This kind of halfway between live performance and DJing is something I’ve been curious about for years, and frankly the options still seem surprisingly poor. The only TRULY dedicated hardware/software combo is still NI Maschine and I think this is overlooked a little as it can handle loops, one-shots and synths etc. If you close the laptop screen you can do 95% of the functions just with the controller, including browsing, loading samples, sequencing, loading and controlling FX, reordering FX, live looping, muting etc.
Even Ableton is quite lacking, and the Push was designed after the software (not at the same time) and it still shows in my opinion. You can pre-load audio into session view and organise a “set” that way but trying to adjust start and end loop points on the fly isn’t that great when I tried it, and you STILL can’t load audio files into clips directly from the Push as far as I know, although I’d be happy to be corrected. APC40 MK2 is a very good MIDI controller, if you like session view I’d argue it’s still one of the best options. I have one here right now, once you map your plugin controls etc it’s great.
Traktor is very powerful but they’ve dropped the S5 and S8 which were the two most powerful controllers with the most direct access to the remix-friendly features. You can still pick up the discontinued S5 and S8 second hand and the previous generation S4 which has much better FX control. They are good controllers and for live looping and “remixing” of tracks they are very good options. I’m less familiar with other DJ software but most have introduced some sort of “stem” functions where you can drop the vocals, solo the drums etc. Some can do it “live” but you need a decent laptop as it’s heavy on the CPU.
If they drop a true standalone Traktor hardware I’ll be near the front of the line. I’m not really a DJ but it always feels different if you use your own material, even just 4 or 8 bar loops with Traktor can be mangled beyond recognition. I tried a standalone DJ unit from Numark (the Mixstream Pro Go) and it was a bit of a revelation to be honest, it even has a battery that can go 4+ hours and it felt very close to using CDJ etc. I think this market will grow.
I saw Floating Points play a festival last weekend. I’m pretty sure most people in the crowd thought he was DJing but actually he had a hardware setup on stage (I only noticed because I am a huge nerd). Did people care? No. After Floating Points was Four Tet, who I think was just DJing. Both were great sets, people had a good time.
