The Reloop Jockey III ME is Here

We are all about discovering new talent on many different levels.  In terms of DJ controllers we as consumers are fortunate that the market has become very competitive and there are so many good products to choose from.  Our friends at Reloop sent us the as of yet unreleased Jockey 3 Master Edition DJ controller and we gave it a test drive in our studio.

BATTLE READY

What stands out first about the Jockey 3 is it’s full metal bulletproof construction.  Obviously this controller is built to withstand the rigorous demands of a touring DJ in an agressive night club environment.  The Jockey 3 Master Edition serves also a stand alone 4 channel mixer which is useful if you have a laptop or software failure during or before your gig.  Simply plug in a CDJ or turntable and the show can go on.  You are also armed with both 1/4 inch balanced, RCA unbalanced master outputs, and an RCA booth output for use in a club environment.  The 1/4 inch mic input is on the front panel as well as your dual 1/4 and 1/8 inch outputs for your headphone monitor.

PERFORMANCE LAYOUT

The Jockey 3 has a traditional layout of 2 jog wheels on either side of the mixing section.  The transport section is brightly lit below the large slimline jog wheels.  Sensitivity of the jogs can be fine tuned on the front panel of the controller, and the drag of the jogs are adjusted using dials on both sides of the controller.  You should definitely take the time to tune the jogs adequately to fit your style of DJing.

There are buttons on the upper left and right of each perspective jog to select how the jog is used and a shift button.  The shift button is your friend and you will use it often to access all of the dual functions on the Jockey 3 including selection of both effects on each deck.  There are 4 hot cue buttons and a selector to access 8 total within Traktor.

Directly above the cues is the advanced effects control section.  The mixing and browsing section is centered between the decks and boast full sized 70mm line faders, a slick cross-fader, screwed in eq knobs, and a browse section for easy navigation and loading of your “TRAX”.  Every button, knob, and fader are full sized and very responsive.  Clearly Reloop met the demands of the pro-style club mixers and control surfaces in today’s market.

TRAKTOR LOVERS REJOICE

The Jockey 3 comes Traktor ready but is definitely mappable to other popular DJ software like Virtual DJ and Deckadance.  We got wicked with Traktor Pro because the layout screams out for this particular mapping.  Reloop prides itself in offering excellent support in terms of mappings, .tsi files, and tips and tricks to getting the most out of your Reloop controllers.  The Jockey 3 is a brand new product and we were still able to get great support when we experienced minor hiccups in setting it up.  Once we were sorted it was extremely simple to start our performance demo.  I was able to customize the layout within Traktor to suit my style of mixing and it translated very well on the Jockey 3.  Traktor is arguably the most popular DJ software in Europe and is definitely staying very competitive with Serato Itch in North America.

THE VERDICT

The Jockey 3 is a great controller for those of you who are pure mixers.  You set cues, loops, tweak your eq and effects, and probably mix fader up and down.  Track navigation couldn’t be easier and the layout is very logical.  It also allows for customization within your software of choice and it is definitely portable and road worthy.

For those of you who favor scratching and cueing like a turntablist you will probably be a little disappointed with the sensitivity and accuracy of the jog wheels.  To be fair this can certainly be resolved with a firmware update in the future.  I found myself using cue points to start my mixes versus jog cuing but I am certainly used to doing both. Cue point juggling was relatively easy due to size of the buttons, but again I am used to adjusting my playing style to the controller.

Beginners to DJing and Controllerism need not be intimidated by this controller because it certainly gives you the room to grow into your art form with its flexibility and feature set.  Overall I found the Reloop Jockey 3 to be a very formidable controller with a lot of flexibility.  It definitely holds it’s own versus some of the best controllers on the market.

Check out our Demo and Overview videos for more info and stay tuned for our comparison videos on the Reloop Jockey 3, S4, and DDJ-T1.  Until then, happy gigs!

Written by: djscottmadflip on June 15, 2011.