#djm850

Recent discussions that came up with a friend of mine looking to upgrade their DJ rig popped up the question about the differences between the various high end Pioneer mixers, namely what is the difference?

I’m sure this has troubled many a person over their gear buying decisions. On the surface, there really is not much difference to the three most common modern mixers you see at a venue. Part of this is the point – updates to established layouts/flagship mixers are generally incremental, as you want to minimize disruption to the average DJ who doesn’t care less about the gear they are using, and wants to know that the faders work, the EQ’s are working, and how to cue into headphones.

Having had a fair bit of experience with all three by now (and owning the DJM-900 myself), I thought it would be worthwhile to point out some of the differences. The logical place to start is with the oldest and most established (although now discontinued) DJM-800. Note that there are some more “technical differences”, but from a functional perspective these are the differences I have encountered.

DJM-800: the Old Workhorse

The DJM-800 is a known quantity throughout venues, DJ’s and pioneer loyalists everywhere. It quickly gained a reputation for its quite effective effects combination of colour effects (including the now infamous Lo/Hi-Pass filter) with an easily accessible main effects session that lead to way too many people using the flanger and loop roll at every chance they could. Combined with the nice combination of digital I/O, loads of headroom and large improvement in sound quality (compared with the DJM-600, which we can all agree is no Allen and Heath in the SQ stakes). The aggressive campaign by Pioneer to get their gear into venues also meant that soon, CDJ-1000’s and the DJM-800 were the standard setup in venues (and still are to a lesser extent). When the CDJ-2000 was initially released, they were still being sold alongside the 800, and so you will still see early adopters rocking a 2000/800 setup in some venues.

DJM-850: Is that a new shade of black?

The DJM-850 came to light after the release of the DJM-900 (and that wince-inducing RRP), and probably the sweet spot in terms of the Pioneer line up of mixers currently. It brings the following functionally useful features to prospective users:

Inbuilt Audio Interface: Yes, all you Traktor, Ableton and non-locked down software (I’m looking at you, Serato) users rejoice, you now don’t have to bother with a cable mess!

New Colour Effects / “Beat Colour Effects”: We see the 800’s Harmonic mode swapped out for the Noise effect, a simple white noise generator which seems to be the modern DJ’s new “Flanger”. It is quite loud, and doesn’t need any audio input for it to work, so it is handy to put this on a spare channel with the up fader set down a tick to improve the subtlety of the effect. Sweep also gets swapped out for a “Gater” effect much like a one knob version of a Transform. The "Beat Colour FX" mode adds some automation to the effects linked to the BPM detection of the mixer which is handy.

New Main Effects: The “Spiral and Slip Roll effects are added to improve the effects arsenal/annoy people in new ways.

Sounds Better: I cannot really pick much of a difference between the DJM-850 and DJM-900 in terms of sound quality. The 850 does lack a few digital inputs/master out of the 900, but both of these definitely have a less “crunchy” sound than the DJM-800. On the Pioneer site they delve into DAC and 24bit and what not, but I care more for my impressions from the ear.

DJM-900: New Shiny

We all know about Pioneer’s Flagship mixer (The DJM-2000 sits alongside it somewhat, as it isn’t something you see regularly unless you are Armin Van Buuren of Carl Cox and can dictate it on your rider). This has all the shiny, and the extra plastic curvy bit at the bottom that tells you it is more expensive than the others (and that it can’t fit into most normal road cases without removing it). Compared with the DJM-850:

PRO DJ Link/Quantized effects: As per Pioneer’s high-end CDJ’s, you can network this thing up with your other CDJ’s, and have the devices communicate info like BPM and track metadata from Rekordbox to one another. This comes in handy when doing things like grabbing a 4-bar vocal hook, adding an effect to it and using it to make a build up by shifting the pitch up 50% or something. It’s also handy to tell you which deck is playing, as it glows red when it is “live” (Fader up). New Colour Effects: The Dub Echo and Space effects join the colour effects arsenal, and the Gater effect upgraded to one which includes Compression to selected frequencies as well depending on how far you turn the knob.

More knobs are rubberized: We all know rubber is less slippery when it comes to knob twisting, so this is handy.

More Digital inputs/outputs: Digital Input/Master Out is handy to have when you are sending your signal off a much larger PA system controlled by a venue over a lengthy cable. Alternatively at home it’s nice to be able to plug right into a home theatre system or equivalent for a quick fix for a PA in the lounge room.