I agree, but in France that’s not the case. Club DJs dont’ want to use Denon devices (even it is better) They use Pioneer devices with Serato, Rekordbox or usb keys and whether our denon devices are compatible they don’t want to use it.
Independant DJs for weddings or outside use Denon.
Fair point, I was talking about your own use, but if you need the device for others they will be picky… their loss really, same applies here in the UK its all Technics and Pioneer and nobody entertaining anything else.
People literally stare at my Prime 2 at gigs, wondering what it is.
As we all know, there WILL be an update to the Prime 4. It’s their flagship controller. It’s sold well. And I bet it’s coming sooner rather than later. It just needs better jogs in my opinion. With the upcoming Engine update we’re seeing some really nice things being implemented. And to me, anyone who doesn’t want their hardware to feel stale after a year or two, Denon is the only game in town. They literally surprise us with updates that unlock hidden hardware! Who the heck else does that?! Nobody. When they told us our engine devices were built for the long haul, they knew what they had.
I still have some wants of course.
I want to be able to rate my songs on-device
I want to be able to sort my streaming playlists and have offline storage for them
But honestly, overall. Denon has slowly but surely built (to me) the best DJ devices on the market. And I’ve not been easy on them in the past.
Do I like the screens on the Opus. Yup! Do I like Pioneers standalone/CDJ-3000 GUI. Yup!
Do I like much else? Ehhhhhh, Not really.
I realize the Prime hardware with Engine OS can read old RB playlists and such, but can Engine Desktop do the same or anything further with RB-analyzed drives?
Alpha Theta has ceased paying licensing fees for the old Rekordbox database software, and thus all new hardware models from Pioneer DJ from the Opus Quad onward will only be using this new Device Library Plus thing, with zero backwards compatibility on future hardware itself and only transitioning available on the latest versions of Rekordbox. If you’re like me and you refuse to install versions later than 2.2.4, then you’re out of luck on future hardware. The new db is encrypted, by the way.
I have no idea if CDJ-3000 will get the Plus db, but right now it’s only partially available to it through the cloud. There is apparently zero possibility of hardware earlier than that becoming compatible with it.
And like always, You will have to pay extra for new features again…
Pioneer DJ may add new features to their later models like the CDJ-3000, Opus Quad, and future stuff, but I wouldn’t call the Plus db a ‘new feature’. It seems like Noritsu made an accounting decision that the Pioneer DJ devs who want to keep their jobs are now cheer-leading for.
They want to touch it, but it’s outside of the Matrix!
Totally agree with with everything that you said and THIS quote here is KEY for me. I need to go back to check but I believe that a feature request was submitted well over a year ago. Serato implemented a similar workflow when they first introduced streaming. I think this is long overdue for Engine DJ as streaming is no longer a ‘nice to have’ feature and has become a standard for many DJs.
Lol! You should review your point of view in a real contest from 2020 to 2022!
He has 63% of clubs that have closed due to COVID in France and some are still in big trouble, so to say that we only see cdj in clubs all over France today is to be reviewed! Pioneer holds thanks to the second-hand market!
During the COVID period, customers bought a lot more Denon, Numark and Native Instrument products because that’s what was in stock and the price was reasonable! The COVID has affected a new clientele “individuals” since the festivities were almost prohibited, instead of carrying them out in party rooms, domain and calling on a DJ, they equipped themselves and they made their own small events, they carried them out either at home or at friends’ with their own materials.
I am a former reseller in a sign in France (Star’s Music) and I have kept in touch with the owner and the colleagues of the sign and I can tell you that the Pioneer Dj products sold very very badly and even there at the current time.
During the COVID period they have a strong demand for a product with a good value for money and know that it was not Pioneer.
And strangely the most produced were more during COVID than without, to the point of having to contact other brands to get supplies, whether from simple individuals or professionals. The CDJ 3000s didn’t sell that much.
There have been some super big clubs that have been renewed, but not that many we can count them with our fingers and also some rental parks that equip the festivals.
I would add that the clubs die slowly and silently and are replaced by beer bars or musical wine bars where DJs bring their own equipment bought on the boncoin and there are a few pro DJs who go there to complete their dates.
Yep, the problem is that recent Pioneer devices are not available
I think that’s ‘any’ Pioneer devices judging by what my local retailer says.
The Rev7 and DJM-S11 are the two best items they offer right now, and unmatched by anyone else.
Same for Denon, There were also very very few!
there was solidarity between the sound and light shops for supplies based on demand and stock to provide an “all-in-one” controller.
Except for loops and that weird mode where moving the platter returns the track to the start. I played live one night with that mode on and I’ve never hated two hours more in my life.
Most modern CDJs have on screen auto loops though dont they, using the touch strip to activate, thats what I use if I want to set an auto loop. the encoder arrangement is far superior though.
Think it was a set of 800s I’d used last, maybe 1000s, not a CDJ man though (and don’t think I ever will be).
Oh yeah their looping systems are definitely dated:) the 800s had the cool 1/2/4/8 buttons on them though if I recall, for quick looping. I haven’t owned them for years either.
I played on cdj3000 and they ‘re wonderful. Smooth use, great buttons, great platters, good screens, fast, new graphics (denon 3 band style) good sound quality with live internal audio upscaling. Expensive but great. now our sc 6000 must have an update : better beat jump without glitches, better interface, dual sync layers, font size buttons, another color waveforms…
The opus quad is inbetween the xdjxz and the cdj3000, way better than the rx3.
Well, don’t want to spoil the fun but… That’s is already there + more…
I also play often on CDJ3000’s and it feels like using an outdated old dj gear…
I get a few slight audio drops if I jump to often. Tapping the forward button can cause a millisecond of audio to disappear which is noticeable. I used to blame the media source but the track is loaded to cache so I’m just remembering to not skip ahead too many times.
I didn’t experience this and I jump around sometimes a lot…