It would be nice to take care first of the basic features with issues such as slow search, stuttering waveforms, Engine DJ library management etc.
At this point forums are full of complaints, nothing is done from version to version.
Is there any chance we will receive a STABILITY update, not just another bloat feature pack?
Oooooh look, another negativity merchant re-appears on the forum on firmware release dayā¦ we can almost set our watches by this behaviour now.
Your comment history speaks volumes about your motivation for being here.
As for the content of this particular effort:
Slow searching - an āissueā that impacts a minority of people and something that has been taken on board by InMusic, if you actually participated more than just trolling you would have seen this.
Stuttering Waveforms - a relative non-issue that has zero bearing on your ability to DJ.
Engine DJ Library management - context needed, but again several different improvements have been made to Engine Desktop in recent releases.
Wow! Thereās nothing like another great free firmware update (yet one thatās not got all 800 remaining āI wantā feature requests on it, to bring out the posts which, initially look like someone disgruntled wrote them.
Indeed Stu-C has spotted the same thing and sums it up perfectly by saying:
Firstly, my point of view, and Iām sure that itās one shared by many others, is that itās simply incorrect to say :
There is plenty done on each firmware and software update.
If something youāre waiting for as a new feature hasnāt made it to the primes or indeed may never make it into the hardware or software, yeah sure thatās a reason to throw your playthings out of the stroller - but still doesnāt equate to ānoting is doneā : plenty is done.
Ask 100 users what are the basic features and what are advanced and youād get a lot of very different answersā¦
You may think that the world ends because one genre thst you still like playing occasionally gets Mis-BPMd or that DJing simply canāt be done without every Beatgrid precisely on point without a single manual adjustment, but there are plenty of users who maybe donāt play that genre or really donāt give a plate of roast dingo slices about beatgrids.
so youāve been experiencing the stuttering waveforms too! Itās so frustrating especially when everything else has been working smoothly
1 minute search timesā¦
Sync managerā¦
Can you provide a video of this āstuttering waveformsā so we can see exactly what you are defining as the āproblemā, that way we can determine whether our own experience matches or yours Is worse.
At the moment your comments about it are just Here say.
What about the Sync Manager? what specifically is your problem? vague ramblings on a forum arenāt telling anybody anything.
Ive been using it to organise my own music for 2 years now with little issue.
Yes when I get home I will provide a video
That will help determine the severity of the problemā¦ as in I may see it happen 3/4 times in a track, does that warrant a āsuper duper, needs fixing immediately issue or im selling my gear and moving to Pioneerā reaction, in my mind no.
If itās happening to you every other bar then thats more of a problem.
While Iām not a fan of this kind of random ranting threads, there are some valid points behind.
Personally I have no problems with my waveforms (my current experimental libraries are rather small, though) but being a hybrid DJ & visual artist who also heavily relies on SoundSwitch, there are some glitches and signs of instability which I observe. People already reported the LED boot-up issue on the Live 4 which randomly happens, though I got spared in the last 2 weeks. More critical is the memory buffer handling, which can cause all LEDs and GUI to temporarily freeze and also affects the DMX output - the lights on my DJ mask begin to flicker, get out of sync/phase or stop altogether. The track skip buttons are mostly related to that, when I press them quickly to go through my playlist I can trigger these hiccups. Luckily, the audio output hasnāt been affected so far, so the kernel priories that, which is good.
My proposal to the dev team: @JWiLL
Once Stems, Bluetooth and maybe 2-3 smaller quality-of-life improvements (like increased Record Level and chronological Hot Cue option) have been released in the next major update, consider taking a feature-break and switch into an 6-month āmoratoriumā where you strictly focus on CPU, memory, backend/database and Engine-Soundswitch API related improvements. No new features, just stability and performance. Afterward, we could proceed with the remaining big user requests.
Engine is on a solid course, SoundSwitch struggles a bit more but is also taking a good direction. I have full faith in this awesome ecosystem. I think around Engine v3.5 and SoundSwitch v3.0 they will have nailed it 100%. Just look how everything started 4-5y ago.
I disagree. I think it should be the other way round.
There are some things which were requested years ago (literally) and have hundreds of votes, but have not been added.
IME the stability of the OS is fine. Itās the holes in the feature set which need plugging.
And then ā¦.
