Experience with the Pio 350 Rig

As some of you may know from my flipped picture posted in the "Show Your Setup" thread, I recently bought the entire Pioneer 350 set. Note that this will be a review from my point of view - coming from the VCI-100 and Traktor to using the CDJs and the DJM primarily with USB drives and rekordbox (AKA Standalone).

CDJ 350

I'll start with the basics: Media Formats

THE CD DRIVE is pretty excellent quality - it loads the CD very quickly and I don't have any complains here. Also I'm confident that it would play the CD at every and any angle at high quality without skipping. The classic Pioneer quality sticks with it here.

THE USB DRIVE is also great - it can load hundreds of songs really quickly (I use two 8 GB Sandisk Cruzer drives + 1 for recording). No complaints here either. It can take a second to switch from USB to CD but thats not a problem.


UPDATE: Most the software issues where fixed when I updated Traktor, it was not the CDJs fault.
THE MIDI CONTROL is where some problems lie, and what is making me give up using traktor pro with the CDJ's - i'll talk more about this later. Don't get me wrong - it works. But its not impressive control of the software at all and some of the neat features like the LED screen and beat slasher get thrown away when you use the software integration. Also everything feels a bit different - almost cheap when controlling the software and it would occasionally fuck up and somethign would stop working (often the jog-wheels). Also, because I hooked two of them up to the software, pressing CD/vinyl mode on one would make it hella wierd - especially cause the LED output would say something different (as it changes global not deck specific). But it IS functional.

Now here is my BIGGEST gripe with the MIDI control - it sucks if i want to swtich between MIDI and USB. Maybe i don't know how to do this correctly - but the CDJ only functions as a soundcard while its in PC mode. That means if i switch it to USB mode (and only use MIDI for requests) then the music stops - its also really wierd even though technically one should work as a sound card while the other doesnt so I believe this is my problem and not the CDJ's problem. I'll work this out later and see what I can do about this.

Something we all know is super important: Aesthetics

This part is going to be dedicated to Aesthetics of only the CDJ-350. Let me tell you that when i was using it with the DDM4000 it looked a lot less sexy than when i used it with my DJM-350. Having the entire rig boosts is sexy level by over 9000.

The screen is awesome. It displays everything I'd want it to display and having BPM to the decimal place is pretty nice - not as nice as two on Traktor but w/e i can deal with that. Oh and it would be nice if they had waveforms - but their little beatgrid thing isn't too bad - it can often get beat 1 wrogn but thats fixed easily with rekordbox/cueing on the spot.

I enjoy the black finish and the metallic buttons which I'll get to their usability later. But they look really sexy.

I did however, prefer the jogwheel's look on the CDJ-400 but believe me the CDJ-350 jogwheel looks great too so don't let that stop you.

I wish they had made the words light up on the buttons - but that's personal preference and with some lighting its not that hard to see the buttons. Its also a bit annoying that the buttons aren't outlined but thats more of a problem on the DJM than on the CDJ.

Overall, the CDJ-350 looks pretty sexy on its own but if you hook it up with a large format mixer - eh it doesn't look as good.

Erre Erre Jog Wheel

The quality of this thing is awesome. Haters gone hate and tell you that the CDJ 850 makes this feel like a toy because its so light and plasticky. I disagree. The lightness makes it really easy to move and I actually like it MORE than the 850 jogs (even though the quality obviously IS worse) it makes it easier in my eyes to pitchbend.

Scratching is possible but if you want to scratch you're not going to go for CDJ's in general. Also the lack of tracking on the jogwheel forces you to look at the display - which is functional but not great if you want to scratch. So don't buy this over a controller if all you want is scratchability.

Lastly is the lack of tracking . Thats annoying - why'd they take off the LED ring from the 400's! Well its obvious, so they could keep the price. Eh oh well, i'll deal - its more aesthetics than actually useful for me.

You hardly have to press down on the jogwheel for it to sense that you're touching it - but pressign down definitely is a plus over the touch-sensitivy of the VCI-100 because i said so.

CDJ mode is also really cool. I know all CDJ's do this - but when you pause the track it will play each beat on repeat as you move along the track. This allows you to find cues - something that I don't know you can do on traktor. Not that its necessary though because you have hi-res waveforms on traktor.

Buttons/faders

These feel absolutely amazing. THe metallic buttons are so easy to press - they blow away the rubberized Denon buttons on the HS5550 (which i ahd the pleasure of testing at my friend's house). I have not a single gripe here (on quality). But again, a better output with light up words would've been optimal.

Faders are also great with .02% accuracy i don't really need anything more from them.

Features

It has all the features you could want except hot-cues but i've gotten used not to use those and autoloop :P

I love the beat slicer - its pretty awesome. I don't really use their Master BPM Lock thing cause i dont see the point of not being able to change your BPM but whatever floats your boat. I honestly don't see anything that the CDJ850 has over the CDJ350 featurewise - even the 900, all it has is slipmode really (inb4 trolling on the 900s I HAVEN"T USED THEM, and i don't really know much about them so I don't care if you say i'm wrong - its just an impression)

Rekordbox

<3

i love rekordbox.

It's shittily written but it does what it needs to do - even if its slow it gets BPM right almost every time and its great for organizing music. It is slow though, very very slow.

Overall

The feel is great - to know that you aren't dependent on software. It makes me feel like i'm really DJing - i just enjoy it more than controllerism IMO. People are going to hate, but its how I feel. And its worth the extra money - the feel is everything for me.

Is it worth spending extra money for the higher quality CDJs?

I don't know. If you want the industry standard than yes - but other than that you really are set with the CDJ-350.

Is it worth getting over the CDJ-400s?

I believe definitely yes. It's newer technology. Its better technology. Looks better. And has rekordbox. What is it missing? HID serato support and jog wheel illumination.

I'd say go for the CDJ-350s.

I'll be back soon for a review on the DJM-350 and how the setup works together.

Peace out,
Mogal