After about 6 mts working with the Prime 4 and Engine DJ: I’m coming from Traktor, the wave forms on Engine are very hard to use. The down beat is covered up by the other parts of the wave form. Would be a nice fetcher to turn off the mids and highs on the wave forms. It seems like with every update the beat grid keeps changing. I’ll have tracks that are locked and the grid looks great and after an update the last 1/3rd of the track is off. I try and reanalyze the track, retime it and in the end I must go through and edit the grid every 4 to 8 beats.
A way to show lows waveform in front of highs and mids would also help as an alternate solution.
So lets try to help you with some of these, im going to need some more detailed/clear information though as reading through your posts im finding it hard to follow the issue exactly/understand it.
- DB issue: What computer are you using? how is your music organised on that computer? how do you arrange your music when you load it?
I personally have all my music in a single ‘music’ master folder with sub folders separated by genre and A-Z albums. After the move from 1.6 to 2.0 I redid the whole Database from scratch (as advised by people here) because it was a completely different database.
My Playlists mirror my music sub folders, for example ‘House’ has all my House tracks in a sub folder and subsequently the same playlist. I dont use an external drive at all as ive always found it more reliable to store music on the computer itself, plus coming from Serato its always been a habit ive gotten into.
- BPM grids: this isnt really clear what you are trying to explain here, its very vague, perhaps a video of the issue would make it more clear.
If I base your issue on an earlier comment you made “I’ll have tracks that are locked and the grid looks great and after an update the last 1/3rd of the track is off” it looks like you are having an issue with beat gridding non electronic tracks, as in live drums where the space between each beat naturally isnt consistent. Flexible beat gridding is now a feature in Engine whereby you can set anchor points for those type of track.
Please be aware though that ‘Gridding’ is never completely foolproof on any software and there will always be tracks that the software cant read properly.
- I cant speak about why your topics are not appearing.
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Lets start with one item at a time: 1st: The hard drive will not eject. My PC is about a year and a half old. It is a gaming PC that is only used for music. The drive is new 2 terabyte Samsung, I had planned to install in the Prime 4. The internal drive on the PC has 12,677 tracks, the Samsung drive has 5,041 tracks. I plug the Samsung drive into the PC and it is fine, I open Engine software and it reads the drive. I see all music on it. I can sync the drive. The collection is organized, Rock, Dance, Country, there is around 15 different categories. I try and eject the drive and the Engine software says it can’t eject something else is using the drive. But the Engine software removes the drive and it is no longer visible. I close the Engine software and check that the PC still sees the Samsung drive. I check the task manager for what may be using the drive and nothing is running. I try and eject the drive from the PC and I get the same error. I power the PC off and remove the drive. I plug the drive into the Prine 4 and it works fine. I can eject the drive from the Prime 4 and plug back into the PC it reads it fine, I can eject it from the PC without issues. Plug back in PC open Engine software it reads the drive fine. I try to eject the drive and I get the same error. So it looks to be coming from the Engine software.
So an external hard drive plugged into the PC won’t eject from Engine as it thinks something else using it?
Have you tried say a USB flash drive with the music on to see how that behaves, to take the hard drive itself out of the equation?
I’ve only ever synced an external drive a couple of times and it seemed to work fine with USB sticks. Usually I have a drive installed inside the Prime 2 and use computer mode for sync.
I will try that. It may be a while before I get back to you. And thank you for the help.
No probs, I would advise you to install an SSD inside the unit if you haven’t already as it’s been a revelation for me, especially at gigs… I can just turn up and plug in without worrying about media etc.
Honestly, the easiest workaround is do all the things you need to on the external drive, then quit engine, then dismount the drive as normal per your computer. It takes Engine’s erratic behavior with external drives out of the equation.
I have tried two thumb drives both work fine on the PC and can be ejected, I open Engine it reads both I can sync or anything else I need to do. I Try to eject and get the same error, if I quit Engine without ejecting the drive I still get the same error. I have not tried to install yet, I will try that. As for taking this unit on a gig I haven’t I don’t trust it.
