Tell us a story Mr. Vintage! (Denon SC5000)

I’ll get around to an extensive “report” hopefully tomorrow!

I understand the 5000s are about 2 weeks out for delivery, the 1800 to follow about 4 weeks later. Frankly, I think the package together is better than the sum of it’s parts. So budget allowing, I’d get the mixer too. What I’ve heard blew me away. I have always liked the sound of Denon mixers/controllers, but this mixer sounds soooooo nice. Talking A&H, way beyond DJM when looking at sound quality.

But I digress.

FOR THE RECORD: This will be my personal, totally biased report of my first encounter with the new Denon Prime gear. I will write it down as I see it and feel about it. By no means is this to be an official DDJT review or anything.
These will be the ravings of an avid Denon aficionado since decades who is just very, VERY happy to see that not only his beloved Denon is back after a few years of silence (not just the Prime series, but it started in earnest with the MCX8000), but back with a MAJOR vengeance! Go Denon!

With that out of the way, I face another challenge, where to start?!?! Superlatives really don’t cover the ground here.

Let’s just start at the beginning. Like everyone I read about these first, saw the video’s at NAMM by Phil, watched the videos by Denon themselves, read articles and watched videos on other DJ sites. So, leaving for the DanceFair I felt like I already knew “them” intimately. I imagine this is what someone must feel like finally meeting an online lover for the first time. You haven’t properly met, but think you know them well already.

Little did I know.

The booth was not impressive, just your standard 6×6 or so with a back wall banner shared with some AKAI Pro gear, couple of tables with, mostly, Prime gear, a single MC7000, a single MCX8000 and I believe I saw a 4000 as well. Two pieces of AKAI gear and that was it. Here clearly the staff and the gear had to speak for itself.

I was welcomed by Paul, the Denon DJ brand manager. Having met previously at the BPM last September it was good to reconnect. He took the time to take me through a lot of the features (I can’t say all, because there is just so much there) and I spent an easy half hour+ getting the full low-down on this gear. And everytime I thought of a feature to ask about”, “does it have …?”, presto! there it was already.

I also went to see Laidback Luke do his thing on them and that was impressive. Afterwards I went back to the Denon booth and spent at least another hour talking to the Denon guys, asking questions, firing suggestions (most already implemented – duh) and fiddling around with the gear. Had a chance to meet Ross, the product manager and talk to him about the background of this product and the direction they are going with it. All highly impressive and breeding confidence in Denon’s future in the booth.

And I notice I still haven’t said a word about the actual gear and it’s features! Sorry Todd, I know you must be anxious to get the low-down on them.

Everyone can read all (well most) of what these units offer, but it is different seeing it and hearing it in real life. The units are totally solid, as you expect from Denon, and they certainly look and feel like they will easily survive many years on the road.

They look clean, buttons, knobs and faders look good, everything is where you expect it to be. Even if you don’t directly want to use stuff like the performance buttons, if you are used to CDJs, you are off on these in 1 minute flat. The layout of the performance buttons 8 in a row as opposed to 2 rows of 4 as on controllers was something I wasn’t too sure about at the beginning (muscle memory and all that), it actually does make better sense, due to the linear nature of it.

The screen is absolutely great. It’s just like having an iPad mini sitting there. The same feeling of glass under your fingers (instead of plastic), the immediate response, the multi-touch options. Intuitive control of features and settings, an option to set shortcuts to most-used settings, hit search and the on-screen keyboard pops up which is highly useful, but you can hook up a usb keyboard to one of the two USB-ports on the back (and probably to the one in the front as well), should you like that better.

I really fell in love with the multi-color wave-forms. Rather than adopting the rainbow or single color option, it’s kept to a very nice green/blue/white color scheme which is extremely pleasing to the eye and gives all the information you need in one look. Nice little touch is that the waveforms zooms in/out with the pitch-fader, giving you enough beats to work with regardless of the amount of speed up or slow down you applied. At the bottom is a full track wave-forms, or better TWO if you have a track loaded in the other layer. These also function as needle drop strips.
Red 1st downbeat markers are clearly visible and helpful for those moments you return to your decks after being distracted by someone asking you a question or coming up for a request.

Two layer operation – a rather novel concept for CDJ users but something us controller jockeys are used too – is executed well. Again, being used to this functionality from controllers it wasn’t as much of a “yeah!” sensation as it probably would be for people used to media player use. The way it’s integrated with light rings on the jogs, cue buttons on the mixer and such does impress though.

There are a lot of small things that keep surprising you as you continue exploring. For example on CDJs you have what’s known as emergency loop. If for some reason your USB-stick is removed from the CDJ, it goes into a (I believe) 8-bar loop until you got your stuff sorted. While functional, it’s a very basic solution. On the Denons, you pull the USB-stick and you have the ENTIRE track available, cue points and all. You can beat jump back to the beginning if you want to. This gives you much more time and an entire track playing through rather than being caught in a short loop.

The actual place of the USB port makes more sense too. Rather than sitting close to the back on top with the stick sticking up, it’s recessed underneath the front, out of reach of grabby hands and deep enough recessed to not being able to bump it yourself.

Another small, but powerful thing is the built-in 10 second buffer when power is dropped (they actually pull the power cord in demo). If power is restored within that time you can keep playing without the need for a full reboot of the player. If power is not restored, after 10 seconds the player will shut down properly, saving all settings and correctly shutting down the USB-stick. The latter is actually very important as improper shutdown of USB-sticks is the nr 1 reason they get corrupted. And it would be really bad that as the power returns and the player is fully booted up again, you find that your stick hasn’t survived the power outage.

I like the form factor, always have. And these are just great, the ergonomics work well, at least for me.

Oh, for those familiar with Pitch N Time, good news. PnT has really meant a step up from regular key lock operations. It gives a broader range of pitch alteration while still keeping the sound good. So that was good news for Serato users.

Now fire up the SC5000, set it to +/- 100% range, slide that fader either way and listen! The result is amazing. Being a sound engineer too I know a bit about elasticity (time stretching songs) and this is really, really impressive. Even slowed down or sped up by 98% the sound is still there with no noticeable artifacts or change in sound.

I’ve gotta stop here, but I hope this is of use to some of you.

@Todd: don’t worry, m8, you will absolute love these. There is nothing out there like it.

I decided to bring another stick with just music, so was smaller than the Survivors, but I stuck my hand under there and the overhang is such that I am convinced those would have fit comfortably as well.

For the mixer. I’d say they are a

bit

shorter. BUT … they feel wonderful and are laid out such that I was able to thumb/pink control two faders easily with one hand over the entire length (which is my personal preference as I sometimes need to hold a mic when transitioning LOL). The X1600 wasn’t a really crowded mixer to begin with, but this one feels even “cleaner”. Lots of room to fully grab knobs, lessening the chance of touching things you don’t want touch, even when being a bit more “slamming” on your mixer. And having TWO knobs for filter and Sweep FX alone would have made up for the lesser fader length, again preference as that opens up a whole new bucket of options.

I have been to the local demo and have to say I am impressed. Pretty much what Vintage said. Those things are amazing. Now I am not going to replace my MCX8000, since it still is more portable and still is extremely nice. However if these end up in clubs as standard gear, it will be the first time in years I leave my controller at home and will not charge extra for playing on their gear.