Hercules Jogvision DJ Control

Great controller for intermediate level. I had a basic controller in the days gone by, and wanted to upgrade a bit, so that I could easily control loops and effects, as well as the regular speed/faders etc. This fit the bill, and I like it. It would be much better if the serato DJ software were either free, or at least heavily subsidised when buying one of these, because as it stands, after a free trial, you need to stump up another $100 which works out about £75 today, or £7.50/per month subscription, for the same thing, indefinitely. Other than that, yeah, works well, just have the audio cable(s) you may require ready, because this only comes with the cables you require for the power and the USB.... Oh and one last note - not sure if this was just me, but the power plug is the 2-pin european plug and I wasn't aware at the time of ordering, so when I received the item I had to go and buy another euro-UK plug adapter, although all the text etc was English.I'm no DJ pro by a long long way, but I like mixing the dance music, which this can easily handle, and I use the "auto quantize & sync" features which help those entry and beginners and like me greatly. Sync will automaticly scan the song you're listening to, and sync up the beats with another song, providing the software can decode the beat. I have found this to work very accurately in about 95% of cases. It can go wonky if the song has a beat that is itself mixed, and therefore changing during the song, but you can manually overide this by beat-tapping, or simply going manual.Quantize further enhances the beat sync, so that any loops, effects and cues are quantized to the nearest beat (can be adjust to half beat, quarter beat etc), so essentially, set to 1 beat sync, it is impossible to messup the beatmix, at least as far as the beat goes. That said, it also greatly helps in removing the frustration that can be for beginners to get the beats to "line up" the same, and allows you to focus on learning other things too, and very quickly after starting, such as the many effects, and looping set number of beats, or even stitching together custom sections of a song, to create a very unique version of the songs you want to mix up.All in all, this has plenty of functions and buttons to control those functions, and I found the headphones volume to be more than enough, turned up, it is very very loud, ideal for the club level of volume. I have a 1000W cinema system and this is more than enough to hear with good headphones the mix. I wish I knew the terminology better to explain more, because frankly, I have had many hours of enjoyment over the last couple of months practicing and then playing/experimenting with hundreds of songs and there really is a skill, an art, and a technical aspect to this, that I enjoy as a challenge, and rewarding when you pull off a great mix. When it "just went well" I feel great, and when it goes wrong, have an excuse ready, spin it down and "i did that on purpose so you could have a go" ready :D

I have used a few midi controllers in my time, from the first Hercules Controllers, Behringer, American Audio VMS 4 and Traktor S4.One thing with Hercules controllers that I have owned is they always appear to be very robust, this one to be honest is not the most robust controller they have ever produced, it feels a little bit plasticky, ok a lot plasticky but the Jog Dials on this thing are on a different level and feel nicer than my CDJ-1000s albeit the platter size is smaller, still they are significantly larger than any of my previous midi controllers so well done Hercules.I purchased this more for curiosity than anything else, I have been using Traktor for years and wanted to try my hand at Serato. My thoughts are the basic Serato that comes with it will be sufficient for most basic bedroom DJ's but there are a few limitations in it and some of these are not really anything special. I would not be so frustrated if the cost of the software was a little more reasonable for a bedroom DJ, perhaps as this looks like the teenagers market another license tier is introduced for non practicing DJ's. The limitations Serato have crippled it with have been available in Virtual DJ, Numark CUE, Traktor LE, Traktor Scratch Pro and a whole heap of other DJ software out there. I personally also do not like the wave forms in Serato, all seems a bit too busy for me.The controller, I have already covered the platters on this thing and they are great, in fact I have not come across better in all honesty and I was fortunate enough to have a go on a friends Pioneer DDJ-SZ. The Air Control thing is really cool, but I found this sometime gets in the way when you are trying to adjust eq's and it tended to stick on and could not be cancelled, I am sure this can be sorted in software of firmware.I like the controller for the platters, the layout of the deck is a little different to other vendors and button placement can be questionable at times but the performance is Spot On.As with most things it really is a case of horses for courses, this is a great entry level Serato controller, you should be capable of doing 99% of everything you can do on any of the other decks, the platters are big and smooth, well lit and a pleasure to use. Button placement a bit illogical but you will get used to it and it is not that much different, the sound quality out the controller is Spot On.If you are not fussed about what software you want to use, I would personally recommend checking out the VMS 4 controller and Traktor, its the most versatile IMHO as it can also be used for analogue connectivity, again horses for courses.Hope this helps someone.

This is an excellent piece of kit once you get it up and running with GOOD mixing software. The Serato intro software was laughable. Wouldn't even display track keys, allow layout adjustments and had one of the most awkward waveform displays in any mixing software i've ever used. Not a good selling point for Serato.However, after installing Traktor Pro and downloading the midi configuration settings for this controller, everything works perfectly. The jogwheels are very responsive. I can easily fastforward through a track that i'm setting up a cue point for. I've also found that I can use the side of the platter to fine adjust the beat synchronization when the software grids are slightly off. The EQ dials seems really sensitive, but this was due to how I had them set up within the Traktor software. After changing the settings, they now allow me to smoothly fade frequencies in and out between tracks.The Air FX function is quite cool, but you can easily forget to turn it back off again which can cause problems when you reach for the treble dials and the sensor picks up your hand motions. So use wisely!All in all a great piece of kit. Software could have been better, but for the price, there really isn't too much to complain about.