On Monday, I took time out of my day to drive a little out of my way to Valrico during rush hour to meet a stranger at a Steak ’n Shake to purchase a long-discontinued, hard-to-find keyboard: the Yamaha DJX.
I like to peruse the Tampa Bay Facebook Marketplace for deals, and I’ve always wanted a DJX, so when I saw this ad…
…I had to contact the seller right away. They’re rare, and they generally sell for at least $100 more than the seller was asking.
Fortunately, this seller lived within a reasonable driving distance, and was more than happy to let me test the keyboard first. We met at a public location — the Steak ’n Shake in Valrico — which had a convenient outlet at one of its booths.
After “paying the rent” by buying a chocolate shake, we set the DJX on the table:
Aside from a few minor blemishes and scratches and a lot of dust buildup, it looked pretty good. Remember, this is a machine that’s been out of production for a quarter-century.
I fired it up, and I started playing. I pressed every key and fiddled with every button and knob and the pitch-bend and ribbon controllers. The volume control was a little noisy, but that’s something that can be fixed relatively easily. I auditioned a good number of its “patches” (synth slang for “instrument sounds”) and beats, and it sounded great.
Satisfied, I gave the seller $150 in cash and they left. I stayed at the Steak ’n Shake a little longer, to finish my shake and play with the DJX a little longer. There were pop tunes playing on the restaurant’s sound system, and I found myself playing along. There were only a couple of other people there, and they were looking in my direction trying to figure out what was going on.
I’ve since peeled the beginner stickers off the keyboard and given the DJX an initial cleaning — and I’ve also had a blast playing it! I expect to use it to create background music for my videos on the Global Nerdy YouTube channel, and hopefully for some live performances.
Why I’ve been looking for a DJX
The DJX belongs to the “groovebox” category of electronic instruments, and I’ll leave it to Wikipedia to explain what grooveboxes are:
…a self-contained electronic or digital musical instrument for the production of live, loop-based electronic music with a high degree of user control facilitating improvisation.
Grooveboxes are generally used for creating electronic dance music, which rely heavily on a drumbeat. They’re also aimed at DJs, producers, and people who generally arrange music rather than play it. Because of this, most grooveboxes follow the design of drum machines.
Here’s a tutorial video that shows the basics of making a tune on a groovebox:
The device that defined the groovebox category was the Roland MC-303 Groovebox, which was released in 1996, right in the middle of the decade where all forms of dance music exploded:
Modern grooveboxes look like this:
As I mentioned earlier, grooveboxes are designed for people who are more arrangers who make music in the studio rather than actual players who make music live.
The DJX series of keyboards is a rarity in that they come with an actual piano-style keyboard that you can play on top of the beat. I regret not getting the DJX when it first came out, and had recently started keeping an eye out for a reasonably-priced used unit.
I’m going to record some videos showing what mine sounds like, but in the meantime, you can check out these videos, which show the styles that come built into the DJX. It’s an EDM/hip-hop machine!
What’s next?
I’ve given it a preliminary cleaning — including removing the beginner stickers from the keyboard and removing the glue residue with the ever-reliable Goo Gone — and it looks so much better. I need to give it a deeper cleaning (opening it up and vacuuming the dust bunnies from its internals) this weekend.
Aside from making music with the DJX, I’m also keeping an eye out for its even more rare little brother, the DJX 2…
