• Music
  • DJ setups/Mixer porn/New toys thread...

Unbroken1
Thanks Damo.
I’ll have a look.

Dubman I can’t express enough my love for Bowers & Wilkins 685 speakers. I have several sets here. Should be within budget second hand, if you can find them locally. Excellent speaker. My PC speakers are actually their smaller brothers, the 686’s and they are excellent.

6 days later

303abuser …amazing bit of kit, probs overkill for DJ’ing use tho. Have the same issue with the Zen Delay, sounds incredible but really tricky to tame in a live setting.

The UA LEfx has ¼” TRS INSERT sockets, plus balanced inputs/outputs on XLR and external power, as well as BPM detection, should work (& sound) great with the Isonoe IMO

    Unbroken1 Yeah fair enough, just another option to throw money down the pit lol. I still really want a zen delay too.

    Since I mentioned money pits, I shouldn’t have watched this.

    Unbroken1 Oooooft. That looks sweet. I like the automatic BPM detection too. That was one of the tricky parts I found with the H9 Max. Sounded great for sure. But was a complex beast, and could never get it dialled in just right.

    Also looking forward to reviews.

    10 days later

    Got myself a second hand Denon sc live 4 this weekend. Things have moved a lot since my previous traktor days it would seem. Linked it to SoundCloud so far and impressed I have immediate access to my playlists etc but cue points on first beats are hit and miss and I have no idea what I’m doing….yet. It’s the perfect unit to just noodle on immediately and the built in speakers are surprisingly punchy. Does anyone use Denon engine DJ want to give me a few starters for ten?

    One major thing I need to understand is how I can get back to first beat as hitting cue seems to mark a cue point wherever you are in the track which is not what I want to do at all.

      Millsy on Pioneer, if the track is paused and you hit cue, it marks your cue point there. It snaps back to that cue point if you hit cue whilst the track is playing

        Along_the_Wire on Pioneer, if the track is paused and you hit cue, it marks your cue point there. It snaps back to that cue point if you hit cue whilst the track is playing

        …yeah, try this. Cue manually with the platter then hit cue, see if it works then.

        Have you analysed all your tracks in Engine? The default cue point should be set there I imagine

          Unbroken1 I’ve only tried SoundCloud so far. Need to get an SSD, format it to exFAT and then sort my music collection out. I reckon engine will analyse those tracks with no problem, it’s probably a streaming service thing. I’m also hoping the metadata on the tracks from traktor will carry across but that might be wishful thinking. The thought of having to beatgrid stuff manually again with all my cue points etc gives me chills.

          On Denon / pioneer you can edit the grids either on the software or on the deck.

          When you first import a new track in future you should ideally do some / all of these things if you want to be organised

          1. Rate the Rating out of 5. For energy (1 star being a Beatless intro, 5 stars razing the roof / peak energy)
          2. Put it in the playlist(s) which apply. Name the playlists whatever works for your brain - there are no right answers
          3. Write any comments for the keywords that would help you find this in a search later (imagining at some point you have over 5000 tracks). On pioneer instead of writing it you can use TAGS on rekordbox and press FILTER on CDJs to tick which tags you want to see. Again name these whatever works for your brain but try to stick to the same 5 or 10 ish words. Ie. Some of mine are Peak. Intelligent intro. Ethereal. Tribal Percussion. Sentimental. Anthemic. Closing.
          4. Edit the beat grid either in Engine, or rekordbox.
          5. If you miss step 4 you can do this on the equipment. I’m sure Denon had a physical button for Beat Grid that you used either with the scrolling menu knob to move the grid, or with the jogwheel itself
          6. Remember if you edit something on a drive later, to re sync it to your engine / rekordbox so all of your improvements are stored and not overwritten
          7. Drop hot cue B on the first main part where it peaks (So when DJing and listening in headphones looking for next track you can tell in 2 seconds whether this will be right vibe / direction / whether the key clashes or works well). Use A hot cue in rare cases for “actual first beat” if beats do not appear for a long time.

          Hope some of that helps.

            NasserAlazzawi brilliant tips mate, thank you. I’ll do all that. Yeah denon has a manual grid edit with anchor points in engine from the unit itself which is really handy as I can use the jogs instead of having to point and click on a laptop.

            Wasily Noice DAW style screen, pity about the size of the thing. I’ve had a fair bit of experience with the Pioneer DJS-1000, and that is tons of fun. I like big buttons and I cannot lie!

            Wasily …unique workflow with MPC’s and those that love ’em really love ’em. Not so much house/techno-types, always seem to have been more associated with hip hop/R&B. Famous for their ‘swing’ that is replicated in loads of DAW’s that have various MPC-based swing settings.

            This is the latest one and I’ve no doubt will be brilliant… guess it really depends if you wanna go all-in on learning it properly. My issue with kit like this is, for me it would never fully replace my DAW, so I’d rather spend my time going much deeper on that than stopping to learn something new.

              Unbroken1 I never really thought of it for the studio, very much a ‘live’ thing imo, or for in the mix.