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Ive had some issues with my Prime 2 that meant it had to go for repair twice, it was a left platter issue that locked up, a reboot resolved. I now hook up to a little Behringer sub mixer so i can play music through my phone if i need to reboot again.
i will say though that over the years ive seen and had plenty of issues with other gear, including CDJs, 1210s, controllers. I wouldnt say any of them are better or worse than any other and i certainly wouldnt be avoiding using a Prime unit at a gig.
For the ejecting, ill have a look at mine this week as im updating it before my gig on friday, i cant actually remember which eject button on the software i normally use. I think there are a couple of options available.
I’m on my 2nd Prim 4, the first one had issues with the right jog wheel and effect bank. It took around 6 months to get a replacement. The customer service or I should say the lack of, is truly what turned me off of Denon.
I think this global Supply Chain problem is a large factor in these long wait times. Hardly anything in stock, used prices through the roof, long repair wait times, long lead times on buying new items.
mine was away for a total of 3 months across 2 repairs, i bought a cheap backup unit to get me by.
The supply problem was not the issue. I will try and tell everyone how I was treated so this may be a little long. After sending back the Prime 4 I got the notification that Denon had received it. After 3 weeks I hadn’t received any news as to what they found. I sent an email asking if they had any info. if the unit needed to be repaired or replaced. The reply said “we told you this was going to take some time” and basically said stop brothering us. They never told me how long it may take it’s something they made up. After about 2+ months I sent another email asking for any kind of info. about the status of the unit. I got no reply. after another month I did the same thing and got no response. So I called customer service after about an hour and a half I was told that they didn’t have parts to fix it so it would be replaced and was told it would ship on Monday, this was Thurs. I think. I had the person’s name and extension. By Wednesday I hadn’t received anything saying the replacement had shipped I called back. the person never answered the phone, I left many messages after a few more weeks, I went back through customer service, got another engineer and was told they didn’t know what happened, but the replacement would ship on Monday. I again had the name and extension. Same thing happened. After two more times of going through this, I feel like I’m just getting the run around. At this point customer service quit answering phones and I could only get voicemail. I have a list of names of everyone I talked to somewhere in my files and I kept trying everyone on that list as well as using email with customer service, it was like I was black listed. So I called in and acted like I was a distributor, that got me a person that transferred me to customer service. The person I talked to then refused to give me his extension, said that it was his policy not to give out that info. I asked for his boss, and kept asking till I got to a person that said he was over customer service I think his name was Steve. I was told the replacement would ship in two weeks on a Monday, by Wednesday or Thursday following the two weeks I haven’t received any info, Steve would not answer phone, I left messages and emails. This went on for a few more weeks, I sent another email and said I have gotten nothing but a run around and lied to. He responded and got mad and said he didn’t lie, and the replacement would ship on Monday. After about another month I sent an email that I was filing a grievance with the credit card if I didn’t receive a refund. He did reply and said this company doesn’t give refunds. I have a business to run I do not have time or money to waste trying to upgrade gear with a company that won’t support the products they sell. It still took about 3 weeks after this when I received shipping info. on the replacement unit. At no point did anyone say they had issues getting parts or replacements.
I was warned by my Retailer of long wait times for repairs when i took it back to him so he could send it off. Told me that is just the state of play right now.
i guess if you’re not happy you should sell up and try an XDJ-RX3 to see if that is a better experience. Although given Pioneers complete lack of ability to keep stores stocked of their new items i would say the grass may not be greener.
I don’t know if I can sell it, I don’t like messing around doing that stuff. I still own every piece of gear I’ve ever purchased. I more than likely will just keep in in my studio and try and get things working.
Just an update from me, ive just added 7 new tracks to my internal SSD then ejected it from the sync manager screen, a message popped up to tell me its in use but after leaving it for a few seconds the drive unmounted itself and i was able to disconnect the USB cable from the laptop with no issue.
So i can confirm the message pops up for me, but it still does what i need it to if left.
So far it has been with the drives plugged into the PC I haven’t installed the drive yet.
Sorry i meant the internal SSD in my Prime unit, so essentially an external drive as far as the computer is concerned.