Pioneer DDJ-SZ

[Panotaker]

Well I see they put the play/pause button far enough away that you can't accidentally hit it when you have your hands on the faders. That was the reason I took the DDJ-SX back. The only thing I see is that they might have got rid of the Dual Deck Mode. That was the best feature that I liked about the DDJ-SX. The Dual Deck Mode button says "Deck" on it now instead of "Dual Deck", so I'm not sure if they got rid of that feature or not. Pioneer is on the right track to making a controller the club standard, but this is not it. Traveling DJ's got used to carrying USB sticks and using Rekordbox, and it looks like with this, they will have to use a laptop again, so I don't see the big clubs getting rid of their CDJ setups any time soon. Maybe the next model will have Rekordbox support, then the CDJ standard will be in trouble.

[fat8ack]

Man, I can't wait to hear more about this beast. I have been putting off an upgrade waiting for something like this to come along. I still love the NS7 mk2 and would really like to purchase one, but this new beast is looking spectacular.

Pioneer has officially raised the bar, along with Serato, of course.

Maybe all this is why they (Serato) did not do hardly anything with ITCH after 2.0.

I am sold on DJ though. And maybe this bad boy too.

[VJ LouNYC]

The is controller is the ultimate mobile gig unit. Between features, price and WEIGHT, it's a no brainer. Can't wait.

[den1213]

The is controller is the ultimate mobile gig unit. Between features, price and WEIGHT, it's a no brainer. Can't wait.

I agree, waiting on feed back, this sounds like a winner!!! I wish it was TRAKTOR, I'm so use to Traktor's layout, but I'm willing to switch to Serato for this

[DJ ATX]

http://pioneerdj.com/english/product...er/ddj-sz.html

http://www.agiprodj.com/pioneer-ddj-...FWwV7Aod3TQAZQ


Click here for mobile viewing.

[fat8ack]

Maybe.....Juuuuuuuuuuust maybe.

[ClrCreekRdr]

This seems like the logical move. I'm not sure why all the manufacturers didn't already jump at releasing a controller that has full sized jog wheels, full sized pitch faders, dual USB support for 2 DJ's, and a real mixer for connecting anything else a DJ may want to use.

My guess is that the next logical step for pioneer is a DDJ-RZ. Basically take a DDJ-SZ and give it all the abilities of the DDJ-R1 (standalone playback ability, USB stick/recordbox playability, and maybe cd drives). To me, that would be the ultimate club standard. Anyone, on any platform, could step up and DJ in their favorite DJ environment (traktor, serato, recordbox, dvs, CD's, records).

[DJ ATX]

Here's why I think it may become a club standard.

Standard Pioneer layout that club DJs are used to
XLR Outs and Balanced Booth out
Pioneer Label
Serato Integration
Having a dual USBs to be able to transition multiple DJs if need be.
Being able to leverage the existing DJM/CDJ reputation for its marketing towards club installs.

[DJ Highline]

They probably didn't include Rekordbox due to Serato not wanting them to. Why would Serato allow a Serato branded product to work natively with another software app. However, for those wanting Rekordbox, pair this with a pair of CDJ-350s and you have everything.

From yesterday http://www.djforums.com/forums/showt...e-pioneer-cdjs

Personally, I think the only thing premium about Pioneer is the price. Just about everyone of their products can be matched or bested by a competitor in terms of features and price. I think Pioneers strategy of being the most expensive thing around, makes people believe they are better than what they are. Don't get me wrong, Pioneer doesn't make many bad products, but are their products worth the premium price they ask? IMHO, No! The problem is that people are conditioned to think that in order to get quality you have to pay an absurd price and that's just not true. They tried this same pricing strategy when they finally got dragged kicking and screaming into the controller market. Does anyone remember how f*cking expensive the DDJ -T1 & S1 were vs what you got? Because the DJ community had already been shown that you can get a quality controller for a lot less money we all said screw you. Which made Pioneer comeback with the DDJ-SX. A feature loaded controller that IMO was relatively reasonably priced (still a little pricey, but not OMG pricey).

As far as why controllers are not a standard in clubs, I think mostly is do to Serato's business model. Because Serato is part of the big 3 software titles, and is not an open Midi platform like Traktor or VDJ it forces any controller that wants to even try to be a standard to go through Serato. So IMO, any controller that wants to be a standard has to do a few things:

1. Play nice with Serato, Traktor and Virtual DJ
2. Have DVS support for at least either Traktor or Serato (because Virtual DJ can use any soundcard for DVS)
3. Have an independent mixer section
4. Support two laptops (ala the Rane 68) for easy transitions between DJs.
5. The ability to run two DJ programs simultaneously for transitioning between DJs using different programs.
6. Robustly built and built to standard equipment height (ie the height of Technics 1200s, CDJs, mixers etc)
7. Has to have excellent jog wheels, RGB velocity sensitive buttons and just a well thought out and laid out control surface.
8. Ability to play standalone from a single USB drive

This product does not exist. If someone where to make this happen. It could be a contender for a controller standard.

[Baller95]

Damn, that things insane! But I think I'll stick with my SX since I'll never use CDJ's or TT's or any new effect they've thrown in. The colored pads are pretty cool though, it'll definitely help knowing which button is for what cue point! Oh and these are twice the price of the SX?!