Vestax has just published a small history of the now-legendary VCI-100 on its site. It was the controller that arguably started it all, the first pro-standard device designed to work with DJ software. Before the VCI-100, we were all using Novation plastic keyboards or (in my case), throwing the towel in and just using a mapped-to-hell laptop to control digital DJ software.
Personally I remember playing with it and thinking the jogwheels weren’t quite there – something they fixed memorably on the VCI-300, the controller that got me back into the DJ hardware game after years of laptop-only DJing (in some huge clubs, as well! I used to get some looks…)
So go and check it out, and see how far we’ve come in seven short years. I wonder what the next seven will bring?
What was the first DJ controller you ever used? What do you think the next seven years will bring for digital DJing? Please share your thoughts in the comments.