Thereā¦ that didnāt take longā¦ in the space of just two consecutive posts two completely different points of view; both valid, both right and both things that are being asked of InMusic, are exactly what InMusic have been doing ever since before the launch of Prime and Engine - every release has a mixture of new features AND fixes for any little bits that need it.
Of course, as anyone whoās involved with beta testing knows, itās not always the case that something that gets identified as needing a patch in version release 10 gets fixed instantly in version release 11ā¦. Sometimes the patch may be in version release 12 or 20 or whatever. It depends how complex or drawn-out the problem and the fix is. Cest La vie !
Long may it continue that way.
The alternative? Launch some hardware with a set amount of features on it. As and when people ask for new features, just put the requested features in a while new expensive model - never into existing models; just like a certain other company do with their models.
That way, the only fixes needed are what people found on firmware v 1.0
This is a good point, imagine InMusic turned around tomorrow and said all products are now āwhat you see is what you getā like the other brand doā¦ they have become a victim of their own upgrade policy, by inviting lots of criticism for trying to improve products.
I read these complaints and canāt dismiss that some people might have them (I have a friend who absolutely hates his Tesla), but I have to counter these complaints with my personal experience.
I own a Prime 4, (2) SC5000Mās, & the X1850 (arriving tomorrow). I use the Prime 4 EVERY week on gigs (sometimes back-to-back 4-5 hour gigs). I donāt bring my Mās out as much but have on occassion for concerts and large events. Iāve had nothing but great reliability out of all of my Denon DJ hardware.
Early on, I had issues similar to what @Comitex is complaining about, but I found it was related more to the quality of drives used (hard drive, USB, SD) than to the hardware.
I use only Scan Disk and Crucial SSD. Theyāve proven extremely reliable for me.
I hope @Comitex resolve the issues theyāre having.
As much as I hate the issues, no software is perfect. Period. I have spent over half of my life working on the stuff for various platforms and have yet to see anything that gets close to perfect.
here are the platforms I use daily that I know have bugs where I have had to create workarounds.
ā¦ the list goes on and on and on.
From an ROI perspective, the Engine devices have seen a LONG life so far. The original SC5000s are still supported 6 years later. This support surpasses most (if not all) music devices and rivals that of companies like Apple when it comes to overall lifetime value.
Is Engine perfect, hell no! Itās damn good though. The products grow in complexity with just about every release and testing cycles can take a long time, especially when there are bugs that take hours to manifest.
I would love to see time spent on performance improvements as well, though I must say that Denon has done a pretty damn good job of releasing stuff with relatively little impact on the stability of the devices. Pretty damn good feat of software engineering.
Lastly, I get the frustration. You can choose to be a part of the solution, contact someone who works at inMusic and see how you can get involved.
Great post and well said 
I have to agree on a few points!
I think itās cool to be able to control lights on the device, make the lights blink in time with the music, butā¦ only HUE and NANOLEF? DMX locked only on Dongle SS?? So, today I donāt even use this function, but itās there! Wouldnāt an OS choice be better? Prefer a lighter software than full of stuff I donāt use?
Another point, 1 minute just to use the ssd of the other player in link?? Lucky because here I already counted 3 to 4 minutes, and this is repeated every time I access other folders! Strange the answer they gave to the created of the post!
Few people complained? Irrelevant? Iāve already done 3 factory resets to be able to quickly load the linked folders on the other player, it works for a few days and then it takes time again! How complicated, am I just one of the few who have this problem then?
There are many things that I follow that are requested and do not arrive, but others that no one asked for or that are not relevant, are still there!
I thought the forum was a place where I can share my joys and also some frustrations, but from the responses, it seems I should just come and praise?? What is good for me, may not be going well for others! Equipment and software are susceptible to some failures! I am one of the biggest supporters of Denon in dj groups here in my country! Iām practically alone in a sea of pioneers! Even so, I canāt say that everything is perfect, I say that itās better and itās still improving!
Whilst I have noticed stuttering waveforms and on occasion have slow searching (on my sc6000s) the fact the updates are free and there is at least one thing from each update I will use it is difficult to complain wholeheartedly
Apparently Denon has limited the data amount that can pass from the player to the mixer to the linked player, i also get the lag it is annoying especially when in a set a need to go to another playlist and like you said i had to reset the player, I am not sure what is causing this issue but if it is linked to the data transfer Denon needs to allow the data to transfer faster I use a Samsung SSD 1tb and ive used just over a third so itās not the Ssd and 98% of my music is MP3