The VCI-100 includes 48 assignable buttons and 19 knobs, including layers, while the VCI-300 offers 40 buttons and 11 knobs. If you hope to use the VCI-300 as a standard MIDI controller, you might need to get creative with your mapping, especially for effects-heavy programs like M-Audio Torq and Native Instruments Traktor. Tension adjustment and a larger diameter lend a more professional feel to the jog wheels while maintaining the smooth action that made the VCI-100 popular. The length of the faders has also been bumped up to a more respectable 60 mm, which provides ☖ percent of smooth gliding tempo adjustment.

The jog wheels and pitch faders, for instance, are sending out 14- and 7-bit MIDI, which is much higher resolution than the standard 5-bit found on most MIDI devices. There are a few specific things that are unique to the VCI-300 that will make a difference in your performance. Anyone can plug in a VCI-300 and have it work right out of the box with the supplied Itch software - no MIDI mapping or tedious software setup required. The end result would be a cleaner marriage between the virtual and analog world and a much easier setup for the user. The goal, as explained to me several months back, was to eliminate the disconnect between hardware and software design so that all the important controls in the software are found in a logical place on the physical mixer. It has been designed specifically to control one piece of software, the Itch program from one of the leaders in the DVS world: Serato.

The VCI-300 adopts an entirely different approach. The VCI-100 is a multipurpose MIDI controller designed to interface with a broad range of DJ software by offering a generic palette of controls that could suit many purposes. The most significant difference between the VCI-100 and its larger cousin, the VCI-300, is more conceptual than physical. The Vestax VCI-100 made quite a splash in the digital DJ market, selling a significant number of units and raising the bar for DJ MIDI controllers.

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