Why is the VMS4 only 371.66?

[tads]

well my 2 cents: I have one, I saw one used at guitar center and talked them down to $260 on it, mainly utilizing a lot of the flaws described in this thread thus far, (and the fact it did not have a power cable)

As said, it is pretty damn heavy.

The jogs.. well.. jog pretty well, I'm not a scratch person, other then a bit of spinback and baby scratch which work fine. the one thing to know is that if you have everything set to vinyl (scratch) mode, the jogs pretty much have occasional issues recognizing a hand on the top to halt the track in progress, it'll stop, but it may start up in a scond, or 5 seconds, with your hand still on the platter. (like I said, not a scratch dj, so dont really do that stuff.)

The crossfader is a valid issue, I fortunately had an innofader i bought for another mixer, which cleaned up the xfader problem awesomely.

did not notice much of an issue with the line faders once broken in a bit

the squishy buttons, are indeed squishy, not the best feel to them, however as I do most hotcues and FX with an x1/launchpad combo not so much of an impact for me.

I'm not sure about the "firmware issues" with the jogs, I updated the firmware when I got it to the latest one available, and have experienced no overall issues.

I did notice however, the factory power cable (when I did get one) caused some feedback/noise on the audio channels, my workaround was using a generic power adapter set to 3V. No more noise on the line, and as far as the audio being quiet, welll lets just say the neigbors house (300 m away) have commented on "what the hell that wubwub noise is coming from my house"

never noticed false messages being sent by the actual controls other then when you mess with a knob either in software or assigned to another controller, the original knob settings are ignored till you muddle with the vms 4's knob again

All the audio issues (after power issue was resolved) were fixed by running the setup wizard in Traktor Pro 2, there is an option for the VMS 4 in the wizard, "traktor edition" it works, and the mapping is pretty much dead on. Of course I hated the default mapping, but changing that up worked fine without affecting the ASIO settings. Just make sure its set to "8 out" and all the channel selectors are set to USB unless you actually have external stuff like tables or cdjs connected.

if you can get a deal, and don't mind the required "fiddling time" to get everything perfect, its not bad for an all in one unit. YMMV.

Thanks for the response. I have no problem rolling up my sleeves and making something work. I also have no problem a little more weight lifting into my daily routine.

What is your experience with the "midi-log" feature where you can use it as an analog mixer? Have you used the mixer as an analog mixer? Does it function reasonably well with the sound coming from CDJ's or something similar?

How's the feel? I'm assuming the faders and what not have a solid feel and aren't too loose or too stiff, is this true? are the buttons good?

[nthalp]

as far as using it as a standalone mixer, I havent tried it. I have however flipped from USB to analog on the fly, mixed in cdj's and flipped back out to USB without a hitch. the channel faders are pretty solid, not too loose but a bit firm until you break them in a bit mixing with the channels as opposed to the xfader, the buttons work fine, albeit "squishy" feeling, the only one a bit wonky is the shift into "vinyl" mode which occasionally seems to take a 2nd press to fully shift into that mode. though I rarely utilize vinyl mode.

[tads]

Thanks for the info, I was going to get Traktor regardless, this would give me a nice option for a new controller, and a mixer that I can use with a cdj or turntable. Of course, now that I see you got one for under 300, Amazon's price of 371.66 seem's expensive. Thanks!

[JSM]

I have had TWO, even if they were free I would not have another one. If DJ'ing is a source of income, this is not the tool to have. It's fine for home use where you don't have a paying audience.

Check the forum before paying anything, most of the early adopters from the forum have now returned their units and bought something else.

My biggest complaint was the terrible audio quality and the fact that it would reset for no reason, the company blamed me and my computers ... the same computers that run (without a problem I made add) the S4, MS-6000, SC-2000, Faderfox, EMU .... you get the picture.

The concept was a good one ... the delivery of it was shockingly poor (the fact that you have to leave the rubber bands on the jogs to get zones !!! .. that just looks crap and feels awful).

There are a lot of great machines out there, this isn't one of them though. Try to get them down to $200 and then it's okay ... more than that choose a competitor.