Reader Natalie writes: “It’s my partner’s birthday in a couple of weeks and I’d like to buy him a mixer as a present. He used to be a house DJ years ago and has a vast vinyl collection and turntables, but his mixer died a few years ago and he’s been a shadow of a man without it – but is too sensible to make such a frivolous purchase just for himself! I don’t have a clue what to get, his mates are useless. I know that he wants to play his records but maybe mix in MP3s also. I have a tiny budget, maybe £150 max. Could you suggest anything please?”
Digital DJ Tips says:
He’ll need a mixer that also has something called an “audio interface” in it. This allows a computer to be plugged in, which means that he can play music from his computer through the mixer in addition to the record decks. While your budget is very limiting, the Behringer VMX300USB and DJ-Tech X10 will both do it. Just over your budget (around £180) is the new American Audio MXR-10. This does most of what the mixers above does, but with the added benefit of not only being able to take music from a laptop for your partner to use “in the mix”, but being programmable to control some aspects of laptop DJ software too – something he may enjoy having down the line.
In both circumstances he’ll need to have some DJ software for his laptop, but if funds are tight, he could use free Mixxx software. There’s a bit of a learning curve to setting these kinds of things us, but the good news is that the mixer will work just fine with his record decks out of the box – and the rest can be added in when he’s got the time to set it all up.
I’ll throw this open to our audience too, to see if the readera have any more ideas or use similar systems themselves that they can share details of.
So, over to you! Any recommendation for Natalie, bearing in mind the small budget she has? Please share your thoughts and ideas below.
Phil Morse
