Scratch Live Cdj 850
Oct 01, 2015 CDJ-850‘s USB-HID supports several DJ software In Online Mode, TRAKTOR PRO / TRAKTOR PRO2 / Scratch Live functions will automatically link to the corresponding buttons and keys of the CDJ-850 player when a computer running the software is. Improved Scratch Live user interface layout for minimum screen resolutions; Added native support for the Pioneer CDJ-350; Added native support for the Pioneer CDJ-850; Support for all current Rane Scratch Live hardware (SL 1, SL 2, SL 3, SL 4, TTM 57SL, Sixty-Eight) Watch the Scratch Live 2.3 Release notes video. Minimum System Requirements.
Reviewer: Andrew Unsworth • Date: July 2010 • Link:Pioneer •Price: £769/$899/€899
The Idiot
I've always been surprised that in the fetid, stinking quagmire of despondency that is my life there are only three moments of absolute, soul-crushing disappointment. The first was when I discovered that I'm not misunderstood, I genuinely am stupid. The second was finding my then girlfriend brushing her teeth with my best mate's tongue. And the third was to be told, by the same girlfriend, that whilst she liked to handle a good 12' on a daily basis she wasn't a DJ.
Nestling somewhere in between those marvels of misfortune and discovering that dogs don't dry in microwaves lies the bitter disappointment and instant regret of buying my CDJ800. Not because I'd actually ordered a fridge-freezer, but because I'd expected the auto-looper to be more useful than it actually is and the 10% pitch range to allow tighter beat-matches than it actually does. It was my own fault for not checking it out first, but I still felt short-changed, so when the CDJ850 was announced I gave my cynicism a work-out and wrote it off as a cheap re-hash of the 800.
Having used the CDJ850 solidly for the best part of a week the big question is, am I left disappointed? Find out..
Britain's Next Top Model?
The first thing that hits you as pull the CDJ850 away from its box and out of its packaging is how face-punchingly pretty it is compared to the Giger-esque 900 and 2000. The 850 is much sleeker than the flagship models thanks to the non-slanted screen and the silver casing makes the unit much more appealing.
The second thing is how similar the front panel is to that of the CDJ900. In fact, it's exactly the same except for the flat display. Like the CDJ900, the CDJ850 sports a type A USB port on the front panel for the attachment of USB drives and is able to play a variety of audio formats, including MP3, AIFF, WAV and AAC. The CDJ850 also features the auto-looper seen on both the CDJ 900 and CDJ800, but more on that later.
Combine the great first impression with a 6% pitch range, tag list, and a CDJ1000-style waveform and the CDJ850 promises to be everything the CDJ800 should have been but never was.
Transport Controls
Ever used a Pioneer CDJ before? If so, there'll be no culture shock with the 850 as it works in exactly the same way as the rest of them. You have a 'play' button that also doubles as 'pause', a cue button that either returns the track to the cue point if it is playing or sets the cue point if paused, and two sets of 'search' buttons. One set is for quickly scrubbing through a track whilst the other is for moving from one track to another.
Everything is as you would find it on a CDJ800, although the pitch range selector now features a much-needed 6% pitch range. The 6% pitch range brings with it a pitch resolution of 0.02%, meaning more accurate beat-matches. The less you have to rotate a jog wheel to keep the beats synchronised the more time can be spent doing something creative or waving your hands at the crowd.
The lack of a 6% pitch range on the original CDJ800 was the cause of much consternation to many, myself included, so its inclusion on the new unit is both welcome and essential. Other pitch ranges are 10%, 16% and 100%, the first two having a pitch resolution of 0.05% and the last a pitch resolution of 0.5%. The 100% pitch range can only be selected when using CDs.
Platter Controls
The platter controls will also be familiar to users of the CDJ800 or 900. You have a reverse button to change the direction of playback and check for Satanic prayers, a rotary dial to control the speed of start-ups/wind-downs and a vinyl/CDJ mode button. Again, if you've used the CDJ800 before there'll be no surprises here.
The weight and resistance of the platter is the same as the CDJ800 and the CDJ900. The resistance cannot be changed as it can on the CDJ1000 and 2000, but that doesn't matter as it's perfectly adequate whether you're scratching or mixing. The only complaint that can be made centres on the rotary 'Vinyl Speed Adjust' dial, which controls both the start-up and brake speed of the platter when the play button is pressed.
As I said in the CDJ900 review, everyone likes a brake effect but if you set the dial for a good, two beat brake you have to put up with a start-up speed that's best counted in aeons rather than seconds. You can, of course, just turn the dial when you want to brake and leave it 'off' when you don't, but that's irritating, especially if you're used to the 'set and forget' convenience of the CDJs 1000 and 2000, both of which feature separate pots for start-up and brake.
Ultimate Guide to GarageBand and Guitar (Recording) Guitar Chalk /.! 
