A few questions about the x1800

I’m a producer, iv’e been looking around for a mixer that meets my needs. I’m playing around with the DN-X500 analog mixer right now, it does most of what i need… but I think the x1800 is the one that would work best. i’ve been going over the features, and have a few questions.

first, my setup. I have 2 ableton laptops and an MPC live, all going into the mixer. the x500 has a post feature, so the MPC does drums & samples on post, and the 2 laptops are set to A & B, and I crossfade between them.

I need a few things for this setup to work- i need post-fader mixing, either built into the DJ mixer, or the output of that could go into a normal mixer. also, I need midi-out from the mixer, mostly just for the crossfader. this will be to control the lighting. each laptop has a DMXis and the lighting is controlled by midi. so as i fade the audio from A to B, i want the lighting to fade as well.

1- midi out. this is the dealbreaker. i need a mixer with midi control for all the parameters, not just stop/start. going through the manual & the explainer videos, it looks like this midi port doesn’t hav ethe full spec? it just sends start/stop messages?

2- USB outputs. those look like they would work fine for me, apparently the mixer has a full USB audio interface built in? or rather, 2? i want to hook up the laptops to these, not have to use a separate interface, and send 4 stereo channels from each laptop. so it looks like that will be possible?

3- link ports. again, it looks like this isn’t a full-spec’d ethernet router, but just for denon’s proprietary syncing standard? so I wouldn’t be able to plug a laptop into the pc port and send 4 stereo audio channels through it?

so to conclude, the USB ports would be convenient, would eliminate a lot of cables. having post mixing on the DJ mixer is very nice, but not required. the one big thing i can’t see a way around is full midi control. if this thing’s midi is limited, then i’m back to the drawing board.