Please share your experience with MCX8000

You already asked about this three weeks ago, but to go over your points:

-no recording to USB
The target demographic for this product aren’t likely to care about this as much so I wouldn’t expect to see this added in the future. If recording a set is needed, expect to invest in some sort of recorder.

-Engine 1.5 needs a bit of work on its stability (on laptop mainly but also a bit in standalone)
-some reports that Slicer and Sampler are very unusable in standalone mode (beat grids)
While Denon has a good history on supporting hardware, they have a bit more of a mixed track record on supporting software. Hopefully this changes under new ownership, and as there is obviously much more importance being put into the software side of things this time around.

-some reports of unit freezing when in standalone mode
As mentioned above, Denon has a strong history of releasing firmware updates for their products. I would suspect to see such updates pushed out soon.

-latency issues (?) – have to set latency at 5 or even 10ms in order not to ‘clog’ usb connection
I’m not seeing such reports, but latency issues do tend to be related more to the laptop side of the equation. This could just be a case of people using laptops that are not powerful enough for what they are trying to accomplish.

-Headphones Cues are lit up all the time and lit up too brightly (hard to distinguish which cue is on)
Can’t say I’ve seen anyone complain about this – and there are many products that use dim lit buttons in their non-activated state (makes them easier to find in a dark room).

-questionable (at best!) mirroring approach (although screens are not mirrored – lack of consistency by Denon)
I blame us (the world collective of DJs that is) for this one. Denon released the MC6000 and got so much flack for the non-mirrored layout that everything they have released since has been mirrored. Fact is, mirrored is pretty much the universal standard on everything but Pioneer controllers at this time. I don’t like it, I HATE mirrored layouts, but I have to accept it.

-unit is too low and not up to ‘standard’ CDJ/turntable hight (important for DVS users)
Controllers are ALL thinner than ‘standard’ height (well, maybe not the SZ or NS7, but everything else). For those that care about things like height, just make sure you are using a case that compensates (this applies to any controller, not just this one).

-only 3 effects available in standalone mode AND those effects are not the most commonly used/handy ones unfortunately
I agree, this is an odd decision, but I expect you’ll see a patch for it soon.

-too many LEDs everywhere, which are too bright and too many colors – it starts to look a bit tacky (toyish), instead of classy (professional).
With the exception of the jog wheel lights I see no lights on this that aren’t on most controllers, and the jog wheel lights can be reversed (only the marker is on instead of the full ring). Nothing toyish looking at all about this controller.

In short, if any of your cons are a deal-breaker, get something else. While issues should be addressed by Denon, you can never assume a company will do anything until they actually do it. Never buy gear based on the hope it might work the way you want it to at some point in the future.

I’ll jump in with my experiences as I got to use mine for the first time in public this weekend.

I have to say I loved it, and all the ‘issues’ that have been highlighted, I can see where they are coming from, but non of the con’s are deal breakers, and the things this controller brings to the party, far out weigh it’s negatives.

Personally I have been DJing a long time (15 years professionally) and I have always (until recently) been a modular guy- starting with turntables then CDJ’s and always with a mixer. I have always seen controllers as expensive for what they are, because I though they were essentially a big dedicated ‘keyboard’ for DJ software. and when you stick the price of a decent laptop into the bundle, suddenly they aren’t he bargain they once were compared to CDJ’s.

But when I saw the MCX8000, it dawned on me that playing on this with a usb stick, is essentially no different to using a usb stick in a linked CDJ (I am starting to struggle to see the actual relevance of the CD slot in CDJ’s nowadays as when was the last time you bought a CD?), but being a mobile guy these days, speed of setup/takedown is quite a consideration for me, and this is where the MCX outshines CDJ setups and regular controller setups. When I was setting up lights/laptop etc, I just plugged in a usb stick for background/early doors music, and when taking stuff down I did the same while laptop, lights and venue dressing was being packed away

