My relationship with the Prime 4+ has been a love and hate one. The unit works incredible and the DJ experience is amazing as long as the assets are uploaded. Now, to get there… that is a challenge. It does feel like when they created the software they put together the requirements and the developer had 10 files and in every test with only 10 test files clicked the boxed as “completed”. In the last 2 years does not seem that a lot have changed in regards to Engine DJ. I’ve been limited to use the unit as a controller with Virtual DJ as the stand alone capabilities need work. Here are some points that I would like to see included in Engine.
Having worked with the unit for the last few months I am in better position to provide feedback about the unit. There are a few things that would be great to add to the unit.
Is this the right forum to share and provide feedback?
1- The integration with I-tunes need a lot of work. Very Manual and not intuitive. It takes around 7 or 8 manual steps to update the unit. This is prompt to errors and the creation of discrepancies with the main libraries. What we can do? Are improvements in the roadmap?
2 - Sampler - Too simple and limited. You can’t edit samples in the Prime 4+, no ability to loop or beat sync thru the master tempo. What is the road map on this?
3 - Dependency on Hot cues and jump beat continue to be a hassle and creatively limiting. Would be great if we can find more flexible solutions to jump thru the songs on the fly. Other DJ solutions have the ability to jump thru the sinewave without loosing tempo or partition. Open to suggestions on that one. But where this sits in the road map? Can we bring it in?
4 - Can we create an integration that allow to read the libraries in a laptop (I-tunes) without using WIFI access to allow the sync? The current integration using WIFI brings additional work, risk etc. to the process.
5 - Other limitations come when using external software like Serato or Virtual DJ where you missed the access to the setting panes and zone among other features. Would be great if when using external software the unit can be mapped by sections rather that all the unit.
6- The ability to relocate the root folders for the main library and specially stemms is really needed. Depending on the internal drive of the computer is not realistic and limiting. I haven’t been able to use the stems because of this as there is not enought space in my computer to render my library. Even that I am only trying to render 12,000 of my tracks in the library. Can we get a way to re route the root folder to an external drive?
Thanks I’ll try again. I know this is subject to debate, but, I have hope that now with the aquisition of Native Instruments they build a good integration with Traktor. That would fix most of these issues.
1. I-tunes is discontinued, I don’t think anyone will write extra things to make it better.
Sampler is simple, we all agree. It needs some love and care. But no one will share a roadmap on that. This is confidential info.
What do you mean?
I can jump on cues and beat jump whole day without losing a beat. Do you have quantise on?
You can use LAN connection - wifi is always an option, not a necessity.
Mapping is done by serato and Virtual dj - ask them for this. Denon dj only provided the library of midi commands that denon can take. What others did with it - it’s up to them.
You can make a second library for Stems or any other track on external drive. People are doing that since long time. But on the other hand, 12000 stems tracks? Who needs so mamy stems? Isn’t it a bit exaggerated?
This is up to NI, they were provided with the proper info about it just after serato and Vdj.
1. I-tunes is discontinued, I don’t think anyone will write extra things to make it better. I’m referring to Apple Music, if that makes more sence
Sampler is simple, we all agree. It needs some love and care. But no one will share a roadmap on that. This is confidential info. It needs work that is what I am referring
What do you mean?
I can jump on cues and beat jump whole day without losing a beat. Do you have quantize on? - Nothing to do with quantize, this is in relationship to beat match (sync). With this capability you don’t need to go from song to song manually marking Hot cues as part of the preparation. It allows more improvisation. I can count in double digits the song where I have Hot cues in my library. I use hot cues only in very specific occasions. Even after my second year with the Prime 4+ because I had to run from VDJ I barely use Hot Cues. Traktor does it to perfection and Virtual DJ to an extend. This is a big one for me as saves the time and the dependency on Hot Cues and proprietary metadata.
You can use LAN connection - wifi is always an option, not a necessity. - All this is related to trying to find ways to the short comings of the MAM capabilities for Engine. I have a big library and Engine is limited on what I need to do. Among the things that I have a hard time, Currently Engine struggles on updating items. My current work around is creating a folder structure and delete the entire folder, then drop it again to force the system to update.
Mapping is done by serato and Virtual dj - ask them for this. Denon dj only provided the library of midi commands that denon can take. What others did with it - it’s up to them. - Yeap, I found out about this. Frustrating, again part of trying to find solutions on short commings of Engine capabilities. I’ve been force to walk away from the stand alone and relly on the laptop. As I find preparation very time consuming.
You can make a second library for Stems or any other track on external drive. People are doing that since long time. But on the other hand, 12000 stems tracks? Who needs so many stems? Isn’t it a bit exaggerated? - Well, I tried this as as a work around for #3 and memory capacity became a challenge really fast as you can imagine. Engine does not have “just in time stems” like Virtual DJ therefore requires pre-work, this pre work needs to happen in the same drive. After the stems are created yes, you can dump them in a drive and store them separately. but the pre work requires hard drive space, and you can not select an external drive as a destination. I have discussed this with support and they acknowledge the limitation. In general Engine is great but it has a hard time dealing with volumes.
This is up to NI, they were provided with the proper info about it just after Serato and Vdj. - Let’s hope this gets resolved now with the acquisition. In the past Denon has reached out but NI has been difficult to deal with it. They had a fall out a while back. I have an MC6000 and the integration is great. I still use that unit.
For me all these feature requests come due to the short comings on media asset management and feature request #3. Stems are good to have but if I am getting serious about stems I would not pick any DJ software to do it. I would look for a more specialized solution. But is a good ad on to your sets. “just in time” is good enough for this. It is amazing what they have done with these stand alone units regardless.
As I said before, I believe Engine have a lot of potential but there is work to do in it. They market the Prime 4 as an all in one for event DJs but the workflows are more conducive to club DJs. I’m still a fan of Denon over Pioneer, AT, Rane, etc. and I want to see it succeed.
Well, know one will know that if you don’t say it.
With point 3, I don’t think I quite understand what you want to do. First you state that beat jump is not working for you, as it is throwing off your beat match, and then you say it’s not about this, but something else. Not quite sure what it’s all about then…
Rest requests/sugestions - we all like to see improvements.
I hope too for better traktor integration and some cross platform compatibility and improvements.
NI didn’t fail in dj products. Traktor is solid till this day. They faild to innovative and follow the trends. PR of native, maschine, komplete… these were a major balast for them. They introduced a lot of almost generic expansion packs. Maschine plus failed badly. MIDI keyboards didn’t stand up to competition. On top of that, previous owners of NI had very little interest in investing in the brand.
Thanks all for the suggestions, I gave up on the stand alone functionality and Engine for now. Prime 4+ still an incredible controller. May be Engine will catch up at some point. For now with it’s limitations VDJ is doing fine and the best of all current options. Their integration with the Prime 4+ is very well done. My options have been limited for a while as Rekordbox or Serato can’t meet my requirements, with Traktor as good as it is, reality is that it was dying slowly. I hope this acquisition bring it to life, I definitely would get on that immediately.