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Damon_Chambers
03-25-2012, 04:09 PM
http://pioneerdjusa.com/images/gear/tabletopplayers/cdj-900-1.jpg

back when technics were the standard and all we bought was vinyl records i rocked a set of techs just like the rest of us. ableton came on the scene and gave us live. i got excited about it and went fully digital. after getting burnt out on the “digital revolution” that was ableton live for djing purposes i decided i that i wanted to get another set of physical turntables because i really didn’t feel like i was djing anymore. i decided i wanted to go with the industry standard name brand and went with pioneer for some cd decks.
the only options i gave myself were the 2000s and the 900s. after a lot of compare / contrast i came down to the deciding factors being the following... do i need a pretty color screen? do i need hot queues? do i need a fancy little touch bar? no, not really. so i cheaped out and went with the 900s as their price tag didn’t hurt my feelings nearly as much as the 2000’s did.

i won’t muddle down a review with tech specs you can go look up on google. i’ll just hit the highlights and review how i use / have used them and my thoughts.

functionality

as cd decks they work just like every other pioneer cd deck. insert cd and go. no muss, no fuss. pitch control, pitch lock, its all there and it all works well. you can’t ask for much more.
my absolute favorite feature of these decks is its ability to play music off a usb drive. lucky me i have all my music backed up on a external usb hard drive. huzzah! when they arrived i went straight to that... i simply plugged up the hard drive to the usb port on one of the decks, read instructions on how the browsing worked and away i went. even better, there are connection ports on on the back of each deck. connect them with what looks like a standard ethernet cable for computer networking and two decks can share one usb drive.

simple browsing by folder hierarchy is very easy. push down the dial to select folders once you are on the right screen for folder browsing, turn knob to scroll, back button to back out. when you are on the track you want push down. track gets loaded. easy.

the decks will also work as controllers for traktor. i only used this just to play around with it and see how it worked just out of curiosities sake. i downloaded a demo of traktor for testing it out. the setup could be easier. you have to go digging into traktor’s setting and assign it to the software, and if memory serves me correctly i had to do some sort of update on traktor before the deck was recognized and worked. all in all just getting it up and running took me over an hour, and for a tech savvy person i feel that was too long. i can’t ding pioneer on this one though, the setup difficulty i had was on traktor’s end.

once it was up and going it worked well. i have not used any other dvs systems for comparison, but i can’t imagine these not working well for traktor in any situation. the platter reaction was very quick, all the button that were automatically assigned performed their functions well. again i didn’t get into this too deep because i was just curious how the decks worked with traktor. my overall impression was positive once it was setup and working.

one of the fun features this deck has that the 2000 doesn’t have is an auto beat looper. think of this as a built in sampler / beat slicer. you can make some very james zabiela sounds with this feature. if you look at this section you will see four buttons for actual beat selection, then a “beat select” button that will give you four more. long story short this selects how long the sample is.
one caveat of this feature however is it relies heavily on pioneer’s software end of the cd decks to get the stop and start points just right. without pre analyzing your tracks you can still use the feature, but you have to be very very exact on your timing when hitting buttons.

next is the slip mode, another feature the 2000 does not have. this feature will keep the track playing “in the background” on the deck while you scratch or play with the beat looper. a quick scenario...

eight beats before the start of a track’s drop you start playing with the beat looper chopping and slicing the sound, or you use the platter and do some scratching. slip mode is not on. what is playing on the deck is what is live. wherever you exit the beat looper or wherever on the track you stop scratching is where you are in the track. if this is the only deck playing through your mixer then the timing will not work out right.

turn slip mode on. eight beats before a track’s drop you start playing with beat looper or scratching. count eight beats and stop scratching or turn off the beat looper and you hear the track’s drop and the track continues to play as if you never did anything on the deck. presto!
in my opinion this combo makes this deck functionally superior to the 2000 for a turntablist or someone that wants to use the beat looper function a lot. it gives you a lot more on the fly options than a deck without these features.

so far it sounds like i really like these decks, and that observation would be correct. overall. unfortunately not all is well. i feel these decks have some major flaws that hold them back from being great and not just good.

fit and finish

when the ups man dropped these off at my house i was giddy as could be. i was like a little school girl. when he passed the boxes off to me from the back of his truck my first thought was “oh no, they sent the wrong thing. this box is feather light.” i opened the boxes to make sure before i signed for them and sure enough they were the right product. when i got them in my music room i feverishly opened the first box and what i pulled out wasn’t the product that i expected from an industry standard company, but a cheaply made feeling plastic piece of chinese mass manufacturing.

i was sorely disappointed as these decks cost over a thousand dollars per unit. if they were in the six to seven-hundred dollar price range i could probably forgive the crappy “feel” of these decks, but at over a thousand dollars pioneer should be utterly ashamed of themselves. i could go on and on about this as it is a very sore spot for me with an investment this size but i’ll just leave it at that.

