tubby

I went to a hot dollar store and found a 320cd case for $20. has lasted well enough. the first thing to go on cheap cases is usually the zipper pealing apart, so far no such issues.

tell em the price son. must say that is one ugly bitch, makes the behringer mixers look classy, and that's not a criticism you could usually aim at rane.

sounds good, but annoying for folks with the Sl-1 or worse if you just upgraded to the sl3 to find out you need a much more expensive unit to get 4 decks. interfave with ableton sounds promising, basically unlimited effects on tap then, have to see how it works in practice.

if you're buying from juno or chemical records then you win even more than ppl buying off beatport. we're even stronger against the pound than the USD. at the cricket about 5 years ago when the pom's were out, the barmy army were singing songs "we get 3 dollars to the pound", "we're so rich it's unbelievable". now it's about 1.8.

bump the tempo but do it gradually and avoid sections where it'll be obvious. Strings are notorious for sounding all warbly if you move the pitch. also beware of mixing a track too far from it's normal pitch +4 is about as far as I go and generally avoind even that. And if you are mixing harmonically, pitching to far changes the key, so not impossible but another thing to be aware of

just remember with the 900's you will probably still have to burn tracks to play out with. Can be a pain when you've been playing off hard drive at home and realise you don't have anything from the last month of so on CD yet and you need it tonight

chicane -poppihola, very simple but evocative trance track, exactly what trance should be, not the overhyped massive breakdown hi-nrg stuff that passes for trance now

about 4 years now since I got my first dvs (djdecks), since then I buy occasional bulk lots when ppl are getting rid of their collections. I think 3 times, 60, then 40 from the vinyl warning sale, then 400. Maybe 2-3 one-off buys of stuff I couldn't find a digital copy of. I love digging through the vinyl when I'm home by myself and making lots of noise, much more tangible than digital, but so impractical.

I've been using xone 4d for a year now with TSP. you need to think about what physical controls you want and then check what's out there eg effects banks you probably want 4 rotary controls (depths plus 3 parameters per effect). looping, play, cue, 4 buttons. how many channels? what about track select/load? not having to touch the laptop doing that is much nicer. do you want to control just 2 fx banks or all 4? traktor uses midi modifiers, basically a shift/control key, so with just one extra key you can make exactly the same controls work over another channel. at the moment the only time I touch the laptop is to update the seutp, I can play timecode, internal or anything just off the midi controls. as for loading tracks fast - that's where 4 decks come in useful. Rarely 4 decks at once, but you can have the next track lined up or already looping. If you're just playing in additiion to decks and budget is limited, a trigger finger may fit the bill.

from another forum: the 1200MK5 and 1210MK5 WILL be discontinued leaving the 1210MK5G as the top of the range and most definitely NOT discontinued. It never was a limited edition, just a flagship special edition model. And the 1200 and 1210 MK2 will continue as normal. So now there's some distance between the MK2 and MK5G models instead having a middle MK5 deck to confuse matters. So it's vanilla Technics or the more expensive piano black extra pitched blue light luxury model left in the range

the bcd's are a pretty good way to start out for not much money. they should come with traktor LE i think, and the are both the midi controller as well as the soundcard. even upgrading to traktor pro doesn't cost that much, but the scratch version would cost a fair bit more. if you can stretch it, the vci100 is a bit better built but doesn't have the soundcard built in

try plugging the laptop into a different outlet to the rest of the gear to it's not in the same loop. It might help.

most things will help with reflections back into the room, nor much with stopping low frequency getting out. Really it's just mass that'll do that or wall, space, more wall (the room within a room ideally). there's no cheap way to soundproof.

i started readin lots from recess.co.uk. same guy went on to write the dj'ing for dummies book, was a great website to start from. then just reading forums and practicing at home

depends on how you mix - if you manipulate the platter then the torque can make a difference. bt then even between two 1200's can feel different. Ride the pitch and there's no difference at all.

7 years of regular use, setup, pull-down, hardly surprising when an RCA craps itself. it is a bit of a limit of the design though, if they just put female RCA points and you plugged yourown male RCA's in it might last a little longer. I got the RCA leads replaced on my decks cos it fell off a table when still plugged in, and that's the sort of abuse a working deck might take

the 1200's were the standard for so long as they had a patent on the motor design and nothing esle came close. that patent ran out a few years ago so other decks jumped on the design. the AA's are great decks to play on, cannot comment on the longevity though, the friend who had them moved o/s and sold them, but I did prefer them to my 1200 mk2's. that said, it's not uncommon to find 1200's 10, 20 or more years old sitll running just fine. i've seen a few good deals on the aa4.5's for about $400, you won't find 1200's in that range, more likely $800+ for a pair

depends on what you want. serato is rock solid, but very basic. traktor is half way between dj'ing and ableton, 4 decks, effects, but even after 5 point releases, I still am not confident in it and always have a backup. but if I was just using a dvs, I'd stick with djdecks, I found it much better than serato, more customisable and can use your own sound card

I spent it all on 2nd hand vinyl, going to take me a while to sort through 400 pieces of wax

nice, I spend about 4 months of tune allowance in one go yesterday so extra freebies always welcome

rane mp2016 urei 1620 crest 6210 anyone see a pattern on the names? all basically copies of the bozak.

seen a few pubs use things like pcdj for top 40, that kind of thing. A few peple using midi controllers, but not seen anyway trying to actively dj with just a laptop and keyboard.

I used ot have a djm3000 and put in the rotary kit, thinking I could always swap backl if I didn't like it, never took it out again. Rotary is much smoother for mixing, but you cannot make quick cuts like you can with linear faders. i think you either like them or hate them With some of those you've listed there's more to consider than just the rotary faders. the Urei, whilst sounding great, has no eqs or gains or meters. it's pretty basic. You can also only cue one channel at a time. As for expensive - you could get them in the uk not long ago for 500gbp, take out their tax and our exchange rate now, that's up against mid-pricex mixers. I think the rane mp/xp 2016 a or S version is the way to go, x-fader, eq's and cue options of a modern mixer with the top notch sound.

I'd go with somehting like the vci-100. any 2 channel soundcard and traktor lite or pro. still going to run you close to $1000 to get going, but if you check out places like djtechtools.com, you can see that it's not going to limit your progress. That's something that you need to consider ina beginner setup - anything will do to learn the very basics, but you lose money if you have to replace it soon to keep progressing

I'd go for the 800's over the 1000mk2. the 1000mk2 has been superceded for 4-5 years by the mk3, itself just superceded by the 2000. A 1000 is still a good machine, I'd just be a little concerned by the age. Wave display is nice, mp3 though, I really never use. Burn all your cd's as mp3 and you're screwed if the venue has decks that don't play mp3's, burn as audio cd and you're fine on any deck. 0.05 vs 0.02 - even when I play on 1000's they default to +/- 10% and it's only 0.05% accuracy there, I've never bothered to chage to +/-6. most other folks I talk to are the same.