VCI-100 MK2

First impressions:

As you know the main points about this unit has been the plastic casing. Well it is certainly lightweight and initial impression is "is it durable enough?"

Most people tend to look after their belongings and unless you're really going to go mad try and bash living daylights out of it then the VCI-100 Mk2 is sturdy enough.

The Aluminum top does make up for the underside and adds a certain mount of quality that is lacking on other controllers. The dials have a good solid feel and are no different to the rubber used by top brands like Allen & Heath. The Cue and Play buttons are better than the spongy things that Denon use but there's a certain amount of travel when pressing that initially doesn't feel right but you get used to them after a couple of hours of use. The pitch controls however are no where near the quality of the Vestax VCM-100 and although slide well are a bit wobbly and you can actually grate the stalk on the side of the housing slot if you deliberately push the slider to one side in order to find the centre indent point. The Jog wheels however are of very good construction and have a great weighted feel to them. The blue LED lighting doesn't make the unit look cheap and in the dark looks quite cool.

Quick sum up: On the whole ok in appearance and feel, some bits are spot on and far better than expected but a few areas could be better.

Usage:

When using a MAC life is as it should be; plug in switch on and load Traktor Pro.

In the 'setup wizard' you just select you have a MIDI/USB device, Followed by Selecting Vestax and the VCI-100 MK2 PRO option. If you have an Native Instruments Audio 8 device then you can select this too for the output routing. Otherwise you can just go ahead and use the onboard sound card.

Finding your way round any new piece of equipment isn't going to have you at one with the unit in minutes but with the VCI-100 MK2 the layout is so well done that you start to get into the flow of things with just a couple of hours of loading, cueing and tweaking. Another good note is that when playing decks A/B the LED's are blue. Flick the either switch to C/D and the corresponding LEDs turn green. So you can't not stop the wrong track if you just check what colour LED is lit first. If effects are your thing then the VCI-100 MK2 is a dream to use. I only had 2 FX banks running whilst I was testing it (Delay T3/Beatmasher/Phaser for FX1 and LFO:92/Reversegrain/Gater for FX2) being able to control the Wet/Dry and Intensity was a real pleasure. The effect that really surprised me was how often I engaged the extra Filter dial to exaggerate the end and beginning of a new phrase in a track. The jog wheels not only feel great but work great too. They boast 2400 pulses per revolution which give almost 2 and a half times more definition than Native Instruments own 4 deck controller. Be careful not to have the sensitivity to high of otherwise you'll start scratching instead of pitch bending. However; again once you remember not to press down at all then everything becomes natural. In practice the pitch faders aren't as loose or flimsy as first impressions suggest but a few times Traktor didn't respond to my + Inputs and I first has to slide the fader upward to see it copied in software before I could actually speed the track up; which is what I wanted to do originally. (I found out later this fader glitch isn't unique to the this unit and I've experienced it on other controllers recently. I'm starting to wonder whether this could be a TSP issue but that's for another entry). After a few hours of straight out the box mashing around I was adding all sorts of blends, tweaks, backspins and effects that far out weighed what I've been doing lately with my current setup.

Last but not least:

From a DJ point of view; the VCI-100 MK2 gives you immediate control over Traktor from the go. It's a shame that Vestax doesn't offer a 2nd .tsi that also has hotcues mapped when pressing shift. I understand that some people might not want those particular buttons mapped as 4 Hot cues when shift is pressed but I would like to have had the choice. From a Non-DJ point of view I fear that some people might see the VCI-100 Mk2 as a toy. As I pulled the unit out of it's original boxing my wife said, "What; and you're going to do your gigs with that thing?" I've currently been using 2 DN-S1200 CDJs with a Xone:92 mixer. I've put them all in a carry case and at about 25/30kg it certainly doesn't look like a toy. You just don't plonk it on a desk and away you go. The surface area is the size of 6 VCI-100s put together, so in that respect scaling down from that to something I can quickly setup in a club with minimal fuss and disturbance to others in the DJ booth has it's pros and cons. The VCI-100 is great as what is does but there will certainly be more than the odd occasion where this little box of tricks will not make a convincing story for a professional DJ. It's not just this controller; I fear it is all of them except the NS7 and Xone:4D which puts on a very compelling act of "I mean business!"

Another important point is that in a very dim lit room you can't read the text under the buttons and dials. It means you're going to have to learn this unit inside and out before you take it on the road. Dials are not the problem but the LOOP section could well get you in a pickle if you haven't been practicing.

One of our biggest fear as a DJ is our gear not functioning. If you buy a van for deliveries you can, if required, hire another one in a few hours and carry out your duties. Yes; your a bit delayed but your customer received their goods. If your gear stops working at a gig then it doesn't matter how much money you have; the party is over! No music, no party; that's just the plain facts. I've not read one problem with the actual functioning of the VCI-100 Mk2 but unfortunately it did stop working and I could resolve the problem. Such a system failure can happen with all the 'top-shelf' brands of which personally I feel Vestax has a place but it does put a question mark over Vestax's quality control of this unit. I'm a bit fussy when it comes to things like this even though I do have a backup system.

The VCI-100 Mk2 is a lovely little controller and has had a bit of a bashing from the DJ media that has caused a wave of derogatory remarks from people who just take their word as gospel.

My recommendation would be, if you have traktor installed on your laptop then ask a shop if they have tester you could try out. Maybe you don't have to as critical as me on a system failure but one this is for sure the VCI-100 Mk2 really is a cracking controller that's been specifically designed for Traktor.