Pioneer DJ XDJ-RR XDJ-RX2 and XDJ-XZ Side BY Side and WHY You Should Buy or Not!

0:00 Thumbs, brother

Right ladies and gentlemen, it's that video when it's just kit overload. We have the XDJ-RR, we have the XDJ-RX2 and we have the XDJ-XZ over there. I have used all of them and I honestly think that after this video you will make the right choice about which one you want to get. Now the only one I haven't, or actually two I haven't really used extensively is the RR and the XZ because I've only just recently had the XZ and the RR. I've had it for a while. I'm not the sort of person who would not want to take it to a gig but I've had the RX2 for a long time and I have been taking that to many a gig. And it's never let me down. I enjoy its functions, it's a great piece of kit. Open the box, plug it in, away you go. Now after this video, hopefully you will be able to decide if you want the RR, the RX2, also there is an original XDJ-RX, this is just the Mark II, or the big brother of all of them, which is the XZ.

I'm going to give you, well first of all I'm going to go over the functions and then compare and then at the end of this video I'm going to give you an analogy which I think just says it all. Alright? I love my analogies and I'm hoping you'll like it as well. If you do, give me a thumbs up. If you don't thumbs down, people are going to do a thumbs down anyway. I think as soon as some people watch me they're like... Watch something else! Anyway, first of all, the RR. There it is, there. And yeah, I've just about gone on a bike ride, do apologise. OK, so what have we got? We've got like the little brother. This is almost like... Yeah, it's the little brother of the rest of the bits of kit. You've still got two turntables, you still have effects, but you've only got one...

2:50 Is it a professional piece of kit?

Auxiliary input for a start, and you can choose from line or portable device or off. Your trim there for the volume control for your input. You have your screen, it's USB friendly of course at the top there so you've got a choice of two USB plugs. The right hand one will record for you which is exactly the same as the RX2 and the XZ as well. But there's less going on. The effects are OK, but what is it? What is the RR? Is it a professional piece of kit? Will it let you down at a gig? The answer to that is yes it is and no it won't. Because if it did, they wouldn't have made it. But it's got less functions, of course, than the other items. Now, would I take that to a gig? Well, no, I wouldn't. Now you're probably thinking, well, you've just said you would. Well, I wouldn't because why? I've got this. So there's no need for me to take that. But if that's all I had, I would take it to a gig because if you are predominantly a mobile DJ...

You like to do a little bit of a mix now and again, and you're playing track 1 into track 2, 3, 4, 60s, Tamla Motown, Northern Soul, bit of modern day pop, bit of house and stuff like that, and someone thrusts a phone and says, excuse me, can you play this? Well, so long as you've got the right plug connection for their phone, you can carry on doing that event with ease, and none of the members of the public are going to have the foggiest. So, let's have a look at the RX2. Now, I have been using this for a long time and I swear by this, I had the original RX, loved it, they brought out the RX2, I was like, oh my god, what have they done? It's a great piece of kit. You have the option of using USB, of course your laptop, you can use USB on a laptop with the RR as well, OK? So don't just think it's just USB. Back to the RR, use rekordbox software, analyse your files, put them onto a thumb drive, plug them in or thumb drives, plug them in and there's no need for a laptop, OK?

5:04 Big screen and go, I'm

This is the great feature of these players. You do not need a laptop. Get it out your heads that you've got to take your MacBook Pro with you or your laptop to every single gig and look at a big screen and go, I'm on Facebook. No! Because it's there in front of you. Because that's it. As soon as you have all of your files analysed through rekordbox, it's there on the screen. That's all you need to look at. You see? Very clever, but it's like, hello, there it is. So you can use your laptop. You can then go to USB or back to your laptop or for example switch over. Can you play that off my phone please? You can do that with the RR. The difference with the RX2, it's a little bit, there's a little bit more to it.

Because now, instead of, okay, right, the phone thing and it's just through, let's say, for example, the auxiliary in, you can switch to Lionel Phono. Now, in the original RX, you had one input and that was it. So you could still play vinyl or CD, but you had to swap the cables around. So for example, if you were playing a CD and you wanted to play vinyl on the right-hand side, you would have had to have taken the plugs out of the back of the CD player, plug in your vinyl, switch over to phono and carry on. You don't have to do that with the RX2 because you have an input for your phono, For Deck 2, an input for your line for Deck 2. Exactly the same for Deck 1, phono and line. And above each channel, you've got a choice of deck, line or phono. Now, what's that mean? Okay, so let's imagine you have got your laptop plugged in, which you don't have to because it's got USB. Hello? Right, calm down. So, right, so for example, let's imagine you did have...

7:39 All of the options were there in the one player, the RX2

It's like lots of room everywhere. Loads of room, loads of room all over the place. And you had a couple of turn... Sorry. It's humour, innit? You had a couple of turntables. I don't believe people are going to watch this. You're idiots! Absolute idiots! You had a couple of turntables, a couple of CD players plugged in to your RX2. All you've got to do is switch to line. And now you can use your CD on that channel, or maybe you want to switch to phono, you want to play a vinyl, switch to phono and away you go. And then you're back to your laptop, go over to deck two, you may have to press MIDI and just press load to the right deck so the piece of hardware, your RX2, is once again talking to your laptop and then you can carry on with going through the laptop.

Alternatively, you can press USB 1 and you can start playing from USB 1 or USB 2 and start playing from USB 2. So all of the options were there in the one player, the RX2. You could play any format you wanted to or you can play any format you want to during the course of the evening. And remember that one, can you hear me? Can you play it on my phone please? Thank you very much. If you've got two CD players and two vinyl turntables already plugged in, how many times have you heard that? It's so annoying. Can you play this? No! Bagger off! Right, so what you can do is you can plug in to the auxiliary. So there you go. So you can have that, excuse me, plug into the auxiliary and just switch over and play some dodgy music. There you go. Now then, here it is. Let's come over a little bit closer.

