Pioneer DDJ-SX review

The Pioneer DDJ-SX is a four-channel DJ controller with two capacitive jog wheels and a set of loop, hot-cue and effects controls for each deck. It also comes with Serato DJ, which is a very high-quality and robust DJing platform that provides a great deal of creative freedom and features despite its simple looks.

Although the DDJ-SX is designed to be used with a laptop, it has four stereo pairs of RCA inputs, which means you can use it as a regular mixer should your laptop fail or you want to mix other sources with audio streamed from your laptop. All four RCA inputs can be set to line level for use with devices such as CDJs, but channels one and two can also be set to phono for use with analogue turntables. Each channel has a switch that lets you select the source for that channel.

Combine that with the balanced XLR master outputs and the 6.3mm jack booth outputs and it’s clear that the DDJ-SX is a professional, club-ready controller. It only has one USB port, though, which means you’ll have to play music from an analogue source if you want to switch laptops.

Not only is Serato DJ easy to set up, it’s also fast and efficient. It provides all the functions you need and you can change its layout to suit you. You might, for example, choose to use two decks rather than four or have Serato DJ display the SP-6 sampler rather than the effects controls. Serato DJ makes finding, organising and selecting music easy, and it helpfully shows information on hot-cues, BPM and loops in a clear, uncluttered and structured manner. We love Serato DJ and its no-nonsense approach is a welcome respite from the increasing complexity of Traktor Pro 2.

Serato DJ is a high-quality DJing application that includes effects and a sampler

The DDJ-SX has two deck sections, decks one and two, but you can switch between decks three and four using a push button. This is a common feature, but you can also link two decks together. Press the Dual Deck button and the controls for that deck section, including the jog wheel, will affect the tracks on both deck layers. This is a fantastic tool for controlling live edits and layering tracks and loops.

Also excellent are the capacitive jog wheels, which are the best we’ve ever used on a controller. They look and feel like those of a Pioneer CDJ, and they’re incredibly responsive. You can control the touch sensitivity of the jog wheels using two knobs on the DDJ-SX’s front panel. Twist the control one way and the jog wheel will stop a track dead if you hover your hand around a centimetre over the jog wheel, twist it the other way and your touch will have no effect. The two extremes have no practical use, but it means you have ample scope to set the touch response to your comfort. When set correctly and with latency set low, the responsiveness is perfect for scratching.

The DDJ-SX also gets the Pioneer CDJ-900’s much loved Slip mode. When Slip mode’s enabled, you can move a jog wheel to scratch, spin back or otherwise affect a track’s audio, but when you release the jog wheel the track plays from the point at which it would’ve been had you not touched the jog wheel. This means you can scratch a track and still keep it synchronised with other playing tracks.

We did encounter one problem with the jog wheels, however, and that’s their close proximity to the pitch faders. Occasionally, we’d accidentally hit the pitch faders, changing the speed at which that track is playing.

The DDJ-SX’s crossfader is a capable match for the jog wheels, and you can even perform scratch techniques such as crabs on the DDJ-SX. The crossfader is fairly loose, but it isn’t as high quality as th on more expensive or scratch-oriented mixers. The channel faders are similarly capable, but have too much resistance in our opinion, with moving a fader being the controller equivalent of pushing a heavy shopping trolley uphill. We’d prefer looser channel faders.

Another great feature of the DDJ-SX, and one that’s important for DJs who like to scratch as well as mix, is a crossfader curve control located on the front panel. This lets you have a sharp curve where the track on the other side of the crossfader is introduced at full volume and a soft curve where there’s a gradual increase in volume as you push the crossfader from one side to the other. This physical control means you don’t have to set the curve in your software’s settings.

Software tools such as hot-cues, effects and loops are essential for modern DJing, and the DDJ-SX’s controls are laid out in a sensible and logical way.

Below the jog wheels are eight huge, velocity sensitive pads that are used to trigger hot-cues, samples, roll loops, which let you momentarily apply loops of different sizes, and a slicer function, which lets you cut up a track rhythmically. To the right of the pads is a set of loop controls that let you control the size of a loop, trigger an autoloop or set loop in and out points manually.

The DDJ-SX’s effects controls are located at the top each deck section and they’re so well spaced you can use them without clashing digits.

The DDJ-SX is easy and fun to use, yet it has enough functions to let you develop your own style and mix how you want. We love the perceived simplicity and concealed power of the Serato DJ software, and the DDJ-SX feels and behaves like a high-end, professional controller. Whether you want to mix, scratch or beatjuggle, the DDJ-SX is the controller for you.