durability

for bedroom usage there will be zero issue with these. they will sit in place and the feet will probably “stick” to the table surface just like mine have. for mobile djing i suggest some sort of carrying case or coffin setup as the deck’s cheap plastic case, if dropped from moderate height, can / will crack easily. i have not had any issue with any of the writing or graphics wearing with my moderate usage.

software

next is the rekordbox software that pioneer uses. previously mentioned in this review is how the software helps the timing of the auto beat loop feature. if you are familiar with traktor or ableton live or any piece of software that auto analyzes an audio files waveform then you will understand what rekordbox does. if not, it simply analyzes a song and puts “markers” where every beat is. a file is saved on your usb drive and the deck reads the information as it loads the track. once the track is loaded the deck knows where all the beats are.

regarding the auto beat loop feature and even the simple loop in / loop out on the deck, it works really well. wherever you loop everything is always in perfect time. i was extremely excited about this when i first dug into it because it was a lot like ableton live in regard to helping keep everything sounding on time and flawless. unfortunately the rekordbox software is utter crap.
after i did some reading i found that rekordbox is powered by mixvibes. i was not familiar with this software at all, but the fact that it performs so poorly as a pioneer product does not speak well for their software or pioneer using it in my opinion.

there are a lot of little complaints with the software that i could get into but i’ll skip all of it and get to the deal breaker. at the time when i was trying to really get into using the software there was no “sync” between the deck and the software like your ipod / iphone does with itunes. any and all changes had to be made in rekordbox. data is only sent one way... rekordbox to the cd deck. save some cue points on the deck? too bad! save some loop points on the deck? too bad! you better have a crystal clear memory or immediately fire up your laptop and set the points in the software or you are out of luck.

once i stumbled across this issue i got on pioneer’s forum and found a lot of other users complaining about this very issue and pioneer’s response was pretty much “sorry, that’s not a feature our software supports.” what should their response have been? “we are sorry, and if this is such a big deal to our community we will be sure to address it in future updates.” at this point i wrote the software off completely and went without it. i had dumped a lot of time making sure it wasn’t me just “not getting” the software and i was utterly frustrated with it. no sync function between deck and software absolutely killed it for me.

at the time of this writing pioneer could possibly have fixed the issues i had as well as adding some sort of sync feature, but i don’t really care. i was completely put off from the software from the word go and put off by pioneer’s poor community service attitude in general. my setup work fine without the rekordbox software being another link in the chain.

conclusion

pioneer is unquestionably the industry standard for cd decks. there really is no valid argument to state otherwise. are there better products out there? possibly. are these decks any better than brand x’s offering? i think something like that boils down to personal opinion. is the price point a good for the product? absolutely not. overall i am happy with these decks, even though i feel that pioneer put me over the barrel and had its way with me on the price. had i known the issues i would have had with the product before i bought them i probably still would have bought them, high price and all. call me a fool for that, but it is nice walking up to a set of pioneer decks and not having to figure out the nuances and workings of a deck i do not own. the 900’s functionality as a stand alone unit is nice, and the auto beat loop and slip mode make for some nice sounds and flavor in your mix.
if you have the money to spend on the decks and opt to not go with the 2000s like i did for the reasons i did then you will probably be happy overall with the purchase. just beware of the cheap feel of the unit and user unfriendly software end.

functionality / features 5/5
ease of use 5/5
durability 3/5
fit / finish 2/5
overall 3.5/5

prODucer
03-25-2012, 09:28 PM
Excellent review. I am trying to decide right now whether I should grab one of these or an 850. The cheap feel you speak of does concern me. I like to get something solid if I pay a crap load of cash for it. I once owned the CDJ 800mk2s and a djm 400. These felt like toys compared to the denon cd decks I owned. I now use 2 technics 1200mk2s and nothing feels as solid or as buttery smooth IMHO. I will be using whichever cd deck I buy as a 3 rd deck so if it's gonna feel like a plastic toy maybe I'll opt for the CDJ 850 and save 400 bucks. A question. Does the CDJ 2000 feel cheap also? I could go with the new denon but overall I wasn't a huge fan of my 3700 so I feel like pioneer is the direction I want to go this time. Thanks for the review. It will help me make my decision no doubt.

As for the rekordbox issues. That's just awful. I won't even touch that garbage. My tunes will always be organized and controlled via serato scratch live.

Minksy
03-26-2012, 12:38 AM
Thank you for the review buddy!

