If you are a beginner, don't buy something used for above retail price.
Saw a post about the DDJ 400s going for $350-$400 on eBay.
If you're getting your first ever DJ controller, don't buy one of these for above retail price.
It breaks my heart, and I say that as someone who just sold their 400 for $395. I got that thing used without a box for $170. I sold it used without a box for twice that.
You know what's cool about the DDJ 400? It used to be cheap and easy to get your hands on one. That's why it was always the go to.
Now you see people selling them for parts, selling them with broken buttons, missing switches, for over retail price. That's the exact opposite of what made it cool.
It's the accessibility, the fact that it's plug and play. The fact that you could pass one to a newbie and they can get going almost instantly.
But now you're paying $400+ with shipping so it's not the same experience.
Hercules and traktor make some good options. Yeah it doesn't work with rekordbox, but they do come with software. You can learn to DJ on anything. Once you know how to DJ, learning a new software doesn't take very long.
Edit: Today I learned I should donate everything of value in my house to charity otherwise I'm a bad person.
Also, I've single handedly ended several DJ careers by selling something that I own on eBay.
Posted Sep 27, 2022, 4:26 PM UTC · edited
But it's club standard!111 There is no alternative!! And every beginner will end up playing at a club.
Yeah people gonna think I'm a loser if I don't have rekordbox in my bedroom.
i know it's an easy meme but i just couldn't justify having to pay even more to get more than 4 hotcues or to get shorter loops and whatever else serato light locks, that kinda software feature locking is just gross, if y'all can make it work on serato that's sick, or if you got a controller with pro that's great too, but for the budget user who doesn't wanna spend more in the future a rekordbox controller that's cheap is just the longer lasting option tbh
🤷‍♀️ I use traktor
Exactly but it's not cheap so that point is null and void at this moment.
Traktor comes with the controller though.
In fact a standalone licence is much cheaper than the equivalent from the competitors as well (except Mixx)
Or you could tell Rekordbox and Pioneer to take a flying fuck at the moon and go completely free and open source with basically ANY kind of USB/HID MIDI controller and use MIXXX.
Literally the only benefit to using Rekordbox is that you can use your Rekordbox prepared files on other Rekordbox systems, and, well, if you absolutely have to use Rekordbox prepared files to be able to DJ you probably haven't really learned how to DJ yet.
And there are way, way too many big name pro DJs out there that can't DJ for shit outside of Rekordbox because that's the only thing they know and they'll go to pieces if they have to manually beatmatch everything live and not use pre-programmed hot cues.
Look at James Hype and how heavily he relies on his hotcues and loops and his gimmicky looped transitions and filters where he basically doesn't actually beatmatch and beatmix at all and basically refuses to play unless it's a four deck CDJ-3000 setup. That dude would go to pieces if he had to play on anything else without his hotcues and loops.
There are way more options out there than Rekordbox or Serato, and many of them like Traktor and MIXXX are even more flexible than those "industry standards".
MIXXX doesn't even care if you've prepared and pre-analyzed your files because it analyzes every track in seconds the first time it's loaded.
If you have your DJ basics on lock you can take a folder full of completely fresh files and throw down a solid set without even really knowing the files/tracks that well with no hotcues, even if you had to rely heavily on the sync button and the real-time track analysis with MIXXX with basically zero limitations or feature locking, including real time looping and cueing.
Djay pro also does instant analysis, have never had a beatgrid issue and it does on the fly stemming of songs, so you can remap your eq to vox, melody and percussion.
And you can midi map pretty much anything to it.
i tried it but like my problems with serato i instantly lose a bunch of features on my controller, no pad fx, the fx in mixxx feels very awkward with the 400's fx section plus the master volume dial no longer works too, i want to like mixxx and am generally a big supporter of open source software but i dont think mixxx really cuts it for me, rekordbox doesn't really present any issues to me aside from the company, but i've already given them money for the hardware so using their software doesn't change it much
i want to use mixxx generally cause i like that it's more flexible and customizable but i just like the flexibility of having access to things like pad fx for momentary effects because i don't have fx paddles for instance, i just prefer to have them if i need them than just not have it at all
edit: i tried it again because i would love to have the option but it also made me remember the jogwheels just feel very strange in mixxx, there's like a small delay as well as some weird acceleration feel to it that i cant get rid of - i also for some reason can't fully use a software only audio setup that works fine in rekordbox, i can't hear anything out of it unless the cue is on, even when the fader is up, rekordbox was fine for this and i really dont wanna have to use the soundcard on the controller cause it's more awkward when i have a setup that should work already
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Thank you for saying this... I've actually been an avid user of Virtual DJ for several years now... At first, it was a simple program. Much like MIXXX is. It has vastly improved since. So much that even in a crunch, I can broadcast a live stream easily.