Numark iDJ2 iPod Mixer with Scratch Control

Great for starting-up djs..unfortunately there is not much effects only looping...open source system works perfectly!very great firware updates you can feel the difference!No prob with the unit so far!

Background
I am a mobile DJ who has been part-time in the industry for over nearly 15 years. My music collection consists of around 1200 CDs and until recently I had always used my Numark Dual CD player to operate. First I had the CDN-34s now I have the CDN-88. About a year and a half ago I started ripping my CD collection and about one year ago exactly, I had made enough progress to make CDs the backup and a laptop running iTunes for my main source of music. It has worked FINE with only one minor hiccup for a whole year. Why bother messing with a good thing you ask? Well I wanted to get back to DJing! I missed the live mixing and cueing of songs not to mention that iTunes does not have key locked increases in tempo and other cool DJ effects. I have a 160GB iPod with about 90GB of MP3s on it so I figured this would be the way to go.

The Review
I bought the unit from a Sam Goody with a Odyssey case: iDJ2 $550 and case $200. The case is worthless, it weighs a TON and the foam inside is too thick to shut the case so I had to rip a section out (which I will re-glue when I return it) to make it shut over the iDJ2. WOW who engineered this thing and didn't measure it??

Why a one star?

A) It would probably take DAYS to build a "library" on the iPod using the unit. I have 17,000 songs and I let it go for one hour (my limit of frustration) and decided to try to use the computer since I have a pretty fast laptop. Here's where it gets worse. I gave it 7 hours and it still wasn't finished using a Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz CPU on Vista 64-bit. Unacceptable. But it takes a while to analyze all that music you say. OK fine. The deal breaker is in the next complaint.

B) Errors Errors Errors. It took me a lot of reading in the manual to find out I needed to enable disk mode in the iPod. That should have been step 1 or 2 after plug the unit in and turn it on. Then the iDJ2 had trouble reading the iPod in the dock. I used the iPod USB cable because the dock stopped recognizing the iPod but the USB connector would be fine. Then I tried using the iDJ2 search wheel on a song while it was playing to cue to a specific part of the song and it said: "Please don't disconnect the library while playing, use the eject button..." (I don't remember word for word) and it "rebooted" the connection to the iPod. I didn't bump it or do anything to disrupt the connection. Song stopped playing and it happened again when I tried to play the song again.

Luckily all my problems happened while this was in my living room and not on the job. This iDJ2 unit and case are going back to the store.

Pros:
-XLR Outputs
-Accepts Other Sources via Line In (You are going to need them)

Cons:
-Expected plug and play operation and found out it takes HOURS of processing to ready your iPod
-Even with all the firmware upgrades (yeah I did those first thing!) it has BUGS and ERRORS. (I have a 160GB circa October 2007 iPod)

NOT RECOMMENDED. DO NOT RISK YOUR REPUTATION ON THIS EQUIPMENT.

What it does right, it does well. But where the ball drops, it falls pretty hard.

The unit is fine as advertised, and generally performs admirably: it mixes from a single iPod, or you can add an assortment of devices (USB-based drives, thumb drives, etc.). You need not only use the iPod. It plays various formats (WAV, MP3, etc.). It has a strong visual screen and plenty of outputs (XLR, RCA). Support is fair to middling. it has a very nice "crate" feature which let's you pull out songs from your general pile and set them aside for quick access.

However:

- It may not read all of your songs.
ITunes isn't on board with this piece, so you may have to still burn songs to CD and re-install them to iTunes (or some other drive/device) to use them. It reads what it can, but I found the Library software that comes with it somewhat useless.
- It's lightweight.
Mostly plastic here. Invest in a case.
- The fade is too abrupt.
- A headphone cue knob (! Buttons, please) on the face of the device instead of the top?!
- The touted turntable action is cute, but not realistic. Going forward is kind of cool, but at the end of pulling back generates a pause. Between this and the suspect fader, not a lot of trick work happening here. Also, no dead-stop like real turntables.
- Some freezing there during 2 song play on occassion.
- HUGE load times if your iPod is loading more than about 8 GB. I use an iPod that has about 20 GBs on it and it takes about two hours to upload the changes. I don't even want to think about how long it would take if I put my full 80 GBs on it.
- Costs just a little too much for an item with so many downsides.

I can't recommend it as a primary unit for DJs who spin on the regular. It's a nice piece for casual DJs who mostly do blends or for regular DJs who want a side piece that helps cut down on the amount of gear they need to carry around. I use this piece about twice a week live and with that little use, it holds up okay, but I never know when it's going to to spoil...I just know that, with all these hang-ups, it will.

Excellent, great product, the only thing this IDJ2 don't has it's sound effects, but talking about the all other features it is so good.

I'm very pleased with this product. Is unbelievable how you can mix two songs from the same ipod. You can connect an USB keyboard and your searchs will be faster. With Key Lock function you can change the pitch and voices will not distort. Basic scratch and not a good crossfader (but you can live with that). Excellent for your home parties, my friends want to buy my iDJ2!
Estoy satisfecho con el producto. Es increíble poder mezclar dos canciones del mismo ipod. Le conectas un teclado USB y la búsqueda es más rápida. Tiene un opción de Key Lock con lo que puedes cambiar el pitch sin que la voz suene como de las ardillitas (o del ogro). El scratch es básico y el crossfader es limitado, pero salvo que hagas hip hop no es un problema. Un equipo excelente para armar tus fiestas en casa. Mis amigos están fascinados.
El soporte de Numark si parecer ser fatal. Espero no tener que usarlo. Les pregunté si estaban por lanzar un modelo nuevo, pero nunca me contestaron.
Antes de empezar a mezclar tus canciones debes crear una librería en tu PC (conectas el ipod para sincronizarlo y corres el programa librarian que viene en el USB de programas)lo que puede demorar fácilmente un día si es que como yo tienes más de 10.000 canciones. Ten cuidado con los ficheros de podcasts que tengas, algunos tienen un formato que el librarina no puede procesar. Si ves que el librarian se demora mucho en un fichero tienes que eliminarlo en tu iTunes.