The Stool Pigeon music newspaper

Vestax VCI-300
DJ Midi Controller £499
Vestax.com

Last week was an eventful one. My bike got run over. She was crushed under a bendy bus and now lies in a crumpled heap on High Holborn in London. I loved that bike. It’s been with me nigh-on eight years, in which time I’ve gone from genuinely caring about the state of UK garage and affectionately calling my friends ‘bluds’ to becoming mildly interested in the state of Zimbabwe and hating just about everybody on the Tube. It’s been a strange transition. “I was a proper dick back then,” is the phrase I use when discussing my formative years to those unaccustomed to suburban life in north London. They normally respond with an anecdote of their own. But this wasn’t the case when I bumped into Steve (he isn’t really called Steve), a friend from said era, while in the Rough Trade Shop on Brick Lane. He greeted me with a punch in the arm and an “alwiight, geez?” I responded with a polite-but-slightly-confused “hello”. I didn’t know whether he was being ironic, or whether repeating the same greeting he used to give me outside maths was meant to be funny.

The stock questions and answers followed - what you been up to lately? Do you still see X? We should meet up for a beer sometime - as did my pithy “yeah, I was a proper dick back then” comeback. But he didn’t respond the way I thought he would. He told me he still does all the things I used to do (attempt to DJ, get stoned, drive a suped-up Fiesta). Instead of a pleasant, if harrowing walk down memory lane, it was a two-minute, “I always knew you were a bit of a prick” encounter with someone I never liked. And quite clearly, he didn’t like me.

It got me thinking. Have I always been a bit of a prick, and what would life had been like had I stayed in Enfield, worked at the Wetherspoon’s and enjoyed having fights on a Friday? That is why this month I’m reviewing the Vestax VCI-300 DJ Midi controller. Not because I’m a DJ, nor is it that I’m genuinely interested in the state of DJ equipment in 2008. No. My reason for reviewing this product is… if I do the things I did eight years ago now, will I still see myself as a bit of a dick today?

Onwards. Vestax, makers of turntables and mixers, and Serato, masters of studio wizardry, have joined forces for this, a dedicated DJ USB MIDI / audio system. Bolting on a load of new features, the VC1-300 ramps up brownie points for being an advanced bit of kit, but you’ll need a PhD in software engineering to truly understand it. Memories of plugging something into a wall and pressing play (followed by gratuitous use of the cross-fader) are long gone. Instead, you’ll find yourself reading through an instruction manual with no real idea what to look for.

Here’s some technical info that I don’t really understand. The VCI-300 can control more than 90 parameters and functions of the included Serato software with high resolution MIDI signals sent via USB. The pulse resolution of the JOG wheel and pitch control fader is four times higher than the VCI-100 and provides precise control of each function. The pitch control fader also shares the same high quality fader parts of the input fader for advanced operability. I twiddle these incessantly, as they’re the only thing that seems to be doing anything to my Heartless Crew compilation.

I guess my official verdict is that it’s great for what it’s supposed to do. If you know what you’re doing. But it certainly isn’t something you would pick up and mess around with whenever you’re bored. But the more pressing question of whether I’m just as much of a tool as I once was is answered with a congratulatory, ‘no’. Not because I feel I’ve grown up; more, I’m incapable of repeating the self-assurance of my youth. I can’t DJ, I can’t handle any form of banned substance, and I haven’t driven in years. In summary, I’ve actually regressed to a pre-’I was a dick’ state. Thank heavens.