With more DJs and remixers joining the digital turntable revolution, there’s no shortage of professional CD players that let you add all sorts of cool effects to your mixes, call up samples and cues on the fly, “scratch” digitally, play backwards, forwards, sideways and practically go to the moon and back in a single track. Unfortunately, this technology can be priced beyond the outer limits of what some DJs have to spend.

That’s what makes the new DCD-PRO1000 dual CD player from American Audio so special. The company, which draws on the experience of professional disc jockeys when designing its products, seems to have a knack for knowing exactly what DJs and remixers want – in this case, a “digital turntable” that turns up the volume in both user and budget friendliness, without skimping on features. In the DCD-PRO1000, American Audio has created a professional dual CD player that has it all – digital effects, jog wheels for scratching, effect layering, a digital BPM counter, sampling, cue start, reverse play, anti-shock memory and much more -- at an amazingly down-to-earth price.

Going beyond affordability, the DCD-PRO1000 offers a brand new nuance that makes life a lot easier for users – bright LCD displays on both of its decks. The LCDs are a real user-friendly visual interface, giving you vital information at a glance, such as a track indicator; play, pause & cue indicator; pitch/BPM meter; total/remain time readout; time bar; and time display. One extremely handy feature on the LCD is a “visual marker” that shows you exactly where you are on a track by visually plotting the point along a circle.

The DCD-PRO1000 comes with nine awesome onboard digital effects that you can add to your tracks, including: scratch, filter, echo, trans, skid, phase, flange, pan and bop. But that’s just the beginning. You can fine tune each of the effects and layer them over one another to create literally thousands of different sounds. The best part is that all the effects mixing and manipulating can be done on the fly, while the music is playing, just by pressing buttons and turning knobs. After test-driving the DCD-PRO1000, we can assure DJs and remixers that they’ll love getting their hands on this machine and letting their creativity run wild.

With the DCD-PRO1000, DJs don’t have to worry about their effects being in sync with the music either. The unit comes with a digital BPM counter that automatically matches the effects to the beat of the music with perfect precision.

Speaking of perfect precision, we found the DCD-PRO1000’s digital scratching to be incredibly accurate too. You can trigger the scratch effect by moving the jog wheels. The jog wheels are totally responsive to even the slightest touch. American Audio calls this the “PowerTouch” interactive jog wheel system and it’s so advanced it has a patent pending.

DJs can scratch the DCD-PRO1000 in two different modes: the regular digital scratch mode or the “Beat Juggle” mode. In the Beat Juggle mode, when you touch the platter, it will instantly return you to a previously set cue point – a nifty trick for livening up your mixes.

The DCD-PRO1000 is loaded with so many other bells and whistles, it’s more aptly described as a “total digital instrument” than a digital turntable or CD player. There are 3 flash start sampler buttons per side, where you can store up to a six second sample (on each button) and play it back with or without a CD in the drive. Some other features include: fader “ Q ” start when used with a compatible American Audio mixer; tempo lock (master tempo) for changing speed without changing pitch; seamless loop; reverse play; and anti-shock memory.

Another thing we liked about the DCD-PRO1000 is its versatility. It can be set up as either a rack-mount or tabletop unit, so in addition to mobile DJs, it’s well suited for club, stage and studio use. It’s also a very attractive looking piece of gear with a sleek black faceplate, silver buttons and blue LCDs.

With so much going for it, we can easily forget that the DCD-PRO1000 also has a serious edge on price. By staying under the $1,000 mark (suggested retail $999.95), American Audio offers DJs a digital turntable that should help them “bat 1000” on every gig.