Ok, we've done the "what's your ideal setup?" thing in the past and usually ends up with people listing the usual: say a Xone:92, a load of CDJ1000s, an EFX and maybe a VF-1 for each deck or something.

But let's try and come up with our ideal setup without limiting it to kit which already exists. Maybe imagine your idea of the perfect mixer, or the perfect MIDI controller for what you want to do.

Then if some common themes occur, maybe we can suggest some new product lines to the kit manufacturers

Or if someone describes a bit of kit you know exists, maybe you can point them in the right direction.

Feel free to include some real kit in there too, or even only include real kit if you think it's perfect for you.



I'm going to do 2 - one 'practical' one which fits in with moving from club to club etc, and one not so practical... which my roadie can cart around and set up for me, or I can put on my rider when I'm headlining all of those superclubs haha


Practical version

So I'd start by saying I'm sick of burning CDs off to take to gigs, but I don't want the danger of a laptop crashing. So some sort of hardware I can plug a memory stick into, or with a fast hard drive in it - maybe even an MRAM one . Instant thoughts are CDJ2000 etc, but I want to play on the same kit no matter where I am, so it's got to be portable.

I also want at least 3 'decks' (the ability to play 3 tracks at once), preferably 4, which completely throws the 2000s out - I'm not lugging 4 of them around! Occasionally I do a bit of scratching, so a nice jog pad would be nice and other than that I'd want the controls to be fairly CDJ-like (play/pause, cue, seek, loop in/out, some hot cues)

So I'm picturing some sort of box with a USB slot, 4 columns of controls all packed in, each with a play/pause, cue, loop in and loop out buttons, pitch slider, maybe a couple of hot cues and a really nice solid 5" jog wheel at the bottom. Give each channel a Xone-style filter too please (they can share HP/BP/LP buttons to save space), so that I've always got them at my disposal. It'd probably need some controls and a display for picking tracks from my memory stick / hard drive. I quite like the size of my Xone:2D, so let's say the whole box is about the same size.

I'd mix on the club's installed mixer to save too much messing about with wires, which is hopefully a Xone:92 or a DJM800/1000 or something - not that fussy really.



Not so practical version

In an ideal world I'd have a huge booth where I can get really hands on with everything. I'm actually going to go for 4 CDJ2000s, because I think the CDJ-style interface is perfect for how I like to mix, I can plug in a USB stick / hard drive or whatever and go. All on a flat surface (maybe a slight incline, but not much) - I hate having CDJs on brackets at head height.

For the mixer I'm going to be a bit more creative. Each channel's got a dedicated Xone-style filter (HP/BP/LP, cutoff + resonance controls) and a sampler. Fuck it, let's give each channel a big orange Pioneer FX button as well and all the parameters to control them. You can switch which order the FX/filter/sampler come in the signal flow, so you can create some cool effects between them

Rather than cue buttons, this mixer's got cue knobs so I can get the perfect balance of sound in my headphones. Each channel's also got a balance (pan) control - hardly ever see them on mixers anymore.

Each channel's also got 4 FX sends, each going to an EFX1000-esque box and returning into their own channels, so in all the mixer's got 8 channels (4 decks and 4 FX returns). The return channels have got all the same controls, FX etc as the other channels, so I can chain loads of filters etc together, sample them and so on.

4-band EQ on this baby as well. Why not eh?

The RedSound Infader had 3 crossfaders - one for high, one for mid and one for low EQ. I want 4: high/mid/low EQ + one normal volume.

This thing would look like a fucking spaceship. Would probably cost about the same as well.


Next to all of this I'd have a touchscreen table (a la Microsoft Surface) rigged up as a huge Kaoss pad. It might also count the number of drinks I put on it (and subsequently consume) and appropriately compensate by correcting my mixing as it the night goes on.




I've finished now

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Stu Cox |

Last edited by Stu Cox on May-09-2010 at 12:45

Dreaming it's easy ^^' here is mine:

I will go for CDJ 2000's because of the USB feature mostly, i hate burning cds too, since i don't play more than 2 tracks at the same time i think i will only need 2 and a laptop to play acapellas or vocal samples.

Right now i have a common Laptop connected through USB to a bcd 3000 , the controller can be the same, i only want it to play with a midi keyboard possibly Akai mpk49 .

