Rane Performer Controller Review

Video Review

First Impressions / Setting up

The Rane Performer holds no surprises for anyone who’s familiar with the Rane Four, the controller that preceded it. In pretty much all ways, physically it’s exactly the same. However, the changes are meaningful – and the most obvious one is the new jogwheels, which are motorised seven-inch platters with real vinyl on top and screens in the middle. This basically means Rane has taken a huge leaf out of Pioneer DJ’s book, specifically from that company’s DDJ-REV7 controller for Serato.

Read this next: Platters vs Jogwheels – Which Is Best For DJing?

The vinyl tops are magnetically attached, and underneath there are slip strips which do the job of slipmats – several are provided with the unit so you can find the feel that works for you, and even without turning it on, it’s clear that these are an accomplished design. This is not surprising, as inMusic, the company that owns Rane, has had a lot of experience in making excellent motorised platters for its various brands of DJ equipment over the years.

The other thing a cursory first play shows you is that the upfaders are completely new as well. This was one of the small areas where some Rane Four users felt that that unit could have been improved – and it certainly has been. These new upfaders are tension-adjustable by taking the top plate off (which is an easy enough thing to do), but also there is now an external tension adjust for the Mag 4 crossfader. Again, this is an improvement over the Rane Four, where such an adjustment had to be made internally.

Setting up involved the installation of drivers and a firmware update in my case, which may or may not be necessary for you, but is always worth checking. Both processes were simple. The unit comes with the all important Pitch ‘n Time plug-in for Serato, which is still (scandalously) not provided when you buy Serato DJ Pro, but Rane has you covered here for this, which is good.

However, it doesn’t come with the DVS Expansion pack, so if you did want to plug turntables in and take advantage of Serato’s DVS capabilities, you would need to price that software purchase in separately. Apart from that however, it unlocks Serato DJ Pro as you would expect. So it’s good to go out of the box without any extra software expense or subscription add-ons.

In Use

If you’re not familiar with the Rane Four, I suggest at this point you go and read and watch our full Rane Four review, which covers in exhaustive detail all the features that unit shares with the Rane Performer.

In short though, both controllers offer deep control over pretty much everything in Serato, including some unique stems features. With some Rane-specific extras, including excellent hardware effects, this means both the Four and the Performer are great choices for this software. However, in this review, I’m going to concentrate on the three big differences between the Performer and the Four.

Motorised platters

The motorised platters have high-torque motors with genuine vinyl on top that’s cleverly magnetised into place. As I mentioned, large colour screens are mounted in the middle. They’re not quite the resolution of your smartphone, but they are clear and colourful enough. More importantly though, they’re super useful.

They can display the full and the zoomed in waveform for the current track, plus the waveform for the track on the other deck. But they can also (on other views) display things like Serato’s spinning deck view from the software, your tracks’ artwork, and – as soon as you turn one of the library scroll knobs – the currently selected playlist, from where you can also navigate to other playlists and so on.

Whichever view you’re on, they also show you important information about the playing track, such as the tempo range and setting, the time elapsed, current looping, BPM, whether the sync is engaged, how far through the track you are and whether the slip mode is on. You can turn the marker on and off, so if you want to attach a physical marker to the vinyl for scratching, that option is there too. (Indeed some are provided on the sticker sheet with the unit.) Finally, there’s a day mode that inverts the colours for better visibility away from dark rooms.

DJ like a pro using ANY gear: The Complete DJ Course

In short, the screens give you pretty much all the information you would normally look at the laptop for, meaning that more than ever, it would be possible to DJ on this unit without really looking at the laptop at all. Which of course begs the cheeky question, when is someone going to incorporate a full operating system into a motorised controller like this so you literally won’t need the laptop? Let’s hope someone does soon, because that would truly be the ultimate all-in-one DJ unit!

The new hardware fader effects

The Rane Four has 22 built-in hardware effects, which are excellent, but the Rane Performer goes even further by bringing in fader effects, which Rane says have come straight from its Rane Seventy mixer. These effects are fader filter, fader pitch, fader ring modulation, fader roll and fader tone. And although they will have varying degrees of usefulness depending on your DJing style, they’re a fun addition.

In short, they turn your channel faders into effects controls when an effect button that has had a fader effect assigned to it is turned on. The workflow is to assign a fader effect to one of the six effects slots in the hardware, switch it on (which stops the upfader controlling volume) and then engage the effect using its paddle.

Read this next: 3 Essential Effects Every DJ Needs To Know

Fader filters can be high pass, low pass or band filter. Fader pitch lets you change the pitch of the song in real time. Ring modulator gives that kind of overdriven lo-fi grungy sound. And roll is the classic loop roll. Finally, tone is a particularly out-there effect that can give you generated tones like sine waves and sawtooth waves that you can then control by assigning scales and a musical key.

All of these have various parameters you can play with too, and I say these will have varying degrees of use depending upon your DJing style and how creative you want to get. Take the tone effect, for instance – I don’t think I would ever even contemplate using it in my DJing – but that doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to seeing someone else make creative use of it.

All that said, if you’re thinking of buying the Rane Performer over the Rane Four simply for these extra fader effects, I wouldn’t say they’re essential.

The new upfaders

As mentioned earlier, the four upfaders from the Rane Four have been replaced by superior versions. Rane says they are mounted to individual vertical circuit boards, something you can confirm by removing the top plate – and doing so also reveals simple screws that can be used to tighten and loosen them to your style on an individual basis. No doubt they will prove to be more durable, but the adjustability is going to appeal to DJs who use their upfaders creatively as well as the crossfader.

Basically, all five faders are now best in class on this unit, which puts clear water between it and the Rane Four, where only the crossfader had that degree of engineering or adjustability.

Conclusion

Clearly this is a highly accomplished and capable controller for Serato DJ Pro software. If you’re an open format or performance DJ, or you simply want a controller that gives you the deepest access to the features of Serato, this is the market leader. Whether you buy it or not depends on whether you need all of these features. So let’s spend a bit of time comparing it to what else is out there.

Rane Performer vs Rane One

If you just want motorised jogwheels in a simple controller, then the Rane One is probably a better bet. From the same company, of course, it is quite a lot smaller and simpler with only two channels, but it still offers control over most of the features of Serato.

Therefore, the Rane One is an absolutely solid bet for the Serato-using scratch DJ who just wants something that means they don’t have to take two turntables and a mixer to every gig.

Here’s our Rane One review

Rane Performer vs Pioneer DJ DDJ-REV7

However, if you want something that’s a bit more performance-oriented with deeper control over Serato and its own set of gimmicks, then the Pioneer DJ DDJ-REV7 should be on your list. With a far more scratch-oriented layout, including the somewhat controversial pitch controls horizontally above the platters, it has the same style of jogwheel (with in-jog displays) as the Rane Performer.

It also has a more conventional mixer layout, meaning if you’re used to DJing on turntables in scratch position with a Pioneer DJ DJM S-series mixer, you’ll feel at home more quickly on that unit. However, you’ll be sacrificing two channels against the Rane Performer’s four.

Here’s our Pioneer DJ DDJ-REV7 review

Rane Performer vs Pioneer DJ DDJ-FLX10

If one of the reasons you’re drawn to the Rane Performer (or indeed the Rane Four before it) is deep control over stems, and actually having the platters moving is not something that particularly appeals to you, then just maybe the Pioneer DJ DDJ-FLX10 might be the better unit for you.

Learn to DJ with Digital DJ Tips: The Complete DJ Course

While its control over Serato isn’t quite so polished (because it’s also made for Pioneer DJ’s own Rekordbox software, so compromises have been made), it does offer some novel ways of using stems, such as sending the instruments, drums or vocals individually through the effects.

But while the Pioneer DJ DDJ-1000SRT (the predecessor to the FLX10) was hugely popular with Serato DJs, for most people considering the Rane Performer, I feel the FLX10 for Serato is a bit of a step backwards over its predecessor in some ways, and that would be especially so if you’re considering it against the Rane Performer.

Here’s our Pioneer DJ DDJ-FLX10 review

Rane Performer vs Rane Four

Finally of course, there’s the Rane Four. When it was released it raised some eyebrows because it didn’t have motorised platters. If that is what you wanted, clearly the Performer is the one for you. Add in the better upfaders and in truth marginally useful additional upfader FX, and the extra cost and weight of the Performer are unlikely to put you off.

But if you don’t care for motorised platters, I’d say stick with the Four. Yes, you can turn the motors off if you don’t want them but the platter behaviour when you do is not the same as normal fixed platters on the Rane Four, and it’s harder to DJ with them that way.

Want help choosing gear? Grab your free PDF: The Digital DJ Gear Buyer’s Guide

The bottom line is: if you’ve been waiting for a motorised platter version of the Rane Four, the Rane Performer is it. If so, currently this is the ultimate Serato DJ controller on the market for you – and for everyone else, well, the Rane Four is still an excellent alternative.