Back Panel I/O
Blimey, it's a bit spartan round here, isn't it? Just the obligatory RCAs, a 3.5mm jack for starting faders and a type B USB port for connecting the 850 to a PC. Made conspicuous by its absence, however, is the SP/DIF connector. Digital outs are a common feature on the most basic of CD players, so it's all the more surprising that the CDJ850 doesn't feature one.
You could argue that dropping £1500 on a pair of 850s leaves little capital for a mixer with digital ins, but that assumes the buyer doesn't have a mixer already. If asked, Pioneer would probably cite 'cost reductions' or 'product differentiation' as reasons for this glaring omission, but to the end consumer it just comes across as miserly.
Auto-Looper
The CDJ850 sports the same auto-looper as the CDJ800 and CDJ900, but it lacks the quantisation feature of the latter, which means that it's more akin to the CDJ800 in use. This will be a big disappointment to many who, like me, thought that the new generation of Rekordbox era CDJs would all feature the same high quality quantisation seen on the CDJ900 and 2000.
I can understand why the CDJ350 doesn't have it, but why the CDJ850? Even when you take product differentiation into account, the CDJ900 still benefits from Slip Mode, a larger screen, digital outs and the all-important LINK function. Those features alone will make a lot of people choose the CDJ900 over the CDJ850, so why not throw the CDJ850 a bone and give it quantisation?
Given that the CDJ400 has become a much-loved controller with users of Scratch Live, maybe the majority of 850s will be adopted as controllers by users of the major DVSs. The DVS would then have responsibility for looping, not the CDJ, making the argument for quantisation redundant.
The CDJ850 also misses out on the 'half-frames' of the CDJs 900 and 2000, further denting the accuracy of the looping system. More often than not the loops created by the auto-looper will need some adjustment, typically one or two frames, but adjustment isn't the problem. Keeping a loop in sync is impossible, even with constant spinning of the jog wheel. You can get it close, but it's never going to sound perfect and in these days of auto-syncing and quantised looping it just isn't good enough.
Manual Cueing and Looping
If you want to create your own loops you'll be pleased to know that the CDJ850 features IN adjustment as well as OUT, a big improvement on the CDJ800. As there's no on-deck quantisation you'll still have to tweak the loop to make it more accurate.The good news is that up to ten cue or loop points can be saved per track, either through Rekordbox or on-the-fly, and they're retrieved by pressing one of the directional call buttons.
Better still, the CDJ850 will play quantised loops created in Rekordbox, although they won't be as tight as those seen on the 900 or 2000 as the quality of the quantisation isn't as high as that seen on the flagship models. For that reason, you might get a 'spike' when you play them, a spike being that blip you hear when the loop plays a tiny bit of the next beat before winding back to the start of the loop.
Red markers appear under the wave-form of a track to denote each cue/loop point, making selection of the cue or loop point you need quick and easy. Tracks within your Rekordbox collection can be updated to include any cue-points or loops you've created during your performance and want to keep.
If you're using CDs you'll have to keep a USB drive plugged into each 850 if you want to save and retrieve loop points, otherwise you're limited to one temporary loop or cue point. Switch off the machine or eject the CD and it will be lost.
The Display
The display is a VFD screen that follows the New Species blue-print that we've come to recognise. Three buttons can be found to the left of the screen; one button for each media device with which the CDJ850 communicates. Four buttons can be found above the screen and these allow the user to browse media, study the waveform, view tagged tracks and alter settings.
There's only three lines of text on offer (the waveform occupies one line of text, reducing INFO view to two), but the text is large and easy to read. Given the small area into which data is squeezed you'd be forgiven for thinking that navigating through USB drives and playlists would be difficult, but it isn't. The 850 responds quickly to your commands and the GUI is simplicity itself.
Sure, the CDJ2000, in all its full LCD glory, is much prettier and displays more info in one shot, but it's also twice the price. General info on each of the four screens can be found in the CDJ900 review here, but please note that although the screens serve the same purpose the implementation looks different on the CDJ850.
The Waveform
The waveform is similar to that seen on the CDJ1000MK3 in that it is a white wave on top of a green progress bar, although the waveform of the CDJ850 is smaller, not as wide. If you've analysed and exported tracks via Rekordbox then the waveform for a track will appear instantly, otherwise you'll be lucky to see a waveform at all. The best you can hope for with an unanalysed track is a one-to-one mapping of a waveform as the song plays. More likely, you'll see nothing at all.
This isn't good enough and I hope it's something that can be fixed with a firmware update.
Sound Quality
I can't honestly see why anyone would be disappointed with the sound quality of the CDJ850. To these ears it sounds better than the CDJ800 (warmer and less digital with increased clarity at all frequencies) and just as good as the CDJ900. The scratch sound is also better than that of the CDJ800; not as blunt or obviously digital and your hand movements have a more realistic effect on the sound.
The bitter war of words between advocates of analogue equipment and those of digital continues unabated, but the sound heard during the test period had been converted from digital to analogue by the CDJ, re-sampled by a DJM1000 and then converted back to analogue. It went through all that and still managed to deliver a clear, thumping bass with crisp mids and tops. Who could ask for more?
