Nope, I didn’t buy a P4 to use it with Serato. I’m really happy that the compatibility is there & I’ll use it in an emergency. Sadly Engine Prime is holding the entire Prime series of hardware down. It’s also damaging DenonDj as a brand. The sooner Denon sort it out, the better for everyone.
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I hear ya. In regards to the beat grids, I just don’t quite understand why they have issues with it. Whenever I had to use sync in VDJ to make an instant touch up, I never once had issues with the bpms being paired incorrect.
Why does Denon have an issue with this? And more importantly, why would we ever need to adjust them? I never had to manually adjust the beat grids in VDJ, they just worked properly. I noticed when I adjusted some beat grids on my 5000’s on the fly, they were only accurate for the first 4 bars, then got wonky after that. I think Denon needs to suck up their pride and have another company consult this issue.
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Exactly why I said, if they can’t do it properly, hire someone who can. 95% of the time I rely on the analysed bpm in order to set accurate loops. If EP gets the bpm wrong (which it does a lot) then I set my loops manually (using In & Out), but getting the loop in & out points spot-on when a track is playing is very difficult. We then need to be able to adjust the in & out points after setting them. At the moment we can’t even adjust loop in & out points manually (well on the P4 anyway, not sure about the sc5000’s). This wouldn’t be much of an issue if EP just did the bpm analysis properly to start with.
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Hello- I am curious if there is any update on BPM analyzing? Looks like there hasn’t been an official response from Denon since your last post in March. In regards to the latest EP update, I do not see a change in some BPMs. I have a side folder of incorrect BPMs that I can share if needed.
Thanks.
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I mentioned in another post that EP now will override it’s BPM analyzation if BPM info already exist in ID3 tags on the MP3 from being analyzed on another software (i.e. Serato DJ). You can download Serato DJ Pro for free and use it solely for music management/analyzation.
NOTE: Without the proper licensing you can only use Serato DJ for music prep. It will not be enabled for use in Performance mode unless you do a paid upgrade (X1800) or use it with officially authorized equipment (Prime 4, MCX8000, MC7000, DS1).
After running your files through Serato DJ for BPM analyzation, you can then use EP to analyse your Serato Library and import the file information into Prime. DO NOT USE RE-ANALYSE as this will ignore the Serato BPM and write new BPMs for your files.
This has been my process and it has worked 100% of the time. Good luck!
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So if I manage all crates and BPM analyzing through EP, how do I integrate Serato analyzing? I already have tens of thousands of songs in Crates in EP, all with cues and loops.
I have the free Serato version and only have some of my songs analyzed via Serato (that are on the same hard drive as my EP database…so now I’m confused and it feels like everything is all over the place).
It sounds like you have all of your music entirely maintained in EP and I don’t think what I’ve outlined will easily work for you. EP was forward thinking enough to have made it easy for users of Serato, Rekordbox, and iTunes to import their library’s and ‘Crate’ structures into EP (by the way, EP is the ONLY music management software to allow import from other platforms. Neither Serato or Rekordbox has this feature). Unfortunately, I can’t think of an easy way to fix your issue. Denon resolving the BPM issue is, of course, the best solution, but this has been a problem for many years (I brought this up way back in 2017). The feature to override is a step in the right direction, but it’s just a bandage for now. We need the BPM fixed to put this issue to rest.
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Basically what krad said, too bad the software doesn’t work properly. I also have all my music analyzed and cue’d in VDJ, but of course Denon doesn’t support VDJ database.
Anyway, if I did decide to use Serato for library management, how would you recommend doing so? My external DJ drive is a replica of how I laid out my library in EP, so technically the folders on my DJ drive are the exact same as in EP, I made them replicate each other.
The other sad part is I watched the first 3 pages of Denon 5000 product reviews on YouTube and there was not a single mention of how bad EP is. Surely enough, after purchasing them, I find out about this Denon DJ forum and learn about the huge inconsistencies of EP. Super let down by this.
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AWESOME! You are super ■■■■ like me! Here’s what you do:
In Serato, click on FILE to show your drives and folders. As a test, drag one of your music folder over to the CRATES window on the left. This will instantly create a Crate with the name of your folder. You should see the music files contained within that create. NOTE: You can change the name of the newly created Crate by double-clicking it and then rename it however you see fit.
To analyze the files: There are several different ways to perform this.
- ANALYZE ENTIRE LIBRARY: Click the ANALYZE FILES button and this will analyze all files in your Serato library.
- ANALYZE A CRATE: Drag your Crate to the ANALYZE FILES button and Serato will analyze the files in that Crate only.
- ANALYZE SELECT FILES: Highlight specific files and drag those files to the ANALYZE files button to analyze a handful of files only.
I recommend trying this with one folder first to see how it works, then go to EP to perform the Serato-to-EP install process. It all goes well, then try several more.
Okay, thank you for this information! I need to put this on the side for the next couple days because Saturday I have a 2-hour event and I already have my rough draft organized in EP, plus I double checked all these specific songs have correct BPMs via a cross reference in VDJ.
So if I analyze my entire DJ drive in Serato, my next step is to drag/drop them into EP? Or will EP automatically create crates (or folders) that replica what crates I have originally created and analyzed in Serato? How do you continually update your Serato -> EP tags? Are you saying that I will need to strictly use Serato for crate management after I create the specific crates I want? EP will automatically update them if I first update my new songs into Serato?
Thanks again!
