I’m a midi controller addict, i currently have 4 of them (Axiom61, BCF2000, MK225c & Drehbank) and if something new jumps around the corner it instantly raises my interest. Above combination serves all my needs for studio production and spinning as long as i don’t leave the house. Pity, the final word on the mobile frontier hasn’t been spoken yet and it’s like the industry doesn’t care much. Seems as there aren’t many DJs amongst those who layout midi controllers – or why in devils name does every recent controller have to feature a big and bold jogwheel?

I consider myself being one of the early birds using DJ software (namely Traktor due to several reasons) after spining vinyls for more than 10 years. Luckily testing Final Scratch to the bone and back i decided to either carry records OR use a laptop with Traktor but not both at the same time. It’s certainly been a matter of preference and not technical issues which led me this way. When using the software i’d like to control as many aspects of it as possible. Once you took a box of records, a bag with laptop and additional midi controllers to a venue, realizing there is simply no space for your setup, especially the midi controller(s) you may fall the same direction. Thus leaving the records home wouldn’t really improve the situation.

In contrary to the controller of my dreams the recent devices slip away further and further by technical design. The bigger the jogwheel, the merrier the marketing efforts. Dear product designers – WHY? In which way do jogwheels improve anything for digital DJ’s?

Most of the ones on midi controllers don’t have a motor on their own thus they don’t spin, that kinda spoils the entire “huh, i’m touching an actual vinyl” experience. Ah – i should use the joghweel to cue through my music like using the shelf on a record? Let’s face it: it’s not that any there would be any mp3s that containing several tracks at once. Apart from that almost every DJ application has a cue marker where it jumps to after loading a file. Even if there are people using let’s say 5 to 10 cue points in a single track skipping between them doesn’t really demand a jogwheel for operation. They’re often even too unprecise to not jump over the point one’s heading to.

What’s left? Scratching! Hands up, how many digital DJ’s actually scratch? Shooting in the dark i’d say maybe 3 out of 100. If you, the product designers would actually like to sell your controller to any of those 3 you’d most probably get the physics of a spinning turntable emulated straight in your product which usually isn’t the case. Using the jogwheel for pitchbend goes into the same category for me. No go.

I employed the touch sensitive pads of my Axiom 61 to take care of pitchbends. They do the job with such a high accuracy and precision i could never reach with my hands on an actual vinyl, not even thinking about the rather sluggish realized lot of jogwheels on midi controllers.

Dear industry – it may be fun for you to tell people to buy your fancy vinyl-look-alike DJ controllers but maybe you could get rid of that idea and develop something that simply doesn’t waste space in first place? Once your customers realize there are better ways to get in control of DJ applications they’ll throw your products back at you. Or maybe you could invest some time and get your jogwheels straight at behaving like a vinyl at a smaller scale.

Now -

if you think i missed a certain aspect which is highly important – let me know!

if you believe your jogwheel driven midi controller kicks ass the way it is, i’d love to check it out! Yes, i’m negative about the concept but due to negative experience with it. You’re invited to convince me of the opposite!

Sincerly,
Ronny