Advice pls: "live" mixing/DJing. What's needed?

[w0nder1ng]

Hi all and hello from a new user. I found this site from an Ask HN article - I never knew such a cool place existed until now!

So to my (basics) question:

I'd like to have a go at the kind of 'live' mixing/DJ-ing I see frequently on youtube and such places. I don't own (or want) Windows, and I don't think there's any point in using Ableton and Wine if Linux already supports sound so well natively, plus I think I'm pretty sold on Bitwig. So it comes down to hardware controllers.

Does anyone have anything to share with regard to hardware? Just doing a bit of digging around, I now note that the Ableton Push 2 plays with Linux! Yay. Except I don't really want to drop 500€ plus just to "experiment" and discover it's not for me. The Native Instruments Maschine look lovely, but err.. 1300€! What would be a decent-ish entry level controller that would get me started? Note that I don't play keyboards, and it's not my intention to try writing bass lines on a piano as such, I'm more about pressing pads in time, hopefully with mapping sounds/notes to certain pads?

Are pads vs keys just a form factor thing i.e. could I remap something like an Akai MPK Mini to work in the same way? Or is a midi keyboard and the Ableton-type device completely different in the way they operate? Bearing in mind that at one level it's all just mapping a hardware switch to an action, perhaps it's then just a matter of finding keys versus pads more convenient?

As you might tell, it's not clear to me at this stage. I don't have an unlimited budget, but certainly would like to make a start on the idea.

[LAM]

If you are interested in DJing I would suggest Mixxx.

Regarding controllers I would suggest a DJ controller, you can find different ones at different price tags.
In alternative, if you don't need/want a DJ controller any MIDI controllers with a sufficient numbers of knobs/faders will do, you can write custom Mixxx MIDI mappings for your controller if needed.

A list of Mixxx supported controllers is here: https://manual.mixxx.org/2.3/it/hardware/manuals.html (or https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/tree/m ... ontrollers)

An excellent introduction on using Mixxx (made by OsZ): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... jYscKXQod_