The mirrored design, is (and I’ll echo comments here) not one I would personally choose- again coming from CDJ’s, but is something that really took no time to get used to. The biggest gripe I had was about the cue lights being too bright when not switched on, and hopefully this can be changed in a firmware update, but coming from my old DJM600, which had red led lights to indicate cue’d channels, I was always leaving the wrong channel cue on from my previous mix but I would find it fairly quickly when i had my headphones on, but with this I found I had a similar experience, but I would use my ears to make sure the cue was on the right channel- not a major problem, and hopefully an easy fix for Denon, but it really wasn’t too big a problem. But having the screens, which display what is playing or cued on that channel makes the unit soon much more usable than a regular controller- I felt very comfortable cueing up 3 channels while one was playing and I could choose the next channel on a moments notice, without having to refer to the laptop screen.

I think the platters are really well weighted and felt great for pitch bending or cueing up, but for scratching, whilst I’m sure with practice they will work I’ll stick to my regular turntables, generally I don’t do that much scratch sets, and this is the only advantage I can see a DDJ SZ has, but the price difference is eye watering.

I also think the unit looks great, even my wife, and venue manager commented on it being appearing to be a serious piece of kit and how good it looks (I think the size and screens alone stops it looking like a toy), and whilst I do think it’s a bit crazy, it does matter to clients if you turn up with something that looks toyish, and whilst it may not carry the pioneer name, that matters more to other DJ’s- I think most of the general public hold the Denon name in quite a high regard (although I know DenonDJ and Denon are separate)

I also found that my laptop (2015 13″ MBP) had no issues with CPU usage, it appeared no different to my SL2 box setup (I have heard the screens could lead to USB data or CPU problems- I did not find this at all. I found the sound quality excellent and can’t wait to use it again.

One thing I have noticed- not sure if anyone else has, but the price has gone up £50 since release- does anyone know why?

Hope this helps

Nice one Grant, thank you.

No need to call for more reactions. I will have to start considering that “bumping” a post, which is not allowed.

If someone else reacts then fine.

Have been around a long time and am (see my backup plan in a recent article over on the main site) a bit compulsive when it comes to back-up and redundancy. I have yet to see a failure such that it prohibited me from continuing the night though. While things have broken down, needed rebooting, I don’t think having had a modular setup as you describe (although I don’t see how the 19″ format has anything to do with it) would have saved my day. As for carrying around a 19″ rack, that is way more work than what I carry around these days.

Sure, if a drink spills on one CD player, you may have one CD player and mixer left, great for emergency, but you’ll still need to activate plan B to carry on. Not much use DJ-ing with one sound source.

In my case I have a small PA mixer that sits somewhere else than my controller (so nothing can theoretically happen to both at the same time) with either an iPhone or iPad ready to run an emergency mix. And I have an iPad controller with me as backup. Clearly I don’t want to carry anything with me in a backpack, but as a mobile DJ I need to bring so much stuff I always need a small van anyway, no different from transporting a 19″ rack.

In another mobile setup I used to work with we did indeed have rackmounted stuff and stuff on the console, and while I liked the setup I don’t think the risk was significantly smaller. We once had the mixer fail on us (technical failure, not drinks) and had to swap mixers real quick.

I am curious as to what solutions you mean that get similar results. I used to (also) have a Denon setup with two media players and a USB mixer (X-1600), but never got it to the same level of easy use that my DDJ-SX offers.

That was meant to read ‘USB PLAYER’

oh and if you buy a odyssey case with a laptop glider you should get very small usb memory or risk having the glider rip them off when you close the case, if you forget they are in the controller! two memory stick slots is useful

I use mine with a Macbook Pro. Had to do the firmware upgrade to have it work with macOS Sierra. Only in test mode so far (still using my SX with Mixvibes Cross for gigs as I haven’t quite gotten my Serato library and setup where I want it), but the tests look pretty good. Few odd things but that is more software transition issues than hardware related I think.

So far I am a happy camper with it.