Reddit reviews Numark Mixtrack Pro 3 | All In One 2 Deck DJ Controller for Serato DJ Including an On board Audio Interface, 5 inch High Resolution Jog Wheels and Serato DJ Intro & Prime Loops Remix Tool Kit

First of all, congrats!

1. Sync will be your friend. Fuck beatmatching by ear at this point. It takes time to perfect and you don't have that much time.
   
2. Buy a mid-range controller you can practice on. Personally, I love this one. If you can bring it with you and plug it into the mixer at the club - great (ask the venue). If not, try to rent some CDJs and practice on those. Otherwise, you'll be working with entirely unfamiliar equipment the night of, which is obviously not ideal.
   
3. Start curating songs you can use in your set. Maybe even pre-plan your entire set to reduce stress (don't pre-record). Make sure the songs are high quality - at least 320 kbps and preferably lossless.
   
4. Practice, practice, practice. Mix every day leading up to the gig. Record your mixes and then play them back to yourself. Note what sounds good and what sounds bad. Think about whether the progression and energy levels make sense. You want to start relatively chill and end with some higher-energy tracks to prepare the crowd for the headliner.
   
5. DO NOT play the headliner's tracks. If the headliner plays big room, warming up with deep house or tech house makes sense. Avoid techno, trance, DNB, and other high-energy genres. Also, if you can, get in touch with the headliners' management and see if he has any preferences, restrictions, etc. around what you play.
   
6. Key concepts to look up and incorporate into your mixing: beatmatching (a.k.a. sync for your case), harmonic mixing, and phrasing.
   
7. On the day of: show up early for sound check. Bring all the equipment, cables, etc. you'll need. Don't assume the club has anything you might need beyond whatever their native setup is. If you're loading music onto USBs, bring multiple copies of said USBs. If you're bringing your laptop, make sure to bring your charger (a laptop stand would probably help too).
   
8. Don't panic. Relax. Have a drink or two (but not too many). Smile. Dance. Have fun.

I've been using this one for about 6 months and I've loved every moment of it.
https://www.amazon.com/Numark-Mixtrack-Pro-Controller-Download/dp/B00SCP7IB4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497333585&sr=8-1&keywords=numark+mixtrack+pro+3

I have the mixtrack pro 3 and it does everything I need it to but I'm not that great at DJing. I'd recommend spending all that you can since at that price point every extra dollar goes far.

https://www.amazon.com/Numark-Mixtrack-Pro-Controller-Software/dp/B00SCP7IB4

Buy yourself an intro controller. [This is the one I use]
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0149XD9CY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_mNcuzb6TREJMA). You can even go a little cheaper with a Numark, or just search for a controller youre comfortable with. I strongly recommend one with a built in soundcard so you can have more range to learn more at the beginning.

If I'm not mistaken, the Pioneer SB2 comes with Serato DJ, so you have a DJ Software now. If not, you can download either Virtual DJ, or Serato DJ Intro to start getting your feet wet.

I recommend looking up tutorials on youtube. Ellaskins has A TON of super helpful and educational videos on everything from intro steps, to advandced techniques.

After that it's pretty much practice practice practice! For more info on production, check out r/EDMProduction. Check their wiki tab or dig through that sub, you'll be able to find plenty of info their.

Good luck! And remember to have fun with it!

Yeah. Now a days though most DJ controllers come with built in professional soundcards so that route is much easier.

https://smile.amazon.com/Numark-Mixtrack-Pro-Controller-Download/dp/B00SCP7IB4/

https://smile.amazon.com/Pioneer-DDJ-SB2-Portable-2-channel-controller/dp/B0149XD9CY/

It depends on how invested you think you're going to be right off the bat. If you want to drop a few hundred bucks then there's a few options but if you're not sure I'll go over that too.


