Since Denon DJ announced the 6000 series of players and a refresh of the mixer, are we going to see a vast improvement in Engine Prime to accompany the new players? They’re nice, they’re shiny, they’re probably amazing considering the hardware has always been amazing, but there’s no point in getting excited for these players if the software is still lagging far behind its competition. We still need:
-Better beat grid analysis
-Flexible beat grids
-Better library organization
-Ability to organize crates how we want
-RGB waveforms (preference)
-A better phase meter (preference)
-Smart crates
-Better GUI, especially when moving Playlist around
I like new hardware, but it’s meaningless without good software. You’re three years into Engine Prime and the competition is still leaving you in the dust. Put your focus elsewhere.
In the middle of all the hardware announcements was this, probably the most important and welcome part of the equation.
Our next updates are just around the corner!
Later this month we will go into public beta for new versions of both Engine OS and Engine Prime.
• Engine OS ‘SoundCloud Public Beta’ – SoundCloud brings the greatest selection of music from the most diverse creator community on earth to both our SC5000 and SC5000M players plus the PRIME 4 Standalone DJ console.
• Engine Prime ‘Sync Manager Public Beta’ – The brand-new Sync Manager brings easy and straight forward file management capability to Engine Prime. Manage and synchronize both your external media and internal hard drives easily, elegantly and efficiently. Any performance changes made on the drive during your set can also be synced back to your computer with just the push of a button. In addition, this update will add support for macOS Catalina and Apple Music too.
So (this is me again now lol) using denons new terminology for firmware (for the players) and software (for windows and Mac) later this month (that’s denons words too … THIS month…yaaaa!) there are going to be public beta testing of Engine OS (firmware as it used to be called) and Engine Prime (the software on PC/muc)
Apple users don’t have to rely on their phones to perform live on stage, in front of, maybe, thousands of people who expect to enjoy what the DJ in front of them wants to deliver.
On the other hand, it is true that some potential issues are hard to identify given the various hardware and software setups on the users computers. But still, what is essential to work, both on database preparation side and hardware manipulation side, it must perform flawlessly out of the box. Options can be added or modified in time, but essentials are a must.
You know what’s funny. The sc6000/m when released will be in the same state as the 5000/m. They’ll be asking for the same things as most are asking for now because most believe new software features will come out of the box when buying the 6000/m.
I believe we’ll get the crucial updates just because of the pressure from the new product releases alone. There are certain expectations now for flagship decks.
The same expectations apply to all audio equipments, decks or standalone units, regardless of the flagship title at the moment of release, because all must perform as intended and expected.
When I bought my 5000m it performed out of the box as I thought it would. The firmware updates brought features I never imagined these decks would have. For me there is only one thing in my opinion thats missing and that’s on deck beatgridding.
When I come home I turn on my set and start playing around and practicing then I check the forums and read people complaining how they can’t dj without this or that or something is holding them back or that denon needs to do this or that. I have a good laugh a lot of the times but then I go back to playing around and practising because that’s what I need to do. lol.
I am the same. We all know that there are the many styles of DJing and some of those style ms may rely on certain features. I don’t think any of the Prime decks are missing any features but I do believe that some of the existed features could be improved.
All the essentials are there, as long as the person using the decks has some essentials themselves. The problems appear when neither the hardware nor the person using the hardware has the essentials.
To me “public beta” implies that In-Music don’t have the resources to code and beta test the software and firmware internally themselves.
A public beta is a cheap and effective way to find bugs without hiring a team to do so, and also generates interest in a product without having to spend extra on marketing costs. It’s a win-win for everyone. We get to test new stuff before release and help find issues, companies get what they want without spending extra money. Nothing wrong with public betas. The issue is when a public beta is weeks or a month before actual release because that’s not enough time to implement and test new fixes.
I’m going to fully dispute this. Can’t go into reasons why, but you are very wrong. Have some faith…
I’ve been waiting over two years for Engine Prime to catch up to the competition. I’ll believe it when I see it. And if it happens, I’ll be the first to come to the forums and praise Engine Prime for being well-rounded software. Until then, I’ll remain skeptical.
Yeah chiming in here re “public beta” — software that is mission-critical absolutely needs to go through a public beta. There’s only so many scenarios and setups that any software company can test internally. A public beta allows a lot of people to test all kinds of edge cases that would never come up in internal testing.
A public beta is to everybody’s benefit, and isn’t a shortcut (tho it can be used that way also!).
Basically with every OS update and software update that hits my professional workflow (graphic design) I don’t upgrade until I’ve heard from folks that it’s working well. That’s good practice for anything software or hardware when the stakes are high. It’s the only safe way.
Ideally yeah, companies can put out flawless products. But despite all the work people put into it, it just doesn’t happen with complex system. Hell, just be glad these DJ software problems aren’t killing plane-fuls of folks (hello Boeing …) …
NO company, with the exception of NASA and Flight systems “Has” it right out of the box.
Even then, those type of companies have screwed it up with ALL major players having ph.d’s…Boeing and others come to mind.
If you think companies like Microsoft, Apple,Google, Etc don’t have public beta’s or need them then you have no idea of software/hardware development in the real world.
This is understandable, as most people never have to experience this development cycle.
Now we get down to the level of InMusic and it’s companies and hopefully you understand this is NOT mission critical type of development. Sure we want it to be reliable for entertaining thousands of people, but people don’t die if it doesn’t work right on stage.
The other companies mentioned can purchase InMusic, Pioneer and all their competitors outright if they wanted and they STILL use beta testing.
Beta testing is not the scandalous trick to dupe the customer into doing the company’s dirty work but a VERY important part of the development cycle.
Sorry to be blunt here @kradcliffe but you’re very wrong and its troubling to read your post. We have hundreds of engineers, developers and testers all over world and are very capable of releasing software/firmware without beta periods. We did this for years but recently realized that by involving our community in our process, we could build better products. This has been proven effective time and time again by the most successful companies in the world.
We have already confirmed this is on our list to address soon.
I noticed the Prime beta was fairly quick in being updated, WAAAAAAAAY quicker than we’ve been seeing official releases from Denon. This is a nice and very welcomed change, and I hope Denon can keep this up in 2020.
