Controller Clinic #21: Best Controller For A Wedding DJ Who Wants To Mix?

Digital DJ Tips reader Stephen writes: “I was hoping for some advice please. I’m torn between the Pioneer XDJ-Aero, the Pioneer DDJ-SX, the Numark 4Trak and the Numark NS6.About 90% of my work is weddings, where I don’t do much mixing. However, this is an area I want to improve for my own enjoyment. Hope you can help!”

Digital DJ Tips says:

So the first question is, do you want to use a laptop or not? If not, consider the DDJ-Aero, which is quite innovative in the way it accesses your music but you don’t get the advantages of a laptop screen when DJing (decent waveforms, very simple library searching etc.). If you do want to use a laptop, however, the others are the more obvious choices.

Next question is whether you want to use Traktor or Serato software? For your style of DJing, I’d say Serato is better, as it copes more easily with non-electronic music. If you want Traktor though, it has to be the 4Trak.

For Serato, that leaves the NS6 and the DDJ-SX, of which I would say the DDJ-SX has the slight edge (better VU monitoring, slightly newer so better integrated with the Serato software). However it’s a bit bigger and more expensive than the NS6, and makes a big point of its performance pads which you may never use, so you’ll have to weight up those considerations too. Either would, in all honesty, be a good choice. Hope that helps!

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Are you a wedding DJ who likes to mix a bit? What would your advice to Stephen be? Please share your thoughts in the comments.