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Thread: Which controllers are currently recommended?

  1. #11

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    I don't know why anyone would still use music on CD today. I find my laptop eminently reliable - certainly more reliable than CD ever was. In over 3 years I've lost maybe a minute of sound in total. That's literally hundreds of gigs & only once had an inexplicable pause in a first dance of about a second - barely enough time to even fade the backup in.

    My last experience of djing with cd was with a couple of pioneer cdjs. One stopped working meaning I had to alternate between vinyl & cd, then as I started to run out of vinyl I hadn't yet played a Numark dual CD unit was brought in. Problem with that was it steamed up & couldn't be used anyway. Utterly embarrassing. And this was in a club where the rigours of player life are notably easier than the life of a player on the road.

    The risks of being entirely digital are great but you can reduce them substantially with backups. The benefits of laptop & controller DJing vastly outweigh those risks. Virtual folders, crates, search & sorting etc. It's a dream come true for me. When I look through my old cd wallets I ponder how on Earth I ever used to find anything.

  2. #12

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    The reason I'm still stuck in the 19th century using CDs is that I simply haven't got years of spare time to rim my CD collection onto a hard drive to make them digital friendly (not to mention the cost of a ProDub licence).

    I did of course start in the arm wrenching era of vinyl, so even CDs represent a significant weight reduction in music. My 3 x Denon DN-4500 CD players have only once put a foot wrong and, with the spare already connected, that was soon sorted.

    Its a system what I have been used to for the last 20 years and, back then, I vowed I'd never get a CD player as I had too much vinyl. Oh well, something changed my mind!!

    I have every track I have on an Excel database and finding even the most obscure request often only takes 30 seconds.

    So for several reasons, I am staying with CDs for now, though the DND-4500 mk 2 does have 2 USB inputs so there is a route for playing music from USB's, which is slowly taking shape.

    I have looked at digital controllers with everything in mind and I must admit, the preference is at the moment is for the Denon MC-6000 mk 2. But what I would sincerely prefer is a controller that does not need a laptop. Remember the Cortex? I wish I'd bought one then.

    Now, has anyone got a spare year?

  3. #13

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    Ah I forgot about all the ripping. And the tagging. Oh my days the tagging!

    Ripping wasn't so bad. Me & my wife worked as a team, with no less than 4 computers on the go over the course of a few weeks. I relied on autolookups initially & then corrected tracks later.

    As a bar & club dj my core library was at most 400 discs, mostly compilations & pool CDs so wasn't too bad for remembering where everything was.

    I'm not mocking you at all & fully sympathise with your reluctance to change. Back when I only used vinyl I'd see my cd touting dj friend try to persuade me, only to see one of his players go into a spasm just before I left the bar

    When I ultimately made the switch to cd it still didn't leave vinyl behind completely.

    My first ever gig using a laptop alone didn't go well. Playout hung, still playing music but couldn't be interacted with so I had to go back to CD for a few tunes while it rebooted. That almost put me off forever.

    Preparing to go out on the road entirely digital took weeks & weeks. Mostly tagging, sorting & testing. It was a slog & even today I'm finding badly tagged tracka. Would I ever consider going back? Not on your life!
    Last edited by Nakatomi; 07-06-2018 at 04:56 PM.

  4. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by mattydj50 View Post
    Remember the Cortex? I wish I'd bought one then.
    Is this the sort of cortex you wish you had bought? DMix 600
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  5. #15

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    Just for the record - I had a Numark Mixdeck express for a few years and, while I primarily used it as a digital controller (it does both), it was also very reliable for playing CD's. It's not amazingly well built (that shouldn't come as a surprise) and is a little bit plasticy, but it did it's job well. You can expect the main Cue/Play buttons to get sticky and fail eventually (as with most of these devices built around tactile switches).

    The Gemini and Cortex units are built around the same engine (same company and both came out of the same lab), so it's funny that you've dismissed the Gemini unit, but would accept a Cortex I had a Cortex unit for years (digital player only, no CD's) and it was reasonably solid and reliable other than the odd crash, but nowhere near as easy and friendly to use as a laptop.

    You're going to soon find that you run out of options for CD's - there are going to be very few devices left that play them other than your separate table top units and a handful of Chinese manufacturers who keep trotting out Numark CDN22 clones. I'm sure DJ's will be selling off their old units, giving you a cheap 2nd hand source for years

    Regardless of what you do now, it might be worth starting to feed those CD's into a PC whenever you get a spare minute to build up your MP3 collection. I had 700+ CD's to RIP when I started and I just made a habit of switching over the CD's and pressing GO whenever I noticed the CD tray open.
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  6. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by mattydj50 View Post

    I simply haven't got years of spare time to rim my CD collection onto a hard drive to make them digital friendly (not to mention the cost of a ProDub licence).

    ...

    the DND-4500 mk 2 does have 2 USB inputs so there is a route for playing music from USB's, which is slowly taking shape.
    That will still require Pro Dub...

  7. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by rth_discos View Post
    That will still require Pro Dub...
    No it doesn't, because the only stuff I have on my USB's have been bought as digital files.

    I have already started ripping CDs to a blank hard drive as and when time permits (early evening to end of buffet time, or sit down meal time is good for a few).

    Having used vinyl and CD for the past 48 years, what I find difficult is having the hard copy sleeves in front of me in the box to thumb through for "dead mind" inspiration.

    Trouble is, by the time I finish ripping, I might have retired!

  8. #18

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    Technically if you so much as move a file from one device to another you need produb. For example.. Download music on a home computer, transfer to USB drive... Ouch.

    Regarding inspiration.. That's where filter folders, virtual folders etc come into their own.

  9. #19
    Resident Antagonist Benny Smyth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mattydj50 View Post
    No it doesn't, because the only stuff I have on my USB's have been bought as digital files.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nakatomi View Post
    Technically if you so much as move a file from one device to another you need produb. For example.. Download music on a home computer, transfer to USB drive... Ouch.
    Justin (and initially Gavin) is right - the moment you make a copy of a digital track, you should be in possession of Produb.

  10. #20
    Dinosaur Excalibur's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Benny Smyth View Post
    Justin (and initially Gavin) is right - the moment you make a copy of a digital track, you should be in possession of Produb.
    Oh goody. Here we go again, which used the P word?
    I applied to go on Mastermind, and have it as my specialist subject, but they said no, as they couldn't find anyone who understood it well enough to set questions on it!

    Sorry Matthew, the first time you shove a USB stick in the socket, you need the licence. Even if I hadn't gone digital, my use of Minidisc would have meant me buying the thing.
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