Am still very much on my learning how to dj journey (a few of you helped me with my set up earlier this year to start record mixes with a sound card)
Have started playing a few all vinyl, open deck nights to get experience playing in a club environment. One I am doing later this week has an Alpha theatre rotary mixer, I have only ever used a Pioneer DJM-900NXS2. Any advise on using rotary v’s Pioneer mixer?
Think on a basic level I understand the difference (and most obvious no faders etc) …between the two. But any tips or recommendations would be much appreciated.
In my opinion, taking your time with blends is your best strategy. With older tracks it’s not always possible but if you are mixing house etc, with nice synchronized intros/outros, then let the mixer do the work and gently bring a track in while you are taking the other out. Good rotaries have amazing summing and for that reason you can get away with minor EQ adjustments if you time everything right.
The Alpha Theta is basically a pioneer, so even though it has more bells and whistles you should familiarize yourself with its workflow pretty quickly.
I’m no major rotary expert but I think it’s basically the same except you turn a knob instead of pushing up a fader to increase the volume. The way the volume comes in is different though so just find your way with it. It should be smoother and start earlier on a rotary. Normal faders often only become discernible at about 8/10. In short, nothing to worry about. You’ll have fun.
Thanks both, really helpful! So focus on slower blends and bringing the music in more gently than I would with a fader? Was thinking to keep it to slower bpms and a bit dubby, so that could work well! I’m super excited to learn something new!
You’ll understand what I mean about the slower blends (hopefully) in that the rotary faders give you a bit more control. It’s very fun to mix on those, once you get the hang of it.
I had it in mind but kept on flip flopping until I saw a guy on YouTube using it exactly how I envisaged, and it was also on sale (got a free SSL Violet EQ 500 series module with it, which I’m deciding whether to sell to offset the cost a little bit, or go down another gear rabbit hole )
I watched a couple of videos and it did look/sound as good as it can on a YT video. I will probably end up going for one of the Tascam numbers instead.
Good to know. I’m looking at the Model 12 or 16. Just want a decent mixer that I can send individual track from Ableton (my current one only lets me send the master), along with my hardware, some decent eq’s on the channels and good routing options.
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