Who needs memory cues? I used them on cdj’s, but definitely I don’t miss them. They are not as useful as hot cues.
To retrieve the Cue, Loop and other from a playlist made with RB, it’s not so much a problem … because there is the Denon Conversion Utility (D.e.C.U) application, the app is worth $ 20 to $ 35 to have compatibility with d 'other soft. If a DJ hesitates with a Pioneer at $ 2300 it is because he can easily afford a P4 and the means to add $ 35 for an additional application, he will always be a winner on the investment. I think it will be the opposite, if Pioneer do not want to lose their market, the products must be truly independent of a computer (except for the preparation of playlist or music file) and not dependent as with the xdj XZ or to have 4 decks, you have to use the computer with RB or either to have 2 independent decks and two additional decks with a computer and RB and frankly the screen is far too small and the weight starts to be substantial 13kg and without flightcase against 9.7kg for the Denon Prime 4, Pioneer must not forget that the purpose of a controller is to be transportable! Indeed their jogs are good, but it is to the detriment of having a product for tall and heavier. I prefer to have the jogs a little smaller to have visual comfort of a larger screen.
There are still a few things missing for Engine Prime to be complete and ditto for a few additional options, but we are getting close! (the software is young) RB to become stable it will have taken them more than 5 years and again in terms of the mix part, DVS level … that’s not too much! Traktor and Scratchlive and SDJ remains superior.
… because they are not meant to be used as hotcues. They are points that you can sequentially jump to by pressing prev/next buttons. They are also used as visual indicators.
I agree 100% with you and TBH the reason I can’t decide in favour of either device is that neither really cuts it for me. It’s a lot of money for a piece of kit I know I won’t be entirely satisfied with. The XDJ-XZ is basically Pioneer’s way of telling us “we could give you everything but we won’t because then you wouldn’t buy our next product which, again, will intentionally omit features”. Pioneer are basically drip-feeding new features and marketing them as “innovation”… it’s not even funny.
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I know you have to live with the times … but before we did not have as many possibilities (cue, hotcue and loop, sync …) With vinyl we did not have all that, after we have them double CDs and CDJ500s where we just had the cue and the Key tone and master tempo loop, later we had products offering us hotcues then hotcues that could be stored on a card, then multimedia players appeared. But before all that we did everything live live and by ear and I find that nowadays we always ask for more and soon will be over all this pleasure ??? The goal will be to do nothing more and put everything in automix mode. Djing has always had some preparation to do and I hope it will stay that way, because if not, if everyone is mixing, how can we enhance ourselves from one provider to another. (That’s just my opinion !)
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I owned several pioneer setups for years, I know what they are and how to use them. But as I said - they are not needed. Better have more hot cues to which you can jump during playback without stopping. For visual aid - markers added would be good idea.
IMO the idea is that these features features not only enhance our workflow but also enable us to explore new creative avenues. It’s not a question need, it’s a question of “can we find a use for it?”. If our only motivation was to cover our basic needs, then you could argue we don’t need DJing at all. Food, water and shelter would have us covered, but it’s human nature to explore, and that’s the essence of DJing. Gear is designed to be used in a specific way and DJs always come up with unexpected ways to use it creatively—ways that never occurred to the designers. The best example of this is probably scratching.