HID
At the time of writing there is no software with which the CDJ850 can be integrated via HID, but this will come in time. Like every other derivative of the New Species the CDJ850 features MIDI, but why anyone would spend £1500 on a pair of CDJs to use them as MIDI controllers is beyond me.
Hopefully the major players in the DVS market will get behind the CDJ850 and give it their full support. Unlike the CDJ900 and 2000, the CDJ850 isn't a DVS replacement and would benefit from close integration with the top brands.
Soundcard
The CDJ850 comes with the obligatory built-in soundcard to ease integration with software. It uses the same CDJ driver as the other units, so if you turn up to a club and, by some stroke of luck, the CDJ850s have USB cables hanging out of the back of them you can plug them in and go.
Presumably you'll still have to configure your software to use them, but it's still better than dragging an audio interface around with you. Not that you've got a choice if you're a Scratch Live user.
Genetic Throwback?
When the CDJ850 was first announced I – and I'm sure many others – thought it was going to be a cheap re-hash of the 800, which it isn't. Surprisingly, the CDJ850 has much more in common with the CDJ900 than the 800.
Yes, you miss out on on-deck quantisation with the CDJ850, severely limiting the potential for layered mixes, but the foundations of the 850 are firmly rooted in the Prepare and Perform philosophy that Pioneer are keen to push. You get the same number of pre-prepared cue and loop points as the CDJ900 and you can also update Rekordbox with cue and loop points that you've created on-the-fly.
A much greater concern is the loss of the LINK function, which is, for me, the backbone of the New Species. Linked CDJs can, for instance, share cue and loop points instantly. Create a loop on one CDJ and you can access it immediately on another CDJ or, if you've also got Rekordbox attached, instantly update your track collection. You can't do this with the CDJ850. You must also live with the minor inconvenience of exporting two instances of the same track collection to two separate USB drives. The absence of Ethernet ports also stops the CDJ850 from linking with the DJM2000.
If you can live without on-deckquantisation and the Ethernet link, but still want to buy into Pioneer's Prepare and Perform philosophy, then the 850 is the CDJ for you. It offers so much more than the CDJ1000 and you can bag yourself a pair of 850s for the price of one CDJ2000. There's no support yet, but I reckon the CDJ850 will become a firm favourite with those DVS users that need the power and flexibility of software but want the familiar, hardware feel of a Pioneer CDJ. I can also see the CDJ850 being adopted by increasingly cash-strapped bars and smaller clubs, as It caters for all manner of DJs whether they use DVS, CDs or USB drives, providing the most essential performance features they need.
We'd all like to turn up to a bar and live out our Eddie Halliwell or Kutski fantasies on the latest gear, but many of us will be lucky if we play on anything better than a Numark CD-Mix 3 (actually better than you think) or a dodgy Kam twin-deck with no Anti-shock. For me, turning up at a bar or small club to find a pair of CDJ850s would be a dream.
Am I disappointed? Not at all. The CDJ850 is a much better buy than the CDJ350, but I'd still urge anyone that can spare an extra £500 to get a pair of 900s. For this you get proper quantised looping, the LINK function, Slip Mode, digital out and a larger, more informative screen, all of which are worth the extra capital.
Ratings
Build Quality
The CDJ850 feels as well built as the other models and should survive the rigours of a club or bedroom without issue. In the short time that I had the 850 the platter got some serious abuse and showed no signs of weakness.
Sound Quality
Greater clarity and more natural than the CDJ800MK2. You'd have to be a proper arsey audiophile to find fault with it.
Features and Implementation
Lacks the high-quality quantised loops of the flagship models, digital out and the LINK function. If these are important to you invest in the CDJ900. Otherwise, the CDJ850 is the cheapest way of buying into the New Species work-flow, offering usable integration with Rekordbox and a decent jog wheel.
Value For Money
Cheaper than the 1000MK3, but it offers much more. Much better value than the 350. If you're considering the 350 but can stretch to the 850, please do so.
Bottom Line
Pioneer should have included true quantised looping with the 850 as there'd still be enough to differentiate it from the CDJ900. Quantisation aside, the CDJ850 is the most affordable (proper) 'New Species' CDJ available and a pleasure to use.
Likes:
• Its looks
• 6% pitch range
• Tag list
• Extensive integration with Rekordbox, given the lack of an Ethernet socket
• CDJ900 jog wheel
• Sound quality
• Lightning fast response of the easy to use GUI
• Clear, highly visible CDJ1000-style waveform
Dislikes:
• No quantisation
• Effectively, there's no waveform if you use tracks that haven't been analysed in Rekordbox
• No digital out
• Same pot for start-up and brake speed
Massive thanks to Pioneer's greatest asset - Rik Parkinson - for supporting Skratchworx and getting the CDJ850 to us so soon.
Gallery
Serato Scratch Live Cdj 850
Want some pretty pictures? Well sadly the CDJ-850 was only available for the shortest of times so just this once, I went with Pioneer's outstanding product photography in the name of getting the words to you ultra-quickly.