did firmware 4.0 update break the headphone cue buttons?

I have a Prime 4 (the OG version, not the +). I use it both standalone and with Serato.

I had everything working fine with Engine OS 3.x and previous. I recently installed 4.0.0 and then 4.0.1, and the Cue buttons for each mixer channel no longer seem to work right:

  • in standalone mode, headphone cue works but the LED state is opposite of the toggle (the channel(s) with the light OFF are sent to the cue side of the mix, the channel(s) with the light ON are silent in the cue side of the mix)
  • if I turn on computer mode and use Serato, the cue side of the mix is entirely silent, I can’t get anything at all to show up there, regardless of the state of the cue button on any mixer channel. Pressing the cue button toggles the LED state but doesn’t actually send the sound.

I tend to use the headphone settings as follows: split cue off, cue/master mix about 10% from the left (90% cue 10% master). With these settings, I hear just a bit of the master mix and no cue (whatever I do) when using Serato, and when using standalone Prime mode, I hear the channels with the cue button DARK. If I enable split cue while using Serato, the right ear hears the master mix and the left ear hears nothing. The headphone volume control works as it should, the dial to mix between cue and master works as it should, except that apparently nothing at all is coming through the cue channel.

Any settings that could affect this or did firmware 4.x break it? I’m pretty sure this all worked fine in firmware 3.x.

If the Serato setup matters, it’s current Serato (3.2.1) on newest supported macOS (14.7).

Hi, there is a setting called ‘cue solo mode’ and also ‘split cue output’ in the settings, it might be worth checking the manual for an explanation of these functions as it could be impacting your sound here.

You need to wait for the fix:

Also, how cueing works when your denon device works with serato is on the serato software. Basically you are turning your device into a very advanced keyboard, nothing else.

Thanks for the quick reply! I do know about split cue mode and it doesn’t seem to affect the behavior here. I did NOT know about cue solo mode and that sounds like the behavior I prefer so thanks for the tip on that.

need to wait for fix [with link to previous thread]

Thanks for confirming it’s not just me! I didn’t find the older thread. Sounds like that’s been happening to some people for a lot longer. For me, that part (cue action matching led state) was fine for me until very recently (I think the 4.0 firmware update). Glad they have a fix coming in 4.1.

serato software… is turning your device into a very advanced keyboard, nothing else

I understand the analogy and that’s mostly true but the device is also responsible for audio output (separately to booth, master, headphones output). It sure seems possible that something in the Denon hardware/firmware can be responsible for the behavior I’m describing. True, it’s also very possible for something in Serato to be responsible for the behavior, but I’ve checked the settings there, and haven’t changed anything on that side since when it was previously working, while I did change something on the Denon side (the 4.0 firmware upgrade) which is what makes me suspect that as the culprit.

No, in controller mode all that is done by the software - meaning in VDJ for example you can easily set you master output to go through headphones and your cue to go on booth/master/zone.

But I do agree this issue could affect both standalone and controller mode since complex controllers like this are known to have a separate PCB for cue/mixer sections that control LEDs and then translate that to MIDI/HID messages.

Thanks, this was a really helpful hint. I hadn’t thought about it but I get it now – the hardware is a multichannel sound card, the mixing (when using Serato or a different DJ app on computer) is done in software, sends the various mixes to the various channels on the “sound card” in the controller hardware…

So that opens up the possibility of other software problems. In my case, your hint was enough to jog me to think of what else is going on in the software side, and I’d installed (a while ago and recently updated) a Mac utility called SoundSource which in general is pretty nice and useful… but apparently the new version has some bugs. If I quit SoundSource, then Serato + Denon Prime works fine; if I relaunch SoundSource then that breaks the cue mix into the headphones as I described earlier; even weirder if I use SoundSource to direct sound from some other Mac app to the Denon Prime 4 (which does show up as an output source in the Mac sound device UI and in SoundSource), then it comes out of the headphones plugged into the Prime.

In short – software problems, computers are too complicated, that’s why standalone mode is nice. Thanks for helping me, and I think the Engine OS 4.0 update itself was never the problem.

(Also, after a couple power cycles, the cue state matches between the LED and the actual behavior in standalone mode as well.)