I like Behringer DDM 4000, maybe you think i'm crazy and anything from the Xone series or Pioneer is better but i think this mixer has almost all the features i need, this is a dream i can buy a new one if it lasts only for 2 weeks ^^

Sennheiser Orpheus as headpohnes, cost 16,000$ price it's not quality but i'd like to try them :P

And i think that it's

2x CDJ 2000
1x BCD 3000 or any other Midi Controller
Mac Book Pro with Synths
Behringer DDM 4000
Sennheiser Orpheus

- i want my 13" macbook pro running ableton to be touchscreen!!
- then id like my UC33 midicontroller to be modified with inbuild soundcard with balanced outputs.

this shouldnt be to hard to manage but as usual the easy things i want in life is never made. now i have to have a soundcard and a mixer next to my laptop and midicontroller. thats 4 devices and cables and shit everywhere, and its getting to the point where cdj is easier.

so as an option to this: some sort of dual platter cdj (without cds though) with harddrive and dual outputs, and then connecting that to a mixer.

shouldnt be to hard either but as usual its only crap out there.

quote:

Originally posted by 19503 - i want my 13" macbook pro running ableton to be touchscreen!!

They'll make them sooner or later. There are various models of touchscreen Windows laptops - I've got a Dell Latitude XT which is great. But the problem with touchscreen is you can only 'touch' one control at a time, so I only use it for picking & loading tracks. The Latitude XT is actually multitouch, but there isn't any DJ software which supports mutitouch yet!

quote:

Originally posted by 19503 so as an option to this: some sort of dual platter cdj (without cds though) with harddrive and dual outputs, and then connecting that to a mixer.

These exist: http://www.decks.co.uk/products/cdplayers?feature=3792

But only as rackmount players... all the tabletop ones I've seen are DJ-in-a-box type things so include a mixer and only have a master output.

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Last edited by Stu Cox on May-09-2010 at 13:57

I've been thinking about an ipad "turntable" app that could piggyback off of pioneers track preparation software and would basically mimic the features of a CDJ-2000 just with a touchscreen. Additionally, you could push a button to switch the interface to a track browsing screen which would be similar to serato 2.0's new library screen in that you could see the album art of your tracks (a HUGE deal for me) along with extra info like the bpm and length while you're browsing through your library/playlists.

You'd probably need some currently non-existent hardware to enable it to play two tracks at once over separate channels, so you'd just have to get your own ipad for every deck you wanted to use. Still, 600 (+ app price) vs 1700, and you get a way better track browsing interface...

I think it could be really cool but i would still lol hard at seeing someone roll up to a DJ gig and whip out a pair of ipads.

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Last edited by Sadface on May-11-2010 at 21:18

quote:

Originally posted by Sadface I've been thinking about an ipad "turntable" app that could piggyback off of pioneers track preparation software and would basically mimic the features of a CDJ-2000 just with a touchscreen. Additionally, you could push a button to switch the interface to a track browsing screen which would be similar to serato 2.0's new library screen in that you could see the album art of your tracks (a HUGE deal for me) along with extra info like the bpm and length while you're browsing through your library/playlists. You'd probably need some currently non-existent hardware to enable it to play two tracks at once over separate channels, so you'd just have to get your own ipad for every deck you wanted to use. Still, 600 (+ app price) vs 1700, and you get a way better track browsing interface... I think it could be really cool but i would still lol hard at seeing someone roll up to a DJ gig and whip out a pair of ipads.

ok ranajune...

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quote:

Originally posted by Sadface Additionally, you could push a button to switch the interface to a track browsing screen which would be similar to serato 2.0's new library screen in that you could see the album art of your tracks (a HUGE deal for me) along with extra info like the bpm and length while you're browsing through your library/playlists.

Yeah they seriously need to bring the artwork view back into Traktor. It shows album art in the table view, but I want big tiles, Beatport-style. They had it in Traktor 3 - where did it go?!

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Stu Cox |

quote:

Originally posted by montana ok ranajune...

In the video it seemed that she's a lot closer to doing an "ableton" type of thing with her ipads than just using them as a replacements for cdj-2000 but I don't know what shes like when actually djing. I don't think there's an app yet that has the featureset I described.

I've never used traktor but I would be really pissed if they had good images and then took them away.

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I never knew about that Redsound Mixer. I wanna try one of those.

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