Hence a controller without such pads is ideal for my needs, and an additional Akai controller can be used for samples, cue points, and loops. Any controllers with a small number of pads (16?) such as the Traktor F1, or DDJ-SX I regard as being too limited to cope with the new possibilities offered by the VDJ 8 sampler. They may not work properly, and I'm considering simplifying the VDJ 8 mapping for these elements. I'm having a few problems with the 4 main beat effects, roll, echo, flanger and trans.
Since I'm using the hardware mixer I needed a skin which did not display VDJ 8's mixer, the VDJ 7 4 deck skin set to scratch suited my needs. I particularly like the way they map 4 hardware effects to one knob (often just used for a filter on other hardware). My preference is to use the XDJ-R1 mixer since the Pioneer onboard effects are quite good. VDJ 8 ran well, both using the XDJ-R1 mixer, and VDJ 8's own internal mixer. They might only have been related to Rekordbox which I will study further. I bought the XDJ-R1 assuming that stability issues have been resolved by Pioneer. Their website was described as being a security risk by my mobile phone. Those that designed Rekordbox seem to think I will allow it to trample backwards and forwards through my firewall. I spent 30 minutes messing up a good laptop with what appears to be buggy software. Rekordbox 4.0.2 and the site that hosts the program look incompetent. I'm in the first 24 hours of trying to configure the Pioneer XDJ-R1.