Damon_Chambers
03-26-2012, 06:06 AM
prODucer,

i would suggest going to a guitar center if you can get to one and touch them for yourself. in all honesty as a bedroom setup the piss poor material quality doesnt really matter that much if the unit just sits there and never moves. if you can go to guitar center you can feel both the 900 and 2000 and see what you think.

brichi
03-26-2012, 07:08 AM
any and all changes had to be made in rekordbox. data is only sent one way... rekordbox to the cd deck. save some cue points on the deck? too bad! save some loop points on the deck? too bad! you better have a crystal clear memory or immediately fire up your laptop and set the points in the software or you are out of luck.

Chamber, not sure this part is entirely true, If I dj via a usb drive only on a gig, set hot starts and stuff (cue points, loops you have to hit memory for it to be stored live). When you get home, open RB with the drive in, right click on the drive and "update collection", it will update the tracks locally on the computer too, It does anyway on my Mac

from manual:
What does the Update Collection option do?
This enables rekordbox to update your collection so that it reflects the most recent cue information for USB tracks which were played on your CDJ.

DJ Nutty
03-26-2012, 07:31 AM
Yeah you should be able to import cues made on the CDJ back into Rekordbox.

Damon_Chambers
03-26-2012, 07:34 AM
^if so ill go back and edit my review. ill reinstall rekordbox and give it a go sometime later this week. like i said in the review the version i was on at the time wouldnt allow that. possibly since then they have updated and made things better... i certianly hope so!

brichi
03-26-2012, 07:50 AM
well I have been doing this out of the gate when the cdj's were released 2-1/2 years ago, so not sure what version you may have had an issue with or maybe it was something you were doing wrong possibly? Maybe it was a version specific bug that accidentally came into play and quickly fixed? not sure

Damon_Chambers
03-26-2012, 08:58 AM
its very possible i missed something. i thought i was pretty thorough though because i really really wanted to like rekordbox and wanted to use it to manage my music library. like i said ill go back and check rekordbox later this week when time allows and look specifically for that feature. that aside i probably still wont use it. i think the software is just one more thing to add to the setup that isnt really that necessary.

brichi
03-26-2012, 08:59 AM
cool, let us know how ya make out

NickJames
03-26-2012, 10:17 AM
Great review, I want to add to durability however as I own a pair of these and a former residencies has a pair as well...

The 900s have stood up to over two years of abuse from dozens of DJs that have been through my old residency and one of them has even taken a hi-ball spill and survived with only a sticky track select knob. I have even watched dumb-asses who don't know anything about CDJs put shit on the jog wheels :/ The 900s might feel cheaply constructed but if they can survive >2 years in that club (there is a reason it's a former residency), they can survive anything.

Oh and as to my personal pair, they don't take nearly as much abuse but they do come out with me once a month to my 3-way tag night and as they're in road cases I really have no worries when it comes to moving them around. All gear, if you care about it should be in road cases.

Damon_Chambers
03-26-2012, 11:12 AM
great input. just like anything else that is cheaply made, if taken care of, will last. im glad to hear they take abuse well.

prODucer
03-26-2012, 11:16 AM
Kinda off topic but where did u get your 900s NickJames?

NickJames
03-26-2012, 11:21 AM
Kinda off topic but where did u get your 900s NickJames?

Long & McQuade

DJ Nutty
03-26-2012, 12:10 PM
Are you also aware with CDJ 900/2000 you can use Rekordbox at performance time also, and just drag tracks from Rekordbox onto your players rather than exporting playlists ?

brichi
03-26-2012, 12:14 PM
exactly, and it works great in live performances, I use it 2-3 times a weekend at gigs and it works perfect for me.

Damon_Chambers
03-26-2012, 03:10 PM
pretty cool feature if thats what you're after. my laptop is occupied with other software though. i dont see any need to involve a laptop when the decks will do exactly the same thing. :confused:

DJNR
03-26-2012, 03:58 PM
I wouldn't even involve a laptop if I had CDJs. If anything, I would want to ditch it.

brichi
03-26-2012, 04:00 PM
the issue is if you are a mobile dj and had a lot of tracks like I do, the cdj's do a poor job at handling large libraries like 17,000+. I would rather just bring the laptop and link off it then use a usb drive that will work slowly

TocaTone
03-26-2012, 04:33 PM
For what its worth, I can't tell the difference in quality between the 1000 mk3s, 900s, or 2000s. I guess the 1000 mk3s weigh more but when you actually use them they all feel pretty much identical. At least to me.

BurntToast
03-27-2012, 03:12 PM
I checked out the 900 and 2000 while browsing around at Guitar Center recently, and I was surprised that both models had that cheap/plasticky feel that you mention. I didn't think the 2000 appeared any more durable than the 900 as far as construction goes.

CC Ricers
03-27-2012, 04:35 PM
Both models feel that way? Bleh... I'm used to textured plastic but I didn't think they would do that on their flagship model. Though they did the same thing with the 900 Nexus mixer over the 800, more plastic sides. If I ever want to go big, I'll stick with the 1000 mk3 then.

B.Frank
03-27-2012, 05:40 PM
Spot on review. They felt like overkill for bedroom use with traktor, but that's just me.

BurntToast
03-27-2012, 08:10 PM
Both models feel that way? Bleh... I'm used to textured plastic but I didn't think they would do that on their flagship model. Though they did the same thing with the 900 Nexus mixer over the 800, more plastic sides. If I ever want to go big, I'll stick with the 1000 mk3 then.

I would definitely check em out for yourself if you're considering a purchase, but that's how they felt to me. Others may disagree.

M!TCH
03-28-2012, 11:50 AM
Love the CDJ900's. I wish the platters had the light ring around them like the CDJ2000s. Otherwise these decks are phenomenal. I do wish they had the needle adjustment so you could pick an exact spot within the song. If you get Rekordbox going with your playlists you can get some amazing sets out of these.

Era 7
03-28-2012, 12:37 PM
Love the CDJ900's. I wish the platters had the light ring around them like the CDJ2000s. Otherwise these decks are phenomenal. I do wish they had the needle adjustment so you could pick an exact spot within the song. If you get Rekordbox going with your playlists you can get some amazing sets out of these.

well then it would basicly be a 2000 wouldn't it? :lol:

Jakes
03-29-2012, 06:11 AM
Had mine for about 2 years, never caused me problems, and since i do mobile gigs i don't have a problem with the low weight, i like to spare my back :P

prODucer
03-31-2012, 09:34 AM
Long & McQuade

It doesnt show that they have them on the website? Or do they have to order them or what? Hopefully she finds one some where!

prODucer
04-01-2012, 09:15 PM
My wife brought me home one of these amazing players yesterday and I must say I have fallen in love. Yes it feels a bit too plasticky and a bit too light but other than that it is just pure heaven! If I could I'd be buying a second one today! Maybe next month, although I'm thinking I may pair this one with a black 850 to save some cash. The 900 is just lovely though, and I used to pride myself on not being a pioneer fan! Now I want my entire set up to be pio proud. Don't think I'll be using rekordbox as ssl does what I need. I would recommend this cdj to anyone.

iammongo
04-03-2012, 11:16 AM
I use Traktor with my 900's, even bought the DJM-T1 mixer so i could minimize the amount of gear i take out with me (bye bye Kontrol X-1 and Audio 8).
I have no need to use rekordbox but i still do. It's still beneficial to analize your songs in rekordbox and make some playlists. I usually put background and dinner music into a playlist and burn them to a USB stick so i can give my computer some down time before the event starts.

I also have playlists burned with requests, top 200, current hits etc etc Just incase my computer crashes (which it never has to date, knock on wood). Makes for a quick emergency backup.

OONS
04-03-2012, 01:24 PM
I used to use the CDJ-900 in HID mode with Traktor (along with my Xone DX at the time), and one thing I can say for sure is that the HID control for the CDJ-900 was terrible in Traktor. There's a whole epic thread on native-instruments forum begging for better HID control from both the CDJ-900 & 2000.

DJNR
04-03-2012, 01:45 PM
I used to use the CDJ-900 in HID mode with Traktor (along with my Xone DX at the time), and one thing I can say for sure is that the HID control for the CDJ-900 was terrible in Traktor. There's a whole epic thread on native-instruments forum begging for better HID control from both the CDJ-900 & 2000.

I heard the issue is on NI's end, not pioneer.

prODucer
04-03-2012, 09:47 PM
How does it work as an hid with serato? I haven't tried yet as I still have my 1200s hooked to my sl1.

frandomeda
04-07-2012, 02:59 PM
I dunno I am liking the 900s as far as the price goes. I think me getting 2000s might be overkill... Lets see what happens

OONS
04-15-2012, 04:48 PM
I heard the issue is on NI's end, not pioneer.

I hear the issue is with both. NI needs certain files from Pioneer to get the full HID integration, and supposedly, Serato has an exclusive rights contract for these models when it comes to HID and using the screens through the software. Thus, NI is out of luck.

prODucer
04-15-2012, 04:50 PM
That's crazy!! The djm 900 nexus is traktor certified yet the cdjs only have proper control over ssl?! Wtf!

OONS
04-15-2012, 04:56 PM
That's crazy!! The djm 900 nexus is traktor certified yet the cdjs only have proper control over ssl?! Wtf!

It work's, just not that great. I even had to tweak a few settings in the midi map for my CDJ-900 in Traktor to get it to be close to what it feels like to just spin a CD on it. However, even then it still wasn't close enough and was bothersome (most notably the delay of grabbing the jog, and any resulting action).

prODucer
04-15-2012, 05:03 PM
Huh...that's strange. But ssl works fine?