This is the mid/level DJ program I use to broadcast my radio show. It was easy to learn because it's laid out just like the Denon CD players at the station. It has a growing list of features and refinements that have been making it easier to use and more reliable.

Most of the problems I have with it seem to be problems with Quicktime or hardware issues beyond the developer's control - that you can't hot-swap outputs, controllers.

I really like the new full-screen mode. I kinda wish there was visible wave-forms. The pluggins for controllers seem to be working very nicely. There's more controllers supported all the time.

And it still runs pretty good (with pitchlock off) on my older 15" Powerbook, running Leopard.

I have just purchased a macbook and made the leap from vinyl to DJing with a computer, and am using DJ 1800. First a bit of perspective.... I am not a professional DJ but have been DJing for fun for 10years or so - beat mixing mainly house music at parties and the occasional clubs and bars. I also should point out that I have nothing to do with DJ 1800 other than using it - so i offer this review from an independant perspective.

It's great

It works

Having read the reviews here, I had some reservations when I did take the plunge, so I thought it would be useful for me to go through these reservations incase someone else is thinking the way I was.
You can beat mix using a laptop, connector cables and a imic to connect your headphones. There is no lag when running the master output through an regular line-in amp and the cue through an imic.
Yes, you can use iTunes as the playlist manager, so no, you don't have to go through any hassley playlist making. Just turn it on and, if like me you are too impatient to learn the shortcut keys it is possible to use a mouse and mix away to your little heart's content. I have used it for 4 hours straight on a new macbook with 2gig of RAM and it hasn't dropped out at all.

So after that glowing review, can it be improved? Well, yes I think it would be useful to have a mid range adjust on the channel mixer. It would be good to be able to cut out channels 3 and 4 from view if they are not being used and put the crossfader between the 2 active channels to save space on the screen. It would be good to be able to enlarge the screen so that the pitch control is larger and more exact control could be gained.

However, if you are like i was a week ago, humming and harring about whether or not it will actually do what it's meant to do, the basic answer is yes, it works. Go buy it and get all you DJ equipment into a small shoulder record bag!

The makers of DJ 1800 have not been helpful at all when it comes to there own software. Be weary about their product. If you have a problems, the may not get back to you. They have not gotten back to me.

This thing is awesome, but the one thing I cannot get it to do is to record mixes and turn them into playable mp3s. This appears to be only a live mixing app. Without an option to record, most of us non-dj's wouldn't justify the purchase.