9:25 Oh, not different channels, sorry

Follow me. There we go. Right, now then. What have they done with the XZ? Well, a lot really because we have bigger jog wheels exactly like the Nexus setup. We have four channels and it's just... It's an eargasm, really. It is. It's wonderful. Because now you don't have to switch to phono or line, different channels messing around like that. Oh, not different channels, sorry. The same channels switching from the same channels like on the RX2. Because now you have two channels designed for your USB. You've also got two channels on the outside, four and three. Which you can change from your laptop, or your line, or your phono. Okay? Now, and also what you can do, which is great, you can have the LAN cable inside here to your CD player, external CD player, or two of them, and if you've got a thumb drive in one of your external CD players, it will be able to pick up and play on this XZ as well, from the CD player.

So long as you've got the LAN cable connected from your CD player into the XZ, you can play the files even if the thumb drive is in the CD player. Not only that, we have a designated here low, mid and high for the master output. You've got your normal booth. You've got two separate low, mid and high for two separate microphones. Thousand, you've got small screens here, touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard and again, hello, no need for a laptop. Alright? Please get that into your head. No need for a laptop. Now this is all singing and dancing because the mixer itself in here is not dissimilar to the likes of the Nexus 900, the DJM900NX2. Alright? So if you're worried about buying one of those and then the CD players, don't worry. Because this entire setup costs about the same as one CDJ-2000NX2. Exactly. Right, so here's my analogy. And this is a good analogy. Excuse me. Sorry. What can I say? Hay fever analogies and stuff like that, not very nice. Right, so here's an analogy.

About these three players and you'll get it now let's imagine there's a motorway very very long straight motorway on the other hand no sorry there's a motorway next to the motorway there is the b road that follows the motorway all right but then next to the b road are hills and there's no streams or there's no fences there's no hedges there's just loads of hills Now we have three vehicles. We have for example a small Mini, it's a bit clamped out but it runs. We have let's say an Audi TT and we also have a great 4x4 off-roader. Now let's imagine the Mini as the RR, the Audi TT as the XDJ RX2 and we have the off-roader Now, think of it like this. Let's imagine you take your Mini and you travel along the off-road. Now, very soon that Mini is going to fall apart and get stuck, isn't it? So let's imagine the RR as the Mini going off-road.

13:14 The RR is now being put in a big full-on nightclub environment

The RR is now being put in a big full-on nightclub environment. Ministry of sound, if it's still there, I don't know. Amnesia. The DJs using it will be like, I can't do much with this because people want effects and they want to see me jumping around and waving my hands and doing lots of moves. It's not going to happen. But, on the other hand, if you put the Mini on the motorway and you're just gliding along quite happily... It's going to work because it's easy, it's mellow. The road is soft and smooth and you can see the direction you want to go. I hope you get that. On the other hand, let's imagine we put that full-on beautiful 4x4 on a motorway. You'd be like, oh my god, this is boring. Why on earth...

Did I buy this 4x4 that's got lots of torque and oomph, only to sit there and just do that? Oh, bit of a left hand turn. Right hand, that's it. No! Because the 4x4 needs to be pushed, needs to be worked. That's why the 4x4 would be suited to go off-road and have fun. So, with the XZ in a big nightclub... DJs can have fun with this, go to town effects, really appreciate and enjoy the functionality of the XZ. So where does the Audi TT come into this? Well the Audi TT... Is the road next to the motorway? Because it's fun, it's exciting, it likes the corners, it likes the swerves. It's not that happy about going off-road, even though it's a 4x4, because it'll get stuck. But on the other hand, you put an Audi TT on a main road, a motorway, a big motorway, and even though it can and will go fast, it's not enjoying itself.

15:25 Really get the curve and just move around like that

Really get the curve and just move around like that. So, the Audi TT would be bored on the motorway, it would get stuck on the off-road, but it would thoroughly enjoy that mid kind of road, nice wine twisting bends. Now, the RX2 is great for the mobile DJ who needs to have a little bit more pizzazz and just wants to have a few effects, but at the same time... It probably wouldn't be suited for a massive nightclub because still it hasn't got that oomph, that big wow factor like the Nexus setup. But you look at the XZ and this has the wow factor. If you put together the CDJ-2000s and the 900, it's probably not... Much bigger or smaller than the XZ. Now I hope you understand that analogy, I think that's a really good analogy because the Mini would crash out straight away on the off-road. The off-road vehicle would be bored on the motorway and also the off-road vehicle just wouldn't be happy on that side road. And it works! I truly believe that analogy works and that is precisely how...

These three bits of kit are set out. So, in a nutshell, if you are an aspiring mobile DJ, a bedroom DJ, you're starting out in the mobile industry and you just want to poke your big toe into the realms of getting gigs and starting to do weddings, go and check out The RR because it will not let you down. On the other hand, if you're an established mobile DJ And you want a few extra quirks, you want to maybe add an effect, then look at the RX number 2. On the other hand, or the RX1 for that matter, on the other hand, if you're a mobile DJ who let's say does the weddings, bar mitzvahs and parties, but also maybe later on in the evening they're saying play some house, give us some effects, start ripping it up like Ibiza.

Then the XZ is up your street because you've got everything. It's all singing and dancing, whistles and bells, right? I hope that's been a help. Practice and enjoy. One take. Yeah.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.