A lot of people notice that I use a bunch of different ways to DJ. I like to be ready for any situation, so you will always find Traktor Scratch control records, Serato Scratch Live control records, the Traktor and Serato Scratch Live timecode burned to the same discs, as well as plenty of cd's for backup.
My preference is Traktor Scratch Pro. Sure, Serato Scratch Live is cool, but I feel a bit limited by it's restrictive interfaces. Traktor Pro's interface offers me 4 virtual decks to be controlled by either midi, vinyl turntables (my preference), or cdjs (not my preference but more reliable than vinyl decks at a club).
Below is a picture of what I carry / used to carry around with me for almost 2 years to control either Traktor Scratch or Serato Scratch Live's cue points / efx.
Now THIS is the Traktor Kontrol X1 by Native Instruments (Germany, hence the K's in the traktor and kontrol). I switched to using two of these because they are already preset to almost all of the features I use in Traktor. Another awesome feature is that I can use this with tons of other softwares (including Serato, Ableton, etc.). The first time I used this, I was lucky enough to play a 4 hour set at the Lizard Lounge with two x1's, 2 turntables with complete vinyl control, and a 4 channel mixer. Everything went smoothly.
A lot of people like to stay in the past and fear new technologies, as they feel its a way to cheat. This is definetly not the case. It takes time to learn how to use all of the features to the fullest extent, something I find most to be too lazy to even want to conquer. Others (like I just mentioned) just want to live in the past, and not even give technology the chance. As cdj's and software continue to push the limits of creativity, I feel confident that the future of DJ'ing will continue to see tons of crowd / party rockers expressing themselves while taking advantage of the tools provided to do so.
I respect traditional thinking, but I personally like to think forward instead when possible. Something I learned from a role model that doesn't even think like that anymore. Kind of sad, but I totally feel they will come around.
Find out more about Traktor Scratch / Traktor Pro at :
www.native-instruments.com
And check out these videos that have inspired some techniques that I use in my sets now:
http://www.youtube.com/user/eangolden
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTgkWtND-IE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2pP4FDZERE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bGjDFslmYs
If you have more questions, just ask :)
