great news that means now i can record my sets at a decent lvl cos the prime 4 records it way to low.
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I fully understand the love for Serato, I’ve been using Serato for years now. There are many things stand-alone is missing compared to Sdj. But what I meant is guys wanting to switch between the two modes (serato & standalone) during a set.
Totally agree with this.
You could use the serato import feature in engine prime software to import BPM, cue points etc no?
Ahhhhh well yeah! Gotcha! : )
You can do that, but there are two things I don’t like about doing it like that. First one is the way that EP imports the music onto a drive. I like to keep a folder structure in place in case for some strange reason the search function doesn’t find a song, I can manually go to that folder & find it. Secondly EP doesn’t have elastic beat grids, so any transition tracks bpm/grids get totally wrecked by EP.
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Having now tried (for no more than 1 hour each) both VirtualDJ and Serato with my Prime 4 on Controller mode, I figure the Prime 4 internal mixer in standalone mode to me sound waaaaaaay better than the afore mentioned programs. I may be wrong of course, IDK, maybe it’s my old ears…
As stated, I did not have enough play time with neither VDJ, nor Serato when using the Prime 4 in controller mode, but I came out of my first experience with both apps with a meh sound feeling I cannot shake.
Will try again for more time over the weekend and post back if I find different results. But for now, I want to congratulate the DenonDJ team for the amazing sound quality of the Prime 4 internal mixer.
In the meantime, have any of you guys and gals, noticed something similar?
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I guess this is all to do with the power of your laptop, as your using the processor to power seratos mixer. Whereas the P4 internally runs itself so no problems. I know what you mean but I think with a few spins and getting the settings right the sound could be close to as good as the P4 mixer.
I’m gonna listen back to the recording this morning which should tell me what the quality is like compared to a P4 recording. I do agree though, using the serato mode has kinda opened my eyes to how good the mixer in the P4 is. I just dont like the EQ settings they are too basic
Video.
For me, I’ve totally stopped using Serato DJ since my P4 arrived in June/July but at work I have a video wall I’ve not even able to VJ on. Until Denon DJ give us video I’ll keep switching but I’m loving standalone.
You are very right on the HUUUUUUGE
I’m not sure of the serato mode as I do not to use the laptop anymore and only ever had toy of virtual Dj when I did use the laptop.
It is good that denon did what a lot of the users ask they for. I think serato could have be the big big pusher of that request compatible too. Serato and the other DJ software traktor must both too be keen of being see on standalone product in any way to extend their serato or traktor life use
Uhm… Never thought about that, but here goes: The notebook is an Apple MacBook Air with an Intel Core I7 processor/16GB of RAM and 256GB “Apple” (Samsung, really) SSD drive, running macOS Mojave. It never really occurred to me that the ARM processor inside the Prime 4 may be better than the Core i7, but it may as well be, IDK.
I know it’s a stupid question but have you played with the buffer size?
I have not, but will try that over the weekend. Thanks for the idea. I did not have any pops, clicks, or anything like that which should occur if the buffer is too low. Also, the processor on the Macbook also never seemed to shed a sweat while using those programs. I think it all comes down equalisation and levels being different from the builtin Prime 4 mixer and the other apps I mentioned.
When you say "sound waaaaaaay better" what do you mean? Louder? Brighter? Punchier?
Straight media players “can sound louder” than going through software.
In serato for example - your autogain level will come to play, if its low then output is low, switch off autogain in Serato and compare again.
Adjust gain of each track manually in Serato and compare again.
Serato should sound as good as the sound card being used with those things turned off.
eg i have various hardware and they all sound different, to me the best sounding controller i ve used with serato is the roland dj 808. denon mcx8000 and mc6000mk2 also sound great (better than the SR2, SX series). All subjective findings btw.
Thanks @mufasa I haven’t messed with Serato (nor VDJ) sound settings while playing with the Prime. All settings are just like they were before, when I used those programs with my Pioneer DDJ-SX2. I’ve been a user of those products well before buying the Prime 4…
I thought I was wrong, it should have been the tunes that I chose, but no. I went back and forth between standalone mode and controller mode, trying the same tunes, with the same headphones and yes, in standalone, it DID sound better to me.
I know it’s subjective and difficult to explain, but sound better in this case meant all the three things you said: louder, brighter and punchier - while keeping all knobs in the Prime 4 at the same settings between each try.
Hi,
I have upgraded P4 to v1.3.3 and now the FX Parameter button of right deck is not working. Any idea on resolving it?
I’ve played with the Prime 4 for more than 7 hours straight on Serato and I definitely agree that the sound is very “different” and overall better when using stand alone mode. Not bad in software, but MUCH crisper or warmer sound than with SDJ.
However, the times I’ve used Virtual DJ, it sounded phenomenal. The MCX-8000 had a great sound but the VDJ for some reason made it sound so much better.
If you guys haven’t ever tried VDJ, it is well worth it, with nothing out there comparing to features.
I also, used the latest 1.4 firmware without too many issues with Serato. The only issue I saw was a slight freeze only twice during the whole set I was recording in Serato. Recorded Flawlessly and with proper volume.
Again, only the channel faders affect the recording in serato, though there is a recording level adjustment in the software as well.
Good stuff guys.
EP messed up Many of my BPM’s and beatgrids. When testing, I had both EP and SDJ open on my Macbook.
I’m using the following method to correct songs:
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When I knew the beatgrid was off in an EP gridded song, I just dragged the song directly from the EP library to a “Reanalyze” crate in SDJ and reanalyzed the song.
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I drag the song back from SDJ to EP and the beatgrid was now correct, along with BPM.
other than reanalyzing my whole drive in SDJ, anyone else doing anything similar?
Soooo refreshing being able to NOT worry about BPM and beatgrids being off now that it has Serato compatibility.
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Heyyyyy, sooooooo am I reading correctly? Are you saying EP messed up your existing Serato library’s grid info? : /
No, havent really noticed the beatgrid messed up in Serato, only in the EP library as others have stated.
I actually have a separate, duplicate drive specifically for Serato if it was needed and the SSD internal drive for Denon.
I have an adapter that lets me use the Denon drive as an external drive on all my machines. It also contains a copy of the Serato drive that it imported to create the existing Denon drive.
It just plugs into the drive like a cable.
Hope that is not too convoluted. Serato and EP keeps their beatgrid map in their own library database for the same song on the drive as far as I know.