ION Discover DJ review

The ION Discover DJ is an inexpensive controller and software package aimed at introducing budding Pete Tongs to the dark art of spinning the wheels of steel.

The bundled software – MixVibes Cross LE – analyses your music collection to ascertain each track’s speed (in beats per minute). Once this is done, you can plug in Discover DJ’s virtual decks and start your career as a superstar DJ.

With two tracks loaded, the virtual platters allow you to scratch, cue and review, and nudge tracks forward and backwards into sync with one another. There’s a DJ-style mixer control, as well as volume and basic EQ controls for each channel.

The highlight of the Discover DJ’s features, however, is automatic track synchronisation. Simply press and hold the Sync button and, as long as the tracks are similar in style and tempo, the software will automatically beatmatch the tracks.

Although the tracks tend to slip out of sync over time, it works reasonably well. This is just as well, because with no headphone monitor socket, beatmatching by hand is all but impossible unless you have a sound card with multiple outputs.

The ION Discover DJ isn’t perfect, and more serious digital DJs should look to the Numark iDJ2 (see opposite), but it’s fun to use and relatively cheap.

Author: Jonathan Bray