During the chaos of last years NAMM and the birth of more iPad, iPhone musical devices than ever before, only the Numark iDJ Pro made me sit up and pay attention. It’s not the first of its kind, and there have previously been well… unsuccessful attempts at an iPad based DJ controller, with none being able to give professional features or controls. So it seems Numark were the first manufacturer to have a proper attempt and simply by looking at the images you can see that it’s not a novelty and was designed with proper gigs in mind. I’ll be looking at whether it’s as good in practice as it is in appearance.

If you’ve used any of Numark’s recent DJ Controllers there’ll be no great surprises in terms of the layout. It’s got two touch-sensitive platters that are used for cueing, scratching effects but also loop in and out, ½ and 2x loop length; pitch fader and bend controls. You’re not exactly spoiled for features but it is enough to do a successful set in a respectable club, and iPad or not, for unit of this price range that is to be expected.

The introduction of the iPad however does give unfamiliarity to the middle of the unit. The iPad provides the music library and all-round control of the unit. One positive that comes with integrating an iPad is the benefit of a well designed and produced app, in this case the Algoriddim djay app. They were both designed to partner each other so this is the recommended purchase but it is compatible with other DJ apps so you can experiment around. Continue Reading