ION Discover DJ

The ION Discover DJ is a cheap budget MIDI controller meant to “discover DJ-ing” for people with a potential interest. It does not have a built in sound card, so a splitter cable or separate audio interface is required to use headphones with it.

Nieuw in versie 1.8.

Compatibility

This controller is USB MIDI class compliant, so it is plug-and-play on all platforms without having to install any special drivers. The manufacturer’s page only mentions Windows and Mac but it’s confirmed working on Linux as well.

Library browsing

The controls for library browsing are in the center of the controller.

Control

Function

Rotary encoder

Track selection

Load buttons

Loads currently highlighted track to the corresponding deck (only if no audio is playing)

Pushing rotary encoder

Maximizes/minimizes the library

Jog wheels

The button in the center can be used to switch the jog wheels between search and scratch mode. In search mode, the jog wheels can be used to seek to different parts of a song when paused. When that deck is playing, the jog wheels can be pushed/pulled to speed up/slow down the playback. This is useful for beatmatching.

Pressing the center button will put the jog wheels in scratch mode, which means that the deck in Mixxx will follow the absolute movement of the jog wheels. In this mode the Scratch button is lit.

Equalizers

This controller only has a 2-band equalizer but Mixxx uses a 3-band EQ. Therefore, the volume knob has been mapped to the low EQ, the bass knob has been mapped to the mid EQ, and the treble knob has been mapped to the high EQ. For controlling the volume of the decks, use the crossfader.

Other buttons

The pitch buttons will control the tempo which also controls the pitch, except when keylock is on (padlock icon on screen).

Button

Function

Light

Sync

Matches the BPM of that deck to the song playing in the other deck

Blinks according to the beatgrid

Rev

While held the deck plays in reverse

only lights when pressed

CUE

Attached to the cue control in mixxx

follows cue button on screen

play/pause

Play/pause the deck

follows play button on screen

The behavior of the cue and play buttons can be configured in Mixxx’s preferences <interface-cue-modes>.