DJ library convenience – Managing USBs and hard drives is an extra step in the workflow that requires thought and time. I prefer grabbing my laptop and hooking it up to my controller, knowing that I’ve got everything I need there. In fact, in the few minutes before I start my set (and even during it) I can create new playlists, edit them, search for last minute tracks to add to the set, fix beatgrids, and so on
Track previews – This was a big one for me. I like to quickly skip around tracks in the browser window and preview them in my headphone cue to remind myself of the vibe and whether it’s a suitable next track. This is easy to do in Rekordbox DJ, plus you don’t need to load the track onto a deck – you just click around the waveform in the preview player, and it doesn’t mark the track as “played”. It’s a different story on a CDJ: you have to load each track and manually search through it. It’s more time consuming, and causes me to “settle” for a tune because I got bored repeatedly loading tracks and running out of time to make my choice. And if I played the track I was previewing for longer than 45 seconds, it marked it as “played” whether I decided to play it in full or not. You don’t get this with the preview in Rekordbox DJ
Track search and sort options – In fairness to Pioneer, the track search functions on the Nexus and Nexus2 systems are much better than CDJs of old, but searching using the touchscreens is still nowhere near as convenient or intuitive as searching on a laptop with a full Qwerty keyboard You can search tracks in your collection by whatever tiny piece of information pops into your head and you’ll get the result instantly. Also, I can configure the browser section on the laptop screen to show me whatever I need all at the same time: artist, title, BPM, key, cover art, comments, energy level, all sortable with a single click. The CDJs’ screen size means they just can’t offer this and getting all this info is clunky and too many clicks away for my liking
Built-in recording capability – I like to record all my DJ sets. I like the raw recording of the music, meaning no voice overs and jingles, just a pure “internal” recording as mixed in the software. This just isn’t possible with a CDJ / DJM setup. You can only record the mixer output and you have to have an external recorder to be able to do it. When using a laptop / controller, it’s a “set and forget” affair with just the touch of a button
Added performance features (eg Slicer / FX options / samplers) – Again, CDJs are getting better, but there’s only a tiny percentage of clubs that have the full Nexus / Nexus2 set-up, so for the most part the only options you have for performance are loops, slip mode and reverse, and whatever FX the mixer has. Even then you’d be lucky if it’s all connected by Pro DJ Link and beatsynced. Doing two hours of house tunes with only these features to play with can get pretty boring (at least for me), so the power of having all the performance features that DJ software and controllers have to offer in one unit is something I find far more interesting and exciting