First look at the Denon DJ SC5000 Prime Media Player
The new Denon DJ SC5000 Prime Media Player #changeyourrider
What an exciting day, getting to play with the new DENON SC5000 PRIME at the DJKIT showroom. Dan from DENON DJ bought not one but two of these space age looking DJ media players.
So first thoughts, even the boxes look appealing. Colourful with a picture of the SC5000 on it’s enough to draw you in and think what’s in there.
The players are sat either side of the DENON MCX 8000, the first thing that I notice is they look quite tall. Almost like they are on stilts but it becomes apparent this is a bit of an illusion. The bottom of the player is recessed to allow you to enter your media into the single usb or single SD card slot that is located where a cd would go on earlier style decks. It’s even illuminated so you can see what your doing under there in the dark. After a bit of thought this is a great place for the usb, it can’t be grabbed or snapped by accident like in other players. There is also a further two USB ports on the rear of the unit.
So onto the actual look of the unit, on Facebook I have read people say it “looks like the inside of an airplane cockpit” or “it looks cluttered”. When I first saw the pictures I must admit it does look difficult to use as there is a lot going on. But I think this is just because it’s a new design, a layout that you are not familiar with. I have used Pioneer CDJS for years and the controls are always near enough in the same place and operate in the same way. Now DENON has come along and made a new player that has controls and new ways of doing things.
So I was left to have a play, and guess what it’s so easy to use. Yes Dan showed me some features that are unique to this player but then I was fine. I wasn’t lost and unable to use it, I didn’t reach for controls and realise they were not there.
So what did I learn about this player?
It has a multi processor computer that’s capable of realtime track analysation. And once it has analysed the information it saves back onto the drive including beat grids, bpm and keys.
The new “Engine Prime” software, where you can prepare crates and import iTunes, Serato and Rekorbox libraries. Then export all this onto your Usb and you are ready to go.
Each device can hold 3 usb drives and one SD card, with the size of usb drives these days that is a LOT of music
You can network up to 4 units together using the built in networks ports. The X1800 Prime mixer has a 4 port LAN hub built in the rear.
The 7 inch ultra high quality screen on the player is 3 times the frame rate of any screen seen on the DJ market. It has a frame rate of 55 frame per second, and next to a Pioneer it really shows.
The screen is multi touch, allowing pinch zoom.
An 8 inch jog wheel with customisable led illumination. The led display in the centre of the jog wheel is not only cool but displays track artwork and real time information such as loop values. You can also add your own logo here, we uploaded a DJKIT logo into the screen.
The player has 8 performance pads for hot cues, loop, roll and slicer that can be deleted instantly and re applied.
The ultra high quality pitch fader has no problem or audio loss going from -50 to +50. If you don’t use key lock it will also tell you what key you are moving into when slowing or speeding up a track.
There is control for vinyl emulation slowdown speed and jog wheel weight. The unit has a dual layer function that has an RCA and digital output for each layer. This means one unit 2 layers on separate channels.
You can plug the unit into your laptop running Serato or Rekordbox and you will see the information on the screen you would expect from a DJ Equipment software controller. Safety mode, your stupid mate can unplug the wrong plug while a track is playing and you get ten seconds to mix or re plug the unit and give him a quick slap. If your same stupid mate didn’t get the hint when he unplugged the unit and pulls out your usb, the song that’s playing will continue playing till the end of the track.
Well the question on everyone’s mind is do I wait or do I go and buy them CDJ’s I’ve had my eye on. My advice would be go and have a play with the SC5000 as soon as you can. For the price this player is amazing, I’m now worried that once again my bank balance is going to take a hit because honestly I need one of these. It is fun and so easy to use. I have found myself getting a bit out of touch with CDJS and unable to use the unit to its full potential, however with the SC5000 I felt at ease. It is almost idiot proof the way it is laid out.
Do your research and do your testing. Will these be sat in night club DJ booths and take over the world?
Not overnight thats for sure, Pioneer CDJ’s have been industry standard DJ Equipment for years. But, and it’s quite a big but……these SC5000 have technology more advanced than any other player currently out there.
WATCH THIS SPACE
Click here to view the whole Denon DJ Prime Series
