I dismiss the complaint about the button feel only because I think people are comparing it to what they are used to on the Pioneer. I took a brake from my CDJs for a year using a NI controller and then bought the Denon 5000s and I was fine with the buttons. I think if you are coming from Pio right in to Denon, you need to expect some small differences. No different than when you change cars and the driving position might feel different in your new car.
with that said, there should always be room for improvements.
I get what youāre saying about the comparison but what I am saying is due to the price point difference, the CDJ3000 is not the right deck to compare to. if you compare the 6000 to the lower more affordable pioneer decks, I think one would realize quickly that the 6000s are the only choice but we keep comparing them to the 3000 because Denon has chosen to provide more features at a more affordable price. hope that makes sense.
I prefer hard buttons, but at least on Prime you get to choose. So thatās a plus for them. I tend to assume the people who have a downright problem with the āfeelā of cue & play/pause buttons on any model and arenāt particularly concerned with tact switch wear are just the newbs tapping the cue with the beat while counting in their head and slamming play/pause to finally start the track. If one includes oneself in such a category, then I hope for your sake your cue & play/pause buttons are built the same as a drum machine pad.
Its the feedback that I have noticed, that the button has to be pressed to hard or had questionable engagementā¦the reality is many do think this way, so it shouldnāt be something ignoredā¦instead be looked at as an opportunity to become even better than the competition, an opportunity to become innovative. Personally for me it not an issue, but if something is to take over as a standard, it has to be better in every single category; not just equal.
I only recall one thread off the top of my head and the guy was talking about breaking his InMusic-built controller (probably new Denon DJ branding) button and warning people that the SC5000 buttons were similar construction. I want to say he had a video about epoxying his plastic button or something. All the other adverse opinion on the SC5000 buttons Iāve seen are like just personal preference on the āfeelā of them rather than seeing significant widespread problems with the buttons not working. Isnāt that largely why the SC6000 has soft buttons as a result of some people just not liking hard buttons?
I like both the forums, but I also have to wonder how long some of you have actually been on the Denon DJ forums? You used to not even be able to mention other brands on this forum! They used to edit posts for not only grammar, but sometimes even content and meaning. There are still restrictive things that happen here that donāt happen on the Pioneer DJ forums, and sure probably vice versa. I once got banned from here a few years ago for defending myself after someone called me a whiner for very nicely reporting a bug on the X1700. Nothing happened to the other guy.
While there is a larger culture here now of inviting feedback (letās ignore for a moment how much of that is even actually utilized or why this user participation was critically needed in the first place) and the Pioneer DJ mods can sometimes unjustifiably act pig-headed or like know-it-alls, you have to also realize they were/are dealing with actually being the industry leader. I shudder to think how restrictive these forums would have been or what theyād be like now if Denon DJ had already been the established industry leader. I doubt these forums would have improved as much as they have, and frankly, needed to.
I personally have seen the maturing and tempering of the Pioneer DJ mods for the better even if I donāt see a huge change in their company culture in other ways, but I have also seen a drastic improvement in the forums over here in its own way while waiting for other company changes in completely different respects. And certainly neither forum is perfect, just as neither companyās kit is perfect, either.
As for the pricing of said kit, I try not to diss a company for charging a high price, because thatās just pricing strategy and if they can move product, thatās capitalism, folks. I usually instead get on the consumersā case for when they pay those high prices when I donāt think itās a rational purchasing decision, or at least make sure they have all the facts when they weigh the pros and cons. My grievances towards companies themselves on pricing I try to limit to when they lower prices suddenly on something I just paid for or come out with another similar product at lower price that now undercuts the resale value of something I have from them.
Went to a shop here in NL, but I still donāt like the CDJ.
The screen is still a, what, 15fps resistive touch screen? (good when it rains and good for DJs that have sweaty hands from scary vibes). Platterā¦itās better than the āplastic on sandā it was before and if you do backspins often, they are loose at lightest setting. Hot cue button are a too hard plastic for my taste.
CUE and PLAY are okay like on previous CDJās. I still prefer the SC6000 ones.
OS might be more complete, but the hardware I still donāt like. And that hardware part you cannot change with an update.
I have to agree with the opinions in some of these comparisons that layers are tougher to use than individual decks. I tried to do as much many-layer by-ear headphone mixing as possible yesterday and it is certainly easy to get confused. Usually I only do occasional three-deck mixing, maybe a few times per set max with the third layer Iām working, at most, just being cued up while two might be playing out. Iām really only a three-deck DJ, but with the WIFI Iāve been trying to make sure I pre-load tracks on the spare layers ahead of time.
Anyway, I tried to keep two to four layers going at once playing out and was probably roughly semi-successful for about two hrs during a nearly 10 hr set. Itās always going to be difficult and a lot of work, but I believe the positional lights on the 5500 made layers easier for my brain to comprehend. While I have no issues with color differentiation, itās just harder to keep track of for me for some reason using just color-matching even with the layers and mixer cue buttons all four unique hues.
Iāve suggested other stuff like colored bands on the sides of the screen or something like that, and I suppose vertically-split screen on the separates might work, too, but I still think an option for linking last layer button hit to solo cueing and conversely solo cue making that layer active would both go a long way to reducing confusion for me. Add to that the auto headphone cue side thing I asked for, and I believe I would not only be better able to deal with many-layer mixing by-ear over headphones compared to having individual decks, but better able to do this than Iād be able to with individual decks on another brand.
True. Also, if they can be integrated better with the mixer and their activation and utilization is a little more automatic, they could be as useful or more so than normal individual decks I think, and then it would work out to a 25% per layer price difference.
I have a theory about why Pioneer chose to release these at this most inconvenient time. Obviously I am not privy to sales numbers, but letās just assume that they were starting to lose market share. I read somewhere that in July Denon had sold more units than Pioneer. Canāt remember where I read that though, sorry. Anyway, what if they were in the process of making the 3000 more feature-laden than it currently is, but because of the paranoia that Denon were gaining ground, or perhaps even surpassing them, they decided that they had to act earlier than they wanted?
If, as the year progresses, we see Pioneer add features like onboard analysis and playlist creation, playlist management, and full track buffering, then perhaps my theory will turn out to be true.
*Honestly, if Pioneer had simply added onboard analysis; onboard playlist creation/management; full track buffer; multi-option performance pads in an ergonomic position; and a multi-touch, high refresh rate glass screen I probably would have updated my NXS2 decks instead of buying an SC6000 (which, incidentally arrives tomorrow). I rather like their updated GUI. In fact, I hope Denon does something similar with all that massive 10" real estate. It seems wasted as it is now. Also, for the love of God, please give us waveform colors other than that atrocious green, blue, white!! In fact, can we just get an option to change all the green on the players, haha? That neon green is sooooo tacky!!
Indeed for the SC6000 an 10" used to display the information of a single layer is a bit wasted. It would be better to display the waveforms of Layer A and Layer B at the same time, as is the case for Prime 4 in horizontal display mode, which displays the two tracks currently selected in the layers of the two decks.
As for the colors, I would also say to use more colors also to show the information scattered in the display. The CDJ-3000 has an excellent display and the various parameters have different colors and strong contrast.
Have to agree on the colours not my preferred option and given you can customise the jog wheels would be nice to have flexibility on the waveforms, not a major issue for me personally but would support fellow djās to have greater options
I thought so too, but in order for Pioneer to have had the 3000ās in shops ready to sell stateside by September, they would have had to have the units shipped sometime around may-june. Otherwise, they would have risked units being stuck in customs on the release date. I have a feeling these wouldāve hit the shelves in time for festival season this year if it werenāt for Covid.
