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Published on 06/05/09 at 11:02
I first mixed to CD players (Denon DNS1000) but I was tired of spending hours burning CDs before my benefits (I was CDs by genre: house, techno, deep house, minimal, etc. ... each time in duplicate to be able to play together two pieces ordered on the same disc). Especially I had several problems with these plates: failure to read discs (burned or originals) or sudden jump during playback (which offsets involuntary full set ... very very very annoying).

So I was looking for an all digital (no mechanical> no bullshit), with easier access to tracks and very simple in functionality. For me the important thing is the buttons play / cue and precise adjustment of the pitch, the rest is the order of the gadget (loops, effects and scratch on other readers): the important thing the mixer, that&#39;s where it really happens ...

On these three points:

- So far no bugs or any problems running.

- Access to tracks: it is the strong point of this system! 200% satisfied. That&#39;s what makes this system revolutionary. My use: I was sailing directly into the tree (usually genus), I was looking for a track using the keyboard (search by title, artist, genre, etc..): I want to play this track I&#39;ve Luciano Forgot the name: I type "Lucia" and he leaves tracks all with this string in one second ... It&#39;s so fast it made me a lot of time in my sets and thus the possibility to chain much faster than before.

- Features: simple and effective. Cue / pause / play works perfectly. I am not using loops. Key Lock (to me essential if you want to mix in the original key of the song). One downside: the pitch fader could be longer. His stroke is short and therefore should be handled with delicacy. Having said that BPM is displayed on the screen to the nearest decimal, very precise, especially when we play at + / - 6% (one can quickly switch to + / - 12, 25 or 100%), which is sufficient generally for house / techno. View function: it is also a big plus: Viewing profile of tracks to locate breaks and pickup system (with 3 levels of gray): less accurate than Serato or Traktor, but enough when you know its a bit pieces. However there &#39;s not something wrong with this system is that you can quickly navigate through the song, with "block" view mode, you select the track A or B, it triggers the button "search" and turning the main dial (right of screen) you jump from one end to one end of a block (eg, a notch is in the early break, the next step to recovery, the next screen at the beginning 2nd break ... etc..) is very useful when you know you want to send the next song from the beginning of the first break for example.

I said that I mix around since 2002, mostly house, tech house, techno, minimal. That&#39;s what made me hesitate to start from this product seems a priori set for mobile DJs. In reality it is quite suitable for a sophisticated, chains and layers long, etc.. No doubt about it today.

Another note: the search for tracks, rigging and launching right or left are so fast with this system that I have more time to play on the table and be attentive to what happens in the room. So it is certain that there is more sympathetic folklore of old cookies, but on the other hand, we no longer see the DJ lost a good minute to get his records, crouched behind the table ... I say this for the fundamentalists of vinyl: the important thing is to be primarily with the public and to communicate his energy and passion for music ... There are some DJs who turn around and put the public in a state of euphoria with their laptops (I think Matthew Dear) while others sometimes give the impression of bored (I think Loco Dice, which I love the tracks by the way).

Another note: the sound quality is excellent (when of course it was encoded properly his tracks at the start). She looks better with the DNS-1000. All this is extremely subjective, I know, I&#39;m not equipped to measure it accurately. That said, I made myself several times thinking that playing on delivery systems and in places that I knew ... Is this just an impression ...

UTILIZATION

Installation a breeze. Same setup, there&#39;s not thousands of possibilities, and many more. Manual not needed, except for firmware updates.

I advise all people who want to use this machine to be careful in managing their library. I use the software Mp3tag is a marvel: allows renaming of a sudden dozens of files, recode the filename based on tags or vice versa, etc.. If your library is very clean, no benefits for the galleys.

A very important clarification: this is the USB-1 port therefore does not contribute to readers, which means that if you have a hard disk with USB-2 it will not work or bad (on the site Numark is not very clear on this point, but they discourage the hard power from the port) unless you can power the hard drive. Possible with some DD (like mine, a transcript), but not with others ... check before buying one. Knowing that today some USB amount to 16 or 32 GB (mine is 8 GB and it works pretty quickly) ... why bored with tranfo?

GETTING STARTED

Currently no bug. It took me several times the firmware update: This is another strong point: whenever improvements or corrections are made ...

OVERALL OPINION

What I like most:
- The incredible efficiency to find the tracks, the view function profiles, the overall simplicity of use.

What I like least:
- Short stroke faders and plastic finish, the screen B & W (the latest version is in color DDS), the profile of tracks that could be more specific (cf. Serato or Traktor) with a zoom function for example.

Not tried the Denon or the Cortex ... on the other hand I played on CD players, turntables and Traktor ... and all things considered it is this fully digital system that I prefer ... Especially since it&#39;s very lightweight and compact, easy to transport ... nothing to do with turntables (which resent the transport of the rest), CD players or even systems like Serato or should the decks, the computer, case, all cables ... a gas plant. I&#39;ll soon change my table for Allen & Heath in rack 19 &#39;. Everything will go in a flight 8U ... and all my tracks in a USB ...

Unbeatable value for money: it&#39;s not even the price of a CD player of average quality. So yes, I would do this choice without hesitation.