Sc5000 in controller mode

I tried today to switch the sc5000 into controller mode and is not working. “Looking for a computer” is the only thing displaying in the LCD panel. I have attached the original blue USB 3 cable into my laptop and tried both ports USB3 and USB2 on my laptop and cannot be recognized.

I did install the driver from Denon “SC5000 Prime Driver Installer”
“Install Denon DJ SC5000 Prime 1.0.0.exe” and no issues with its installation.

Only change is two weeks ago I upgraded my laptop to Windows 10 pro. from Windows 8.1.

This controller mode was working fine with Windows 8.1.

Any known issues with Windows 10 and controller mode for SC5000?

What SDJ enabled/compatible gear are using to launch SDJ? Does it work without problems without SC5000 attached (can you play tracks using the mouse)?

There was a WIN10 updated a couple weeks ago which broke connectivity to midi controllers in Traktor. Maybe it did the same for Serato?

I downloaded and licensed traktor 3 pro and wanted to see what option are to have sc5000 used as a controller with it.

The issue is that once I select the SC5000 to be switched to controller mode (USB cable is attached and driver is installed), player reboots and as it comes up it only says “Looking for a computer” and gets stuck there.

It should pass this screen before I can do anything with it.

Read this link https://www.native-instruments.com/forum/threads/working-sc5000-traktor-3-midi-mapping.340045/

Hi hellnegative, I wasn’t using serrato. Wanted to try Traktor 3 pro integration with sc5000 but controller get stuck in looking for computer before you can do anything with it. Does not appear the driver loads at all in windows 10 pro.

The windows driver in denon side does not specify for which version of windows it is. Is it assumed that works fine with windows 10?

I remember I upgraded firmware from old version 1.0.2 on sc5000 by switching this player to controller mode but the laptop was running windows 8.1 back then.

Do not have a win 8 pc to test this again.

Combined two posts - Admin

The SC5000 is not midi compliant. It is a HID controller for Serato DJ only. Anything outside of this will not be considered normal operations for the player.

I was wondering why I couldn’t connect. Did Denon state this?

I believe it is in the manual. That aside, it does not appear that midi functionality has been opened up yet. VDJ has already stated support is not yet available.

Ok, so let me ask the question differently and not involve MIDI or compatibility with Traktor.

When you have the SC5000 switched in controller mode and you attach the USB cable to a PC with driver installed what is the expected behaviour? Shoudn’t the PC detect the device and connection established?

In my case the LCD is stuck with looking for a computer… and the windows 10 pro laptop( with driver installed) does not sense anything or detect the device is plugged in in its USB port.

It will look for computer until SeratoDJ is opened and SDJ detects the hardware.

The thread that you linked states that the SC5000’s MIDI only works on Mac. And if you watch the video, you can see that the SC5000 displays “Looking for computer” while it’s controlling Traktor.

I’ve used those mappings for Traktor on a Windows 10 machine - they work. The SC5000s do emit MIDI and Windows 10 is able to receive it.

Note the the “Looking for computer” state in the screen is correct and expected - when the SC5000 are connected to a computer (computer receives MIDI, computer recognises USB devices connected to the SC5000s, etc) they will show this screen until Serato is started and connects to them (at the moment Serato is the only only program capable of doing this).

Note that one thing is Serato connecting to the HDI server of the decks, and another is the computer connecting to the decks as USB devices. Even if no program has connected to the decks on HDI, the computer will be still be able to receive MIDI from them (and access the USB devices connected to them). Although the SC5000 only support Serato HDI officially, they still emit MIDI adhering to the MIDI protocol, so one can in theory create their MIDI mappings for MIDI software, such as Traktor (although those mappings will be of course not “official” and not supported by Denon.)

I would suggest to check in Windows that it’s receiving the MIDI signal, Traktor apart. You could try a MIDI monitor such as MIDI-OX. Or simpler, just open Ableton Live, Cubase or any one of those and check they receive MIDI (you can map controls to MIDI signals or the MIDI led lights up in the UI of the software).

On those Traktor mappings, I’m really impressed what the author achieved. I have some experience in Traktor mappings and his work is really good and implements so many features. However, the use of the jog wheel still requires some work and I did not find a way to use them with two decks for 4-layers (I think they were written with just one SC5000 controlling 4 layers in mind) .

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Your posts suggest that the SC5000 players cannot be used in any capacity with any other program other than SeratoDJ.

As user garrapeta nicely wrote, that is wrong. After a certain firmware update the players output general MIDI information which can be mapped in any software that supports user mapping (for example, there is a nice user mapping for a single SC5000 for Traktor Pro 2 online). Of course, with general MIDI no information from software will be shown on screen. That’s also the reason why no VDJ native support is yet available (they want Denon to send them tehnical info for screens) but unofficial user mappings that do not utilize screens are possible it seems.

Back on topic for the OP: there was one Win10 update that broke support for midi controllers but that was some time ago. So your question is valid and possible just I have no information if any current updates did that again.

As garrapeta said, check with midi monitoring software if your computer is recieving midi commands. Test with another cable if possible.

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Thank you garrapeta! Your answer totally makes sense. I will try a MIDI monitor to see what’s happening.

I still expected Win 10 (with denon driver installed) to pop up something when the USB cable is attached from the player in controller mode just to tell me that it sensed the connection and detected a new USB device (the player in controller mode is just a device to a PC), but instead is all quiet and no sign of any discovered USB attached device.

Normally any device, printer, phone, soundcards (external), usb thumb drives…you attach to a windows machine you will see pop ups alerting you that something is detected assuming the driver is present for these devices.

Just wanted to open this back up to ask if this is still the case in 2021?

It seems somewhat illogical to me that Serato is the only supported software if denon are trying to push engine prime. One of the great benefits of hid mode in rekordbox is the ability to manage your music direct in your library while simultaneously mixing on the players. (From the computer library). This makes music managing so much more fun… why would support be there for Serato but not their own software?

Having this available in rekordbox would be even better but I understand why there may be little motivation to make that happen.