I find it quite amusing to read posts from some (presumably new/young) DJs claiming that certain features are “essential” and that the lack of them makes it impossible to DJ…
Things like level meters on every channel, three band iso EQ on every channel, autogain, waveforms having to be a certain colour etc. etc.
Historically, none of those things would have featured on a DJ mixer.
It would be interesting to see how you guys managed on one of those!
The first mixer I bought wasn’t quite as basic, but still pretty simple. It was called the TUAC Disc Mix - glorious mono.
I travel with the Kaoss DJ and although it’s not supported by Serato DJ since V3, it’s a stand alone mixer and Kaoss pad in a small package. Not much bigger than the DJ2GO and a great backup mixer.
I say go for it if you have the spare dough. They are lots of fun and have just the right amount of features that you don’t feel handicapped. I don’t have the Go. Scored one of the last Mixstream Pros for 499 new when they dropped the Plus and I don’t regret it one bit. Despite having the Prime Go in the collection I find myself going for the Mixstream when I know there’s power available. It would go everywhere with me if it had a battery.
I think my first “proper” setup was 2x1210’s, Denon 2000F and a Rodec mixer. Before that, I had a couple of cheap belt driven turntables, some shitty CD players and a Gemini mixer (with just 2 bands of EQ). Whatever the money from my paper-route allowed, when I was 14 - fun times
This was the first piece of crap that I ever owned, couldn’t afford anything decent and it would have seen plenty of use with two external CD players with only one of them being variable speed, somehow I managed to mix on it.
Every so often a friend would bring one of his turntables and we would do b2b with him on the vinyl and me on the CD player, this was usually after a pub sesh and we had a lot of fun, until we realised we forgot to press record on the external tape deck.
This was my first mixer, with a pair off their direct drive decks… I had Ortofon Concordes and I think they were worth more than the rest of the kit lol.
I remember having it for about a fortnight before someone said tape over the BPM counters as they are just a distraction… so I put black electrical tape over them and it never came off. Imagine saying that today lol.
Edit: its actually got some cool features on it, the headphone crossfader 20yrs before Pioneer did it and kill buttons for the EQ.
