Used Denon DN-S3700 vs New Denon SC3900

I’m a Denon 3900 user and a guy I know works with the 3700’s. First question is, will you be wanting to use Denon’s Engine software or will it literally be a case of stick in usb and play the music as is?

Engine won’t do any converting of files, whatever you use to convert make sure it’s 44.1khz/16 bit.
If you’re using a usb stick with 3900’s then a network cable between the two decks will let both read the one usb stick. However the display on the 3900’s (and the 37’s) is limited to showing two tracks at a time when scrolling through your collection.
As Vintage points out, if you’re using Engine then you have a couple of useful tricks. Connect the 3900’s to a wireless router and you can read the collection that’s on the usb stick with an iPad. You can also set your cue points in Engine prior to your gig.
The Denon’s are enormous fun to use, personally I would try and opt for the 3900’s if you can as apart from being superior to the 3700’s they will be new and not second hand.

This is where that “industry standard” thing comes in. As there is no such thing as industry standard anymore we DJ bods have to consider keeping a multitude of media handy for just-in-case situations. For this reason I keep a selection of music on a usb stick that’s organised in Rekordbox, I also keep some mp3 CD’s handy. In my line of work I usually play for the whole night so I take my Denon’s with me. I’ve yet to find a club that won’t let me set up my own kit.
You won’t be disappointed with the Denon’s 🙂

By the way, the LINK feature on the Denons supports 4 decks :-). There is also VLink support (to play back video, it’s a Roland feature).

Ok, for Traktor you stick the 3900 into hybrid midi mode to get the timecode signal. The Denon makes its own signal in this mode, no CD’s required.
Traktor will complain that the signal isn’t good enough although everything works, so ignore Traktor.
Phono will need to go into Traktor compatible sound card, be it a mixer or Audio DJ from NI, and then usb your Denon into your laptop for midi controller utility. The tsi mapping on the Denon webby is the one I use, works a treat. You can browse folders and tracks, use cue points, loops with adjustment on the fly and nearly everything else.
For spinning platter goodness you will need Scratch Pro 2.whatever and set the timecode signal to 2.5khz on the Denons. You can also adjust the turntable torque 🙂

Yes that’s right, obviously the time code signal the Denons make need to talk to something that will translate it into something Traktor can understand.
The 3900’s will control Traktor via usb for everything that isn’t the time code signal. That has to go via the phono plugs into a sound card. I use my Denon x600 mixer as my sound card, although I could use my NI Audio 8 DJ if I wanted to.
If you were using Pioneers it would be the same, they would still send the time code signal via phono into a compatible sound card.