Engine Prime 1.5 almost ready

Guys, I think Engine Prime 1.5 is almost ready for the official release: on the youtube channel it is already possible to see the presentation video of the new functions. Engine PRIME v1.5 Software Update

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nice find @DjAj! it must indeed be close to release

some points that stood out to me:

ā€¢ Only ā€œimprovedā€ bpm detection not a word about dynamic grids. Since we all scream for this for over 3 years I would imagine that if dynamic grids were part of the update it would be addressed as a feature in the video. Feels like Denon DJ is holding on to itā€™s ā€˜warpā€™ functionality. But we will know when the update lands. My playlist of old soul/funk tracks is ready for analysis.

ā€¢ (this is speculative, I havenā€™t played with EP 1.5 yet I take this from the info provided in the video) Backup/restore only seems to work for metadata regarding tracks stored on the drive that holds your OS user ā€œhomeā€ folder (usually ~/music/). This means if your tracks are stored on another partition or volume the EP metadata will not be backupā€™d.

I would like to know if drives prepared with this version of Engine Prime require new firmware on the Prime player side. Or that those drives will keep working with all gear on firmware 1.2.1 or higher.

Since the last released version of the original ā€œEngineā€ was 1.5, I would have held off on the 1.5 designation and go with a 1.7 to avoid any confusion.

Good news. I think prime 4 new firmware must be around the corner.

The new preview column is a nice touch. Donā€™t understand why that was never implemented from the beginning. Hoping this will be available soon

Well as you just said, its a ā€œnice touchā€. It is not essential functionality so quite understandable that it wasnā€™t included in the initial versions.

I understand that they are building the whole ā€œprimeā€ environment based on our needs, and this is also a good thing. Initially a certain function is not provided because ā€œnobody thought it was necessaryā€, then after several requests and months of use they understood that it had to be implemented and so it was. Probably if there hadnā€™t been the Covid Virus problem in recent months, we would have received faster updates. But now the important thing is to start.

Given that Engine was meant to take on Rekordbox, and this is one of the handy features Rekordbox has, youā€™d have thought they wouldā€™ve stuck it in there from the get go, essential or not, but weā€™re getting it now, so no worries

I donā€™t know much about what it takes to build software, but Iā€™m sure something like that wouldnā€™t be to much hassle to add in. Even if they thought it wasnā€™t necessary they mustā€™ve knew a number of people found such a feature handy.

Surely there will be a new firmware for the players, otherwise the analysis of the BPM would be different when done in stand-alone on players with old algorithm.

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Credit where credit is due this is progress so keep the updates coming, i am sure Denon knows they have more to do to catch up with Pioneer i wonder whether the next update will have the desired features that being said 3 years is a long time and I do not want to be introduced to new hardware if the software still laggy.

Just hoping that the denon team roll out the software before the weekend :cowboy_hat_face:

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@TheHrdRebel maybe it will be the weekend gift! :wink: :grinning: :grin:

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For the reasons mentioned above, about a track that Engine prime 1.5 says is one bpm but the deck reads it as another bpm, I donā€™t think theyā€™ll release engine prime 1.5 until they have firmware for all engine prime compatible hardwares. So theyā€™ll need to have firmware simultaneously ready for

5000 (and m) 6000 (and m) Prime 4 Prime 2 Prime Go

and MCX although they might have to add some caveats there instead. There might not be the brainpower for mcx to keep up with prime - it might be more a mcx firmware update that doesnā€™t re-analyse bpm on the mcx if thereā€™s an engine prime 1.5 Bpm value in place in the database

true, but the player doesnā€™t need to analyze tracks if EP has already analyzed them. The video says that tracks analyzed wit the older algorithm will need to be re-analyzed to take advantage of the new BPM detection.

The significant word in my remark is require new firmware. In other words. will a drive prepared in EP 1.5 still work on older firmware versions (=backworth compatible).

If You update Your complete system, why should you want to go back?

True, if you dj on an island (or your bedroom) then this is not important.

However if you qualify for one of the situations below it becomes extremely important to have back-worth compatibility:

  • the venue you play at happens to have a Prime system in the booth.
  • You put Primes on your rider for your first festival gig
  • The friends you back to back with have Primes

In neither of those situations itā€™s guaranteed that the players are on the latest firmware. And stage managers are not happy if you decide to upgrade the (rental) equipment minutes before the gig. Given they allow you to upgrade them at all.

edit and Iā€™m not sure this is an issue at all in ep1.5 since Iā€™ve not yet touched the software. Just saying.

true, however if you have the luck/quality that your sets on mixcloud have gone viral, then changes are you are booked for a festival and that means you can put Primes on your rider if that is your platform of choice.

Donā€™t forget Denon DJā€™s mision is to conquer a pressence in the DJ booth :wink:

Iā€™m on record to be the Switzerland of DJ gear and software. At the same time I have my preferences. I fully agree with your ā€œmuch more work is neededā€ remark. But from the day I got them the SC5000/X1800 has been my preferred performance platform of choice. This is over 3 years ago and I paid full price. If it wasnā€™t for my own tools to implement the Primes seamless in my workflow I would have returned them and never looked back.

Updates are more than welcome!! The improvements to the standard functions are getting their final settings, thatā€™s cool!

althoā€¦ based on all those suggestions the forum deliveredā€¦ i kinda expected some more in those directions :confused:

I completely understand tho! The fundamental features need to be solid to go onto extra details later on ā€¦ F.E. The database / file - sync needed a more stable coding to avoid corruptionsā€¦ letā€™s hope that got improvements!!

Thx Denon for providing a new update! Letā€™s hope itā€™s more solid than the last, i truely hope some small workflow suggestions weā€™ve made will see the light very soon now!!

I really hope they donā€™t, rule number 1 in software development: No deployments/releases on Friday.