Loops, hot cues, remix decks - nice to have or unnecessary?

I started djing 98’, two turntables one Mixer, no effects. Today I’m playing with cdjs or Traktor which features loops, hot cues, remix decks etc. What do you think about those technics ? Do you need these to perform your mix ? Or is it just two decks (now digital) and a Mixer ? Or do you miss something what hasn’t Been made yet ?

I started off on vinyl, then went CD and then tagged WAV files.

Each migration through technology has improved some of the negatives of the previous medium.

For example: vinyl players could be knocked and nudged and the stylus could jump out of the groove, even by non-contact catalysts such as intense bass from too close bass cabs… all sorts of silly things were tried under the feet of turntables to help isolate them; balloons, bread, tennis balls, concrete slabs, bubble wrap … it makes me very scared when people today, who maybe don’t realise just how susceptible vinyl players are to knocks etc, ask for performance pads on vinyl turntables. Even then, you could have everything working fine and a tiny spec of fluff could then land on the record and get pulled into the stylus …

I don’t miss any features from vinyl, as really, there weren’t any. I certainly don’t miss the running costs of styli and cartridges.

One feature that I’d love to see brought back to today’s media players, from Denons advanced CD player feature list is: Seamless Splice

I try to be open minded and adapt to whatever new comes along. I use loops a lot, and hot cues non stop. I’ve never gotten into the sampler much though beyond “plugs” when recording promo mixes, but I’ve got some ideas floating around on how I could do a lot more with it.

That all said, sometimes a new feature comes out and I just can’t figure out a way I could use that in my routine… Flip comes to mind - haven’t quite wrapped my brain around that one yet. lol

I class myself as an ‘Old School’ DJ - cut my teeth on 1210s and Vinyl so used to manual beat mixing, jumping, carrying around vinyl. With my 2900s im looking forward to trying out hot cues as I can see them being beneficial for ‘teasing’ a crowd before dropping the track, though saying that… im still for long mixes between records. We shall see what happens :slight_smile: