Kidi DJ Mix  

www.vtech.co.uk 
£59.99 
Best for ages: 6+ Years  

Let’s face it – kids love toys that make lots of noise! If they’re going to press buttons and make a racket, it might as well be towards something creative, and maybe even something that will sound good. 
 
The Kidi DJ Mix from VTech is a first introduction to DJing for kids 6 and up. The set-up looks and feels like a mini DJ set, and it has easy-to-use yet fun to explore functions that mimic and even enable the experience of DJing in many ways. 
 
To get your kids started, this toy comes with 15 built-in tracks in four different music styles. From here, kids can add to and ‘remix’ the tracks. Alternatively, you can plug in your music device (using a 3.5mm jack or a Bluetooth connection) and use tracks from there! There is a cross-fader, tempo controls, and even a toy turntable that produces 5 different effects when used. All of this can let kids learn and explore how music can be altered, with easy, immediate results to learn from. Going further, the system also has Launch Pad buttons, labelled with shapes and colours to aid navigation, which are assigned to different instruments and sound effects. There are even 5 buttons for sound effects that you can record yourself. The set comes with a microphone, both for recording these sounds and for speaking or singing over a track whilst performing. All in all, you can imagine the noise, but you can also imagine the fun! 
 
To aid performance further, it is possible to control LED lights and an LED screen, with lights synching up to parts of the music. Doing this will help teach your kids about programming and timing, and it makes a cool result! 
 
As well as learning through experimentation whilst using this toy, kids can also learn from it in a more focused sense. One mode of the Kidi DJ Mix is its ‘Academy Mode’, which is essentially a rhythm game. Between this, programming the lights and creating their tracks in different ways, there is plenty here to keep kids occupied and entertained, not to mention plenty that will teach them as they play. 
 
The Kidi DJ Mix can support remembering the recording for three lots of three-minute tracks, as well as five recorded sound effects. In total, it has something like 2000 sound combinations, so there’s plenty of room to create without repeating yourself. 
 
This is a fun, detailed, involved toy that has much to discover and yet is easy to use and get started with. It can entertain your kids in any season of the year, and who knows – maybe it will start them down a pathway to music? (Or maybe they’ll just have a lot of fun!) 
 
5/5  
 
Pros: 
Fun & educational 
Easy to navigate & use 
2000+ sound combinations 
15 sound effects 
5 ‘record your own’ effects 
15 tracks to edit, in 4 different genres 
A toy turntable with turntable sound effects 
Editable LED lights 
Microphone 
 
Cons: 
You'll never have quiet again!