Firstly, figure out if this is something you kinda sorta want to do but you're not sure or if you're like "Hell yeah let's git it!". If you're not sure then download Virtual DJ or the free version of Traktor Pro 2 (these are my preferences you can also do mixxx or serato or whatever) and play around with it. There's a way that you can map your computer keyboard to these and just play around with music and see if this is something you'd like to do. Side note: I love Traktor so much more than Virtual DJ and the only limiting factor is the amount of time you can use it during the demo then you just close and re-open it to reset it every 30 minutes or hour I don't remember exactly which is way less annoying for practicing.



Once you figure it out for yourself and you know whether you want to do it or not then you need to buy a controller. To do this you can obviously come back here for advice but I'll lay out the basic advice everybody gives here anyways: Most budget controllers come with demo versions of the software so it doesn't do jack for you tbh. But you need to figure out how much you want to spend so I'll put some advice here.



Craigslist is your friend: Like I said above most controllers don't come with full software versions so if you can find the same controller you want used for cheaper go for that one (duh). If you want to buy new or you live somewhere there's not much on Craigslist here's some great options for a budding DJ.



Numark Mixtrack 3 $149 - This is a great controller, it's actually the one I started on and still have and use for when I'm going to a friend's house or something because it's lightweight but pretty sturdy. It works with Traktor and VDJ (when looking for controllers Virtual DJ LE is the demo version just so you know) and I have a few different .tsi files for it that I've personally made for that controller specifically (.tsi is the file extension for the controller mapping i.e. what tells the software what the controller is doing right now). The biggest drawback of this controller is that it doesn't have any audio outputs so you'll have to use the one from your laptop (the 3.5mm jack or if you have a USB interface for like a headset or something that works too). That's why it's so cheap but you'll need a 3.5 mm splitter and possibly an RCA to 3.5 mm jack in order to make it work with headphones and speakers (you need the headphones to listen to the song that you'll be mixing into). You'll need one of these if you have RCA input speakers and one of these so you can have headphones and speakers playing at the same time.




If you want to avoid that hassle you can buy the Numark Mixtrack PRO 3 but it's about $100 more for very nearly the exact same thing. You basically get gain knobs and audio outputs.



Another commonly suggested controller is the:



Pioneer DDJ SB2 & DDJ RB ($247)

This is a dope controller. I don't personally have one but I do have another Pioneer Controller and I've used the SB2 before (a friend of mine has it). These are very similar controllers the main difference being that the SB2 works with Serato and the RB works with Rekordbox DJ. With the SB2 you get Serato Intro and the RB you get a full rekordbox license. Serato Intro, to my knowledge, is just a toned down version of Serato but it's fully functional (not like the demos of Virtual DJ and Traktor which cut you off after a time). The whole argument of which one you should use is really up to personal preference and you should watch people use them on YouTube and stuff to get an understanding if you don't fall in love with one instantly.



This last one I'm only putting here because it's a nice controller and it comes with Traktor which is one of my favorite all time softwares (plus my friend worked at NI recently so there's a bit of nepotism here).



Traktor Kontrol S2 $399


Nice controller, lots of effects (IMO Traktor's effects are unparalleled) super solid build quality and it's got all the audio outs and everything. Not quite as budget as some of the other ones here but it's still really quite good and has a bit more in way of audio interface and can have other stuff lined into it which opens up some other creative doors.


I hope I helped to shed some light on this for you and if you have any questions, please, feel free to ask. :) Happy Spinning!

Budget: Less than $150, preferrably less than $100

Source: PC and Mixtrack Pro 3

Requirements for Isolation: Preferred, but not required.

Will you be using these Headphones in Public? At parties but I don't care how ridiculous I look if I'm DJing.

Preferred Type of Headphone: Over the ear.

Preferred tonal balance: Strong preference for good bass and punchy drums.

Past headphones: Superlux HD-681 EVO. Love the sound of these especially at the price, but the build quality is really shit and the main reason I'm upgrading is because they are falling apart.

Preferred Music: Listen mostly to electronic music with a lot of bass as well as hip-hop. Trap and such. I absolutely require that any pair of headphones or any speaker I get will sound good when playing this song. If they don't, the bass is simply not good enough.

Worth noting that I live in Canada.