The absence of pitch faders rules out any serious beat-matching though. With the track playing, these become Pitchbend controls, which – to be fair – are surprisingly well implemented and can be used for basic, 'nudge'-style beat-matching. With a track stopped, these can be used to 'scratch' the current track, while holding down Shift puts them into Seek mode, allowing the user to jump to any part of the track. Removing one of the most obvious controls from a DJ controller is a bold move, but NI claims that the new touchstrips can be used in place of jog wheels and there's some truth in this. NI’s top-of-the-range Traktor controller shifts away from the conventional ‘two platters and a mixer’ layout of most DJ gear, in favour of a design focused around Traktor’s Stems and Remix Deck capabilities. As a result, the SX3 can act as a hub/mixer for four digital decks, four external players or any combination of the above. Each channel of its central mixer can be switched between digital inputs from Serato DJ or analogue RCA, and the control decks can be flipped to control up to four Serato decks simultaneously. The jog wheels are small, but responsive and sturdy, with a feel not dissimilar to those on Pioneer’s CDJ line. Again, the controller is small enough to transport pretty easily, but with its sturdy chassis and aluminium top it’s also rugged feeling, and you’d expect it to tolerate regular club use without issue.
The DDJ-SX3 looks very similar to its predecessors. Version 3 arrived earlier this year, further refining the already winning formula. Pioneer DJ’s DDJ-SX line debuted back in 2012, and has arguably retained the crown of being the highest-quality, and most powerful Serato DJ controller available for under a grand. It’s ‘haptic’ jogwheels - which provide tactile feedback on things like beat grids and cue positions - are genuinely innovative, and make this one of the most impressive controllers in the sub-£/$1,000 bracket. It’s also worth giving a nod to the recent third generation version of Native Instruments’ Traktor Kontrol S4 controller too though. All tracks prepared in rekordbox are ready to be loaded onto a USB and taken out to a club too – meaning this is probably the closest compatibility you’ll find between home controller setup and DJ booth. Its meaty, pressure-sensitive jogwheels have the heft of mixing on one of the brand’s industry-standard CDJs, and the mixer section is effectively a trimmed-down DJM-900. In fact, the 1000 is the closest thing we’ve found to condensing a club CDJ setup down into controller form. While Pioneer DJ’s rekordbox DJ mixing application remains, arguably, slightly in the shadow of the ‘bigger guns’ Serato and Traktor, used with Pioneer’s new flagship DJ controller, the DDJ-1000 it’s the perfect pairing. Our pick of the best DJ headphones available today.The best beginner DJ controllers for budding mix masters.
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