Flipping through a recent mailout from Guitar Center, I noticed an interesting new offering from Ortofon — the “Digitrack Cartridge.” This cartridge is supposedly designed specifically for digital DJs using timecoded vinyl systems like Serato or Final Scratch. It boasts “low wear, high output, and the best mix and scratch ability.” Wondering if it was all hype, I spent a few minutes searching for reviews or feedback about these cartridges. While I did find one fairly decent mini-review, I would love to hear more from readers who own these and use them with their digital DJ setup. Is it worth the money? Are these really any better for digital DJing than other Ortofon or Shure cartridges? Would love to hear your feedback.
6 Comments
When I bought Serato a few months ago, it recommended I get the m44-7, so that’s what i ended up buying. I also notice that lots of scratch masters use them, so as a result i’ve stuck with them. I’m no scratch master, but I’m definitely practicing on my skills and i’m happy with my needles.
I don’t really buy the whole story about the new Ortofon needles, just my gut feeling.
I’ve seen people recommend the Shure M44-7’s for use with Serato because of their high/loud volume output. Have only using Stanton and Ortofon with my Serato, though, so I can’t comment on how well they work. The funny thing is that back in the day (about 17 years ago or so) the M447 needles from Shure were basically your bottom on the barel budget needles. I think you even used to be able to buy them from Radio Shack for cheap. Then the whole turntablist crowd got turned on to them and the price proceeded to grow to massively overinflated levels. SAD! Back when I did use M447 needles I found that they tore my records to shreds… the problem being you had to put a lot of tonearm weight on them to get them to track well for backcueing.
Anyways, I’ve been happy in general with Ortofon needles. There is still the contact issue with the tonearm of the 1200 … I don’t know if they will ever solve that. Some people seem to have the problem, others have never seen it. I have older 1200s but have had the tonearms replaced through various repairs throughout the years… so I don’t really ever have the problem at home. It has shown up out at gigs, though, where the turntables seem to be in various degrees of repair.
My advice for any digital DJ using Serato — get a contact cleaner pen and bring an “oh shit” CD you can slap on in the worst case scenario.
-M
-M
SERATO sucks. If you play live final scratch2+ is the bomb. Tone arm weight ratio is critical. 1.5 grams Battle Proven, it’s puurrfection even for the Roughest back cueing Tablists out there. Been using Orofon Night Club Needles from eversince 96′. Steping up in the game With DIGITRACK needles for the best analog lp to digital vitual lp.DUDE don’t get a DELL, or Apple unless you only plan on spining in you bedroom.Get an Alienware notebook with an AMD 64bit , 2GHZ, 400Ghdd, XP PRO. store Thousands of LP’s and tracks you produce.
Final Scratch 2 sucks cause it’s dead. On Serato I use Ortofon Qberts: higher output and stick to the vinly very well. I play EDM so I didn’t care for scratching specs of the Qberts, just high output.
Was wondering if the ortofone digitrack could play direct lp’s (analog mode) without the final scratch or serato’s… CONFUSED!!!
BUo — yes, absolutely.
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