a quick push of the 'Mixed Source' button enables or disables this as required.

For my own setup - I took one output into channel one of my American DJ Q-2422 mixer, leaving channels 2 & 3 free for CD decks - and also utilising the handy option of a selector switch on channel 3 to switch between CD deck 2, my laptop, or an iPod according to what I want to play from!

Back to the SDJ-2; two slots take an SD memory card; this model claims to support up to 16 Gig cards, but I have stuck with a selection of 2 and 4 Gb cards, tell you why in a moment... and in the middle is the big bonus, a USB slot. Into this you can input an external hard drive or - a USB memory stick. Very handy for guest DJs or for gigs where the client wants to bring a track or two along themselves.

You select between cards or USB device with a single button by each 'deck' - lights by the button show you which source that 'deck' is playing from. You can cue up and play from the same device at the same time.

Now the extra bit - there are two control knobs with each deck as well - entitled 'Folder' and 'Title'. You can organise your MP3 files in folders (one level only) on your PC with the supplied SD card adaptor - drag & drop or cut & paste as you like - then once in the SDJ-2 you use the 'Folder' knob to scroll through them. Once you have settled on a folder, you use the 'Title' knob to scroll through the files until you find your chosen track.

Very easy and simple - at my last burlesque night I showed this to a guest DJ - a blonde female with very little experience of DJing - she got it straight away and DJ'd her 1 hour set from a USB stick she had prepared earlier!

However! If you have a huge database - e.g. 16 gig card / external hard drive, you will have to scroll through the lot in order, there is no shortcut other than strategic storage in folders; i.e. if you want to play a track by ELO and you have 500 tracks in your folder labelled 'E', you will have to start at the top and scroll from Ea(gles?) through 200-odd tracks to get to the one you want - hence my targetting of smaller cards with popular tracks.

And - NO search facility by keyword... not even a 'Fast Forward' button to get you through the intro of 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' a bit faster!

Final Warning! There is NOTHING to stop you accidentally popping out a card or USB stick while it is playing, resulting in the dead air / slow handclap / jeering associated with such events, best to stick with just one set of cards for the evening or make absolutely sure you are ejecting the correct card when swapping one over!

Cueing - if you are using your main mixer with 2 channels then it's business as usual; but if you are cueing from the SDJ-2's mixer, there are no level meters with the mixer (coming on the SDJ-3?) and there is an infuriatingly tiny 'Pan' knob that moves the headphone mix from one channel to the other for cueing purposes.

There is, however, a 'Q Start' function (= fader start) on the onboard mixer for such things, and the crossfader itself is every bit as superb as the one on my main mixer.

Also - it doesn't allow you to create playlists or store them; It is essentially like DJing with CDs but without the disc being involved in the operation. This is exactly what suits me - with my laptop as a database, for playlists or for quick searching for requests, and the CDs as backup to all of that.

So I have retained my hands-on DJing but changed 2-3 large boxes of CDs for a SD memory card case which goes into my pocket plus a small CD wallet with a few Now / general party compilations; I will still take the boxes to the venue but can leave them in the van as backup for the unlikely event of both SDJ-2 and laptop failing at the same time.

Power cuts / sound limiters - the SDJ powers up in a couple of seconds and cues tracks in about the same time. Main mixer failure? I can connect the SDJ-2 direct to the rack and use the onboard mixer to get me by.

Overall, very recommended if you like a hands-on system that requires you to use your brain for the evening's musical selections (as with CDs) and also good if you don't like all the carrying in of CD boxes, and want to retain a degree of separation of playout options in case of equipment failure.

Not recommended if you want to go totally digital, create and run playlists, have a huge collection of tracks on one source or to be able to search for a track.

Can be had very easily for around the £250 mark if you let Google in your life when shopping around... SD cards around the 5 quid mark.

Here's the console with the SDJ-2 at the bottom, Q-2422 above and controller for KAM decks above that:

[Dynamic Entertainment]

Brilliant review, cheers

[Vectis]

Great review

As most folks know, I'm a d2 user. I have the SDJ1 as a backup/spare decks arrangement. I originally bought the SDJ1 with caution as I had been told that navigation was a bit restricted for someone used to d2s and laptops, and I had to concur. So it's interesting to see that the SDJ2 isn't any better.

However in practice I have a 5-channel Numark CM200 mixer with Ch1+2 connected to my d2, Ch3+4 connected to my SDJ1 and Ch5 switchable between two line level inputs and a wired mic (all backups).

During normal playout, I use the d2 99% of the time, but I keep a couple of SD cards loaded into the SDJ1 with a sprinkling of top tracks from each genre that, whilst perfectly danceable and fitting for the majority of events, I would rarely play unless requested. As I move through the evening I'll change the SDJ1 so that at all times at least one relevant song is cued ready to switch across if needs be.

I've not needed to revert to the SDJ1 as yet, but I have found myself playing the cued song on occasion, or using it to try to quickly 'insert' a request when I know the requested song is already on the SD card but the d2 is already cued for the next song and there's less than 30 seconds to go!

So, in conclusion, as a d2 / laptop user, I find the SDJ1 absolutely spot on as a backup device but I'd really struggle to use it as primary playout. I suspect the same is so of the SDJ2 based on this review.

[pagan_flame]

I used it last night as my primary playout - I played around 10 tracks from the laptop that I didn't have on the card, and no CDs at all!

[Woodyo]

I use one of these players too. Not being able to find tracks on the cards can be a problem. The player seems to read the tracks in alaphabetical order. I found you need to create your folders thoughtfully first . Folders with up to 30 tracks are quite easily searchable with the control knob , but as stated before if you have a large folder with 200 or 300 tracks ( say your seventies folder) then even remembering what's in the folder is a nightmare.
What I have done is set-up all my big folders the way I want them , Seventies , Eighties etc etc . Make sure that track numbers are cleared from the songs title tag , I then export the folder to a media player as a playlist , and sort in alaphabetical order and save it . I then have a playlist copier programme which I downloaded for free which I use to print the playlist out , giving track number , track , artist and length. This then becomes a quick reference which you can browse through for deciding what to play next or if you need to find which a track i a certain folder. So if "Dancing Queen " is track number 221 in you seventies folder its easier to find quickly. Im quite sure there is a better way of cataloging what is on the sd card but this is the best method I can come up with.

[Tom]

Great review. Good to see more people putting reviews up.

Just an idea. What about creating folders like 70's A to E, F to I and so on????

[DeckstarDeluxe]

Great review. Good to see more people putting reviews up.

Just an idea. What about creating folders like 70's A to E, F to I and so on????

its what i do with my mp3 cd's and of course you only get 660ish meg on a cd.....

[Tom]

its what i do with my mp3 cd's and of course you only get 660ish meg on a cd.....

I usually get about 120 tracks on my mp3 discs for the car but now I just use a small usb stick. Much easier. lol.

[Adam_F]

One thing to note with this unit, is that it only has a 2 band EQ per channel, so not ideal if you play with the EQs while mixing. (not a problem if you route the two audio outs into a standard mixer, but that kind of defeats the object of buying a unit with a built-in mixer).

[pagan_flame]

For a footnote... last night I did a wedding (thanks Wayno), starting at 8.15 (speeches ran over, as they always do!) to midnight.

I played 5 tracks on CD, 5 on the laptop, and the rest were on the SDJ-2. I didn't have to change cards, so it is perfectly viable as a primary playout system for general party use!