First you’ll have to change EP’s settings to read your Serato libary. To do this, click on the Preference icon (cogwheel). In preferences, choose the LIBRARY tab and under INTEGRATION turn on Serato Library.
Now you should have a icon in EP for Serato in EP (looks like a open box). Select the Serato icon and then choose UPDATE SERATO LIBRARY (it’ll be on the bottom left of your screen). After the update is complete, you can then drag the Serato Crates onto your device.
I recommend to delete your existing crates and replace them with your Serato crates.
I would try it with one folder/crate first to see if the workflow works for you before fully diving in.
As for updating your library with new songs. What I do is run UPDATE SERATO LIBRARY and drag the new songs into my EP Crate(s). An easy way to identify new add is to create a temporary crate in Serato (call it ‘NEW ADDS’ or whatever). From that crate drag the new songs to whatever EP Crate that they should be in.
Here’s a video that Denon DJ published a few months ago regarding Serato Export.
Okay and does this process allow users to add/edit cues and loops on the 5000’s alone? Or can I only use the cues that I add/edit within Serato itself?
You will be able to use both. If you made any cues in Serato they should transfer over, and your adds/edits made on your 5000’s should be retained.
However, I’m unsure of the impact on any files that you remove from your EP collection and re-add again with your initial Serato import (i.e. Will your loops made with your 5000’s be retained or loss due to the being removed and re-added to your collection).
That makes sense. Thanks again for the information- I believe you’ve helped as much as you can and if I decide to roll with Serato as my management program, I will have to mess around with it myself.
I suppose this boils down to one last thing though…when is the last time a Denon moderator mentioned this issue being fixed? If it’s a month or two I would wait it out, but if it’s going to be another 2 years I can’t wait that long.
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The only response you’ll get from a moderator is that the fix is ‘forthcoming’. You’ll never get a definate date (not even a guess-timate). That has been my experience over the years. Their hardware is phenominal but the software/firmware has always been lagging way behind, not allowing for the hardware to reach it’s full potential. I’ve been beaten up so bad on these issues that I’m now somewhat content now to have at least these workarounds in place to make my equipment work close to it’s potential.
At this point, I stop thinking of EP as a music management software. I think of EP as a music migration software used to ready files managed in other software for use with Denon DJ equipment.
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we need to have adjustable beat grids on player, expand and contract beat grid not just move forward backwards or double or half .also need more track analysis ,key ,genre ,artist bpm ect when using tidal music streaming service ,you almost have the perfect dj tool if only you could get a few basic rights hope you rectify these problems soon as they take the fun out of mixing and that’s not right .you may as well have no analysis at all and leave it up to the dj that would be better than constantly trying to work out and correct mistakes made by your analysis program
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Now there’s a scary thought
Leaving my possibly redundant thoughts here with the very dim hope that Denon sees this bumped thread again and does something soon.
I recently purchased the SC5000s and X1800, excited to try something new after 7+ years working solely with Traktor. Like many others here, I am shocked by just how poor the Engine Prime software really is, particularly with the BPM stored after tracks are analyzed 
I see replies here about BPMs that are all over the place, but is anyone else finding that BPMs are consistently a lower value by almost EXACTLY one BPM? I have yet to find a track that is off by more than one BPM, except for rarely some tracks that are halved or doubled. It’s worth noting that the majority of tracks I play are progressive house and techno.
This issue seems likely to me to be a result of Engine Prime analysis truncating BPMs to the lowest integer (ex. 127.999 will be stored as 127.000) instead of keeping it as a decimal (or at least rounding more appropriately if maintaining decimals after analysis is too much ask for in 2019 
).
I noticed this “off by exactly one BPM” pattern after several hours of investigating why 15-20% of my tracks had horrible beatgrids, so I started manually going through each track in my library, immediately bumping the BPM up by exactly one if I noticed a slipping beatgrid. Aside from occasionally having to also shift the beatgrid a bit, this ridiculously tedious process did seem to fix my beatgrid issues for every single track.
In regards to possible solutions, obviously the best scenario is that Denon fixes this BPM analysis issue altogether and gets the success rate of analysis up WAY closer to Traktor’s 99%.
Another solution that would work for me personally (since I import everything from Traktor anyways, for the time being) would be an option to tell EP to respect the previously encoded BPM values AFTER analysis.
A third, and very reasonable option, is for the SC5000 to allow users to change the BPM value manually on the fly by touching the BPM value on the screen and allowing an update from a keypad plus decimal input, and/or by enabling shift+jogwheel to precisely expand/contract the grid, and therefore the BPM. This way I would not even care much about proper analysis in EP, because I can do this easily on the fly the first time I play a track. I’m somewhat hopeful that this solution is easy enough to implement given that some beatgrid adjustments are already available on the SC5000.
Anyway, even though I found a short term “solution” to these issues, their prevalence, along with the lack of Denon’s active support, has left me super annoyed and ever so close to ditching Denon for something else. Please, Denon, do SOMETHING to rid of these basic bottlenecks for your incredible hardware!! 
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Denon could have already made so much more of an impact on the market if the software was on par with the hardware. I’m sure Denon are hard at work trying to improve the software, unfortunately the time it takes to do this is doing damage to the brand. I really hope there is a solution on it’s way soon.
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It would be nice if they would open source the software (both Eninge Prime and firmware) and let the community help improve it. This would be a major advantage to the competition. There could be an official OEM version and a community version without warranty. Because their hardware is so superior to the competition, I feel this could be a game changer.
It would be nice if they would at least open up the database format to allow external analysis of beat grids and such.
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