Feature Request Wish List Thread

Legacy Products Controllers
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I’ve noticed some of the other products on this forum have feature request threads, but I think we should have just one MCX8000 thread where everyone can add what they’d like to see added or fixed in a future firmware update. This is for people genuinely interested in getting the functionality of Engine mode on par with the build quality of the unit, and not going to be a rabbelrousing “Just use Serato!” “Pioneer does that” etc. thread, so please keep it civil and provide useful info if you’re contributing. I’ll start:

Recording to USB (Standalone): I’d like to believe the internal hardware of this controller can handle this, but maybe it was never added because it can’t? Have never found specs. Either way, this is at the top of my list because it is a major downer to have to lug a computer, digital recorder, or other equipment around when one of the major selling points of your controller is it doesn’t require a computer.

Better FX selection (Standalone): There are 3x2 FX buttons… surely we can’t be stuck with just Echo, Phaser and Noise (seriously?). Even if the FX don’t offer greater adjustments of parameters (like Serato), it’d be nice to choose which FX the 8000 stores for use. Personally, I’d like to see Flanger, Reverb, and Delay added at the very least… Bitcrusher, Shredder, and a Reverse Reverb would be cool too, but that’s just me hoping.

FIle format support (Standalone): There’s nothing more annoying than being in the middle of a set than queueing up a track to find that when it loads, there’s no data and it won’t play at all. I’m hoping this is fixed whenever the"MCX8000-Compatible Engine Prime Side Project" is released, as having gigabytes of music in FLAC and having to convert all of it is an arduous chore. lStill, adding it here for posterity.

Sample pad functionality (Standalone): Not sure how to implement this since presumably there is a lack of internal storage in the 8000 or this would have been included already, but my thoughts are having the desired samples stored on your USB stick in the Denon folder somewhere, which would be assigned somewhere in this forthcoming update. Just a thought.

Slicer (Standalone): I’ve already mentioned about this in another thread, but it’s still something that should be fixed. The current onboard Slicer is just Slicer Loop (Slicer Roll, really); make it work like Serato’s, which has the Slicer function nailed.

Files display mode (Serato): Not sure if this is a Denon DJ or Serato thing, but for some reason, when using the “Files” display mode in Serato, browsing actions don’t display on the 8000. Even then, if you manage to get to the song you want, when you press the Load knob on the 8000, rather than loading the track, it jumps the selector down to the bottom library panel instead of loading the song. Please fix, if this has not already been addressed.

Onboard network connector (Standalone): Is this usable for anything? Seems like a waste of hardware without StageLinq – can this be repurposed into plugging into a LAN for networked drive access? It would be great to just leave the music library on the NAS and load tracks from it. I think there are multitudes more people out there who can use this functionality over controlling lighting (will that ever even come to fruition?).

3rd Party Support / Cue management (Standalone): There is Rekordbox compatibility for the 5000 that just came out, why not on ours? Support for other libraries/cues/beatgrids is essential to getting non-adopters to actually want to play gigs on the 8000.

That’s all I have for now, although I’m sure I forgot some things. I’m also curious to hear what’s on others wish lists – the caveat being keeping in mind the hardware limitations of the 8000 itself. In conclusion, basically, we were sold a competent Serato controller and a backup solution, which is frustrating as a consumer (I would rather just Engine Standalone mode was as good as Serato) and haven’t heard a timeframe for any sort of release (or even release candidate) other than “Soon,” which is not comforting when your gear has been out for two years and E.Prime compatibility was announced almost a year ago. Please make this controller live up to its potential.

Thanks and Happy Holidays

3 Likes
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Will the MCX8000 ever play flac files? This is a major issue for me, possibly puishing me towards Pioneer, but I would like to use the Denon hardware.

Anyone know if its in the roadmap for MCX800 or “Engine”

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I have converted all my flac files to aif format…

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Agreed. Since there is no decompression involved, FLAC support shouldn’t be that difficult to implement or too taxing on the hardware.

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well if the update of the mcx8000 consider to make Engine Prime compatible with the controller. than Flac support will be cover.

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Without getting into extended detail on everything else I’d like to say about the MCX8000, I have a feature request that would greatly improve my MCX8000 experience:

Needle drop lock when used as a Serato controller

The jog platters are low-profile and the top of them is very close to the needle drop touch strip. I have found myself very frequently accidentally touching the needle drop strip while turning the edge of the jog platter to adjust a playing song. When used standalone, the firmware accounts for this and keeps the needle drop strip from being functional unless the playing track is paused or one lays their palm on the platter (in vinyl mode) and uses a finger to scroll along the strip.

This behaviour does not carry over when the MCX8000 is in PC mode. The needle drop strip is always active even while the deck is playing. I have been forced to go into Serato setup and disable needle search to prevent accidental jumps in the song. It would be extremely great to have the same behaviour in standalone mode as in controller mode: needle drop/search does not function unless the player is paused or stopped by laying your palm on the platter.

Unfortunately my only solution for this so far has been to disable needle search completely in Serato setup.

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This is something you need to complain to Serato, you do understand that? Serato choose that specific bahaviour with their software, not Denon. And in Serato setup you can disable the needle search just during playback, not completely

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I see what you mean. So you want needle strip search but with a modifier behavior.

Best to head to Serato DJ feature suggestion to request this.

You can use shift and jogwheel to scrub through your tracks still with needle strip off. Not exactly what you want but a work around.

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With Serato DJ in DJ Preferences you just need to use the option “Disable Needle search during playback”

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Without getting into extended detail on everything else I’d like to say about the MCX8000, I have a feature request that would greatly improve my MCX8000 experience:

Needle drop lock when used as a Serato controller

The jog platters are low-profile and the top of them is very close to the needle drop touch strip. I have found myself very frequently accidentally touching the needle drop strip while turning the edge of the jog platter to adjust a playing song. When used standalone, the firmware accounts for this and keeps the needle drop strip from being functional unless the playing track is paused or one lays their palm on the platter (in vinyl mode) and uses a finger to scroll along the strip.

This behaviour does not carry over when the MCX8000 is in PC mode. The needle drop strip is always active even while the deck is playing. I have been forced to go into Serato setup and disable needle search to prevent accidental jumps in the song. It would be extremely great to have the same behaviour in standalone mode as in controller mode: needle drop/search does not function unless the player is paused or stopped by laying your palm on the platter.

Unfortunately my only solution for this so far has been to disable needle search completely in Serato setup.

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When is a new search function( update)??? because the momentary is with large musiclibary very very cumbersome.

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The mcx8000 has a slider for skipping true the songs. When we could use it for the second and third letter of a word, it would be great !

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There is a setting in Serato DJ that allows the Needle Strip to be locked unless you are pressing the “Shift” button too. Sounds like what you were looking for.

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MCX8000MKII or MCX8000Prime

Stability and reliability should be the priority, ensuring that a DJ can get through a normal gig without having to worry about screen freezes, audio degradation, unresponsive buttons etc.

More Hardware FX - the current three isn’t enough

independent FX parameters e.g. the number of beats. Its global currently

Pad FX will be nice too. One push for backspin, one push for echo out etc.

Record via USB

Ability to combine hardware FX with Serato FX (Colour FX style)

More compatibility with different files - the current limit on sample rate is a pain. It should just support all the files the sc5000 supports and more

Cue button light to be tweaked - I couldn’t make out if its off/on

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I’ll echo all of these.

The FX could be a shift + twist of the FX knob to change. How easy could it be to port some of the FX over from the Prime mixer? Imagine having around 10+ to play with? The beat breaker, filter and phaser etc on a pad FX too would be epic. This could be on the cards for a MK2 Prime I dare say but if any more could be squeezed out of what we have then it’s a true test of longevity and what can be achieved. Too many companies move to a better revision without actually realising full potential of the current hardware. Obviously it’s money but a few extras are nice.

Record to USB would be amazing as I really need to get my sets recorded and removing that extra step of connecting the MCX to a computer or hardware recorder gets my vote.

The cue button light issue will never again be repeated as it’s not like that on the Prime setup. The error of their ways was rectified on that model!

I’d like a non-mirrored look to the unit. Asymmetrical isn’t user friendly and hate how some of the buttons aren’t consistent, depending if you’re on the left or right deck.

The shift on deck A is perfectly placed yet on deck B it is awkwardly placed as hands are having to swap when shift actions are used. The play and cue buttons are mixed with the loop and sync on deck B. It really is awful and almost two years after owning it I still make mistakes. Make the layout like a small Prime setup. The Pio SX managed to perfectly emulate decks and a mixer.

Centre display like on SC5000. It’s been added to a recent rival controller so can be replicated on a future MCX and will negate the need for the outer LED ring of lights. It can go once a centre screen is in.

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I don’t have the controller again so i’m just reflecting on my time with it.

+1 on the non mirrored layout - it solves two issues

  1. keeps everything like a mini prime set up (2 decks and a mixer)

  2. I would prefer the Pitch/Tempo Fader to be higher up than the jog wheel if they want to keep the mirrored layout. The Left one gets knocked when scratching. Non-Mirrored layout solves this as the pitch faders will be on the right side of the jog wheels and won’t get in the way.

If a central screen is coming - Parallel waveforms or a Phase meter/counter for the dual screen. Preferably an active phase counter that works irrespective of active or non active sync.

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The DDJ1000 looks nice - - - - - - - - - - -right up until you get to try it which I did at a DJ meeting a few days back. Then it start losing appeal pretty damn quick. The displays in the middle of the jog wheels are tiny - - - they’ve put a hopelessly full amount of info on them likw a little waveform, a little album art picture, a bpm readout, a pitch read out, a time remain/elapsed countup/down timer and more, all in the space which used to be just the rotating petals daisy display on any other pioneer deck.

Putting the full sized nexus2 platter on a medium sized controller was also a bad bad move, although i guess that prime has reduced the orders for nexus so pioneer have got to get rid of all those platters somehow. The platters on this are too big for this size controller. All the buttons feel cramped and catching your fingers on the buttons nearest to the platter edges is way too easy - – - - - and im not even a scratcher. I kept catching my fingers on other buttons just while cueing up a track. Its like installing a steering wheel from a bus or an 18wheeler articulated truck into a smart car.

There are a few things up top on the opening post about “it’s been said” without saying who said them. Me and 100 other people say that its not worth worrying about hearsay. :-):slight_smile: The whole idea about the “Ram processer” (whats a ram processor?) is too small is nothing to worry about. Yeah the SC5000 prime is quad core and the 8000 isnt, but neither is anything else - even the nexus2 doesnt boast even a dual core.

All that said though if a mcx8001 were to have a quad core then yeah thats gotta be better than a single core so maybe its the quad core that gives Primes the ability to anaylse files on-the-fly instantly and read and convert rekordbox files. I’ll have some of that please.

But then I think about the cost coz in therory if you put two SC5000s and a 4 channel mixer in the same casing it should be sold for about £4500 ($3800 USD?) and thats just not going to meet most peoples budgets for what would be ONE bit of equipment. after all the 8000 is cheap when you think about it in what it replaces in terms of separate items coz its 2 decks and a proper usable 4 x channel mixer.

Maybe there should be something in the middle then. But!!! ??? what features to lose from a SC5000 prime to make a mcx8001 cheaper, and what features to lose from a x1800 to make that cheaper.

The other thing i think of now is - - -now that Denon have shown what a player CAN be made to do, is anyone going to accept anything less now ?

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I have a back-up controller at home from around 5 years ago and it’s a Stanton SCS4.DJ.

This thing has stacked parallel waveforms four USB ports, the ability to use a keyboard for searching and it’s killer feature? It can scan the tracks within the unit. It’s Linux inside.

So what can Denon do? Easy. This thing retailed at around £500 so it’s more than possible to create a higher quality version of it. Yes it scanned slowly (and I mean slowly!) and yes it isn’t a high quality build but the underlying technology exsisted over 5 years ago yet we are to see it mainstream.

Take the guts out of the SCS4.DJ, refine the internal software experience and place it into an MCX8000 Prime and it’s a killer machine. It could even play MP4 files (but only on its internal display… shame it had no HDMI out!). It can record sets with it’s built in USB ports and the FX was upgradeable with firmware. It also had QuikGrid, it’s own analysis software to take the load off the unit. We’re seeing this in £1500 players but not in £500 controllers.

I still have the Stanton and would use it if I ever needed an emergency back up. It’s funny really… had that been heavy duty build like an MCX8000 then it would be amazing.

So powerful processor inside is the norm now. Samsung are selling Exynos chips to vendors to be built into devices and car internals to drive in-car entertainment or self driving. The technology has progressed since Stanton released their all-in-one controller. The same price would get you amazing tech.

So yes, I’d say £1000 could get you an MCX8000 MK2 Prime with on-board track analysing and still make profit, while making the competition look lame. It’s been done before, admittedly not to the highest of standards when it comes to finish, but it’s been done… and five years ago at that.

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I remember that one. It had a clever design idea of a gap under the unit for hiding a hard disk drive which was good, but yeah your right it was built like a kindergarden play thing. the search dial i remember was like a wobbly flat plastic jar lid so bad to use.

I do think though that standalone units will come back so strong, and will feature more and more against laptop or computer requiring setups. With a computer in the mix, there’s just way to much to go wrong.

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I don’t think the maths is like that ie 2 SC5000 + 1 X1800 = MCX8000 Prime

It’s not like the all on in one will have two separate Power supply, two separate DAC, 2 boards etc so that’s some savings there already.

If it’s a prime controller and really robust enough to do standalone for 1500 - 1700 it will still be a major hit I’d say.

To even save further they can pass on the cost of Serato support to the end user. E.g. make sure it’s Serato ready but don’t bundle it with a licence. That will bring some clarity to Serato from a business point of view as I’m sure a big chunk of the profit go to Serato NZ