Still no elastic beat grid?

Hi,

Do we continue in this update for the Denon SC5000M without the possibility of adjusting the grid elastically directly from the device (to shrink or widen it, thus adjusting the BPM, in case it was incorrect)?, that is, can we only move the grid for the beats, but keeping the BPM?

Nor is there the option to manually enter or edit the BPM of a track from the device? Some tracks, for example, have 138.13, when in reality it is 138.00.

Or have I missed something in the brief manual?

Thanks.

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Just wait if they add it to the player screen they’ll mention it in a future update.

There are flexible beat grids on engine prime for the preparation part of DJing before doing a show

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Wait another year? The programming time for each update by the Denon development team is enormous, almost a year for each update, for small features, which other applications already included as standard in the launch of their first versions.

Or… Wait for Denon SC8000M? Do you think I’m crazy?

Now, tell us, when those applications started, and how long time took them to get to the place, their already are now…?

Engine is the youngest dj data base management software so far. 4 years only… Same goes for Complete Engine Operating software. How fast You write an operating system core with all it’s features? This things take time, testing, refining, beta testing, adjusting, removing bugs etc…

I think you need to look at what Rekordbox did on release and then revise your statement. Of course, there’s loads of stuff Prime could add (should?!?!?), but they have really accelerated development, and that has been during COVID, 2-3 years more and the eco system will be superb.

@noiserider

Is the following enough for you?

Serato ITCH 2013’s year (first versions)

https://www.allen-heath.com/media/XONEDX_USER_GUIDE_AP7820_2.pdf

strong text

https://support.serato.com/hc/en-us/articles/202856014-Beatgrids-in-Serato-DJ#:~:text=Setting%20Beatgrids&text=You%20can%20edit%20Beatgrids%20in,right%20hand%20Virtual%20Deck’s%20track).

Virdual DJ 7, 2007’s year

GRID SLIDE:* Press and hold this button and then move the JOGWHEEL to shift the position of the CGB of the track. Hold down SHIFT and press this button to reanalyze the BPM of the track and thus clear any changes you may have made before.*

https://www.virtualdj.com/forums/73226/Old_versions/changing_grid_marks_to_align_with_beat.html

https://virtualdj.com/forums/208985/VirtualDJ_Skins/SilverSleek__3.html

Even Mixxx that is open source has it: https://mixxx.discourse.group/t/four-bpm-questions-lock-assume-constant-and-more/17042

The Denon DJ developers are not inventing the wheel.

That is true, they are not inventing the wheel. But unless they have directly access to source code from other brands that makes this, they still have to implement it by them selves and “learn the path”. Sure, they know the end goal, but where to start and way to get there is something they need to think through, try to code, probably fail and re-do. Then you have test, beta, etc. Everything also depends how big their developer team is.

As a software Engineer in a Bank, we developed a system at a cost of almost 6 mill $. Lots of functionality and the project is almost 3 years old. Still lot to do and some features might take months to implement. You might see a button, but quite often it can be a LOT going on when that button is pressed. Also in COVID times, does Denon now earn more or less money? People will assume more due to their releases etc, but their sales surely impacts how many devs they hire and how much work they get done.

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DJ survey on DDTips - people spent more money on DJ gear during lockdown 2020.

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This has noting to do with Engine and current development situation. As I said - writing a whole operating system is not easy and needs time and patience. Serato and Virtual dj’s are not operating systems, they are programs, that need to relay on another operating system… Completely different situation.

Not so. Denon did not write an operating system.

The Prime hardware runs on Linux. That was already written, by other people. That part is done.

Engine “OS” is just the software that runs on the Linux OS, in the same fashion as VDJ, Serato, Traktor, Rekordbox et al.

And Mac OSX is Unix - same situation…?

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@stAMy

It is easy to see the situation and position yourself from the point of view and interests of the company. By the way Denon is a brand that belongs to the InMusic group. These big companies never lose money. In any case, they are always buying and selling lines of business as they are most profitable for them. That with the Denon brand they are making more or less money, to me as a consumer, I don’t care about.

When they sell equipment, they make a series of “promises” to correct functionality flaws that result in the equipment’s operability at the hardware and software level. In addition, customers, we buy them because of how they advertise before going on sale, at exhibitions like NAMM, that there will be frequent updates with improvements, in the hope that they will reach a minimum of functionalities that can make it, in the basic, almost like a conventional computer djing software.

I insist, if they have committed to making updates, they must do them well, that they are not a botch and do not incorporate practically anything new, after almost a year. In addition, there are many demands for functionalities in the forum that are not met, like mine. If they do not want to invest in hiring enough developers, because - according to you, they have not made money - that they directly abandon the project. To do something wrong or incomplete, do not do it. We will stop buying products from the Denon DJ bundle due to incompetence in software development that came with very high expectations and is not living up to it.

I have been using Virtual DJ since they made the enormous effort, great, admirable and fantastic total integration through the SDK, and I have completely ruled