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Customer Reviews: Average Rating:  Rating :  - Very practical alternative to Vinyl
Functionality:
The IDJ2 comes with all the features you need to be able to DJ in a bedroom or a club, you can connect a large number of devices and use the IDJ2 as the central mixing desk for your CD or Vinyl turntables as well. It has a Mic. input and both large and small type output sockets for your headphone monitors so you don't have to worry about lost adapters! There are two USB connections on the back so you can connect external storage drives (imagine replacing your record box with a thumb drive you can fit on a key ring!). There is a decent EQ for either channel to adjust the bass, mids and tops plus each channel has LED level monitors, gain controls and volume sliders. The pitch adjusters make this device a serious DJ tool as opposed to lesser devices such as the original IDJ, they allow the beats to be matched accurately and have a nice stiff feel to them. The pitch adjustment can be varied from +-6% to +-100% making just about any mix possible. The multipurpose jog wheels have three main functions, pitch bend, track search and scratch. The scratch mode is a pseudo vinyl scratch feature which works quite well. To cue a track you have buttons to Play, Pause or Cue - I found the cueing method to find and set the 'b' of the 'beat' a little counter intuitive when compared to other devices like my trusty old Pioneer CDJ 500's which I was able to use immediately - it took me a couple of hours to really get the hang of cueing method on the IDJ2. There is a built in BPM counter with tap buttons to set the rate manually and lights which help keep the pace in between the volume faders. The BPM counter is a nice add on but rarely seems that useful when the BPM are over 140 and the beats are manic breaks as opposed to simple bass drums. There isn't much missing here although a removable universal crossfader would have been nice (the standard cross fader can however be replaced) and perhaps a button to return to the beginning of the track instantly (although I just found out you can do this by holding pause for a couple of seconds) or buttons to change the headphone channel over quickly instead of the rotatable pot (that might just be my preference though as I imagine it would suit those who like to hear both channels in their cans).
When it comes to track selection it pays to have your music collection well organised with tracks being tagged up correctly for Genre, Artist, Playlist etc. there is a search function, although for this to work really quickly a USB keyboard would be a worthy accessory. The method for loading tracks is nice and easy thanks to the large colour screen and navigational rotate+click knob. A really nice feature is the "Crate" which allows you to easily create a playlist for your set.
Performance:
OK first off out of the box the unit is practically ready to use - however if you are connecting an iPod you first need to sync your music library (mine took over an hour for over 30 Gigs of music files) you can either build the library on the IDJ2 or you can build it on a PC or Mac (using a computer to build the library enables a more advanced library to be created which has certain benefits such as Seek Tables). I'd also strongly recommend to ensure that you have the most recent firmware upgrade since Numark are continuing to add fixes and improvements and the last upgrade included some really nice enhancements! I cannot understand why people would find a cause for complaint about firmware upgrades since they are entirely optional and allow your device to be improved after the time you purchased it (imagine your car dealership calling you 2 months after you bought a car from them offering you the chance to add a free satellite navigation system - would you turn that down? worse still would you complain about it?).
Once the library has been built the only other notable delays moving forward are for the creation of seek tables from the iPod into the IDJ2. If you built your library on the device then it might not have created the "Seek Tables" which will mean you have to create one on-demand each time you select a new track to mix with (the Seek Table is technically something that the IDJ2 requires to be able to perform pitch adjustment on a track). This will mean having to wait before you can begin to play each track and the time will depend on the file size/quality (average time is approx 20-30 seconds from my iPod). It's not a long time but it does mean you lose valuable time that could be spent cueing up and beat matching the next track but it's comparable to the amount of time it would take to load a record or CD from a sleeve and case. Note: Seek Table creation times from solid state iPods or USB drives are much better and you can easily avoid these delays by building the "Seek Tables" into the library on a computer instead of on the IDJ2 directly.
Build Quality:
The unit feels fairly sturdy for a digital device although by comparison to a decent turntable it feels pretty lightweight. There are some excellent flight cases on the market so if you are planning to transport it about I'd recommend investing in one. My main criticism would be that some of the knobs and sliders look and feel a little plasticky but overall the unit is very hard to fault.
Practicality:
I'm currently working in the US and so had to leave my entire vinyl collection in the UK where I have a large room dedicated to storing and mixing my records. The Numark IDJ2 allows me to recreate that entire setup with something that takes up a small table surface. The benefits for the mobile DJ are simply huge!
Verdict
Just Superb, buy two! : ) + See Full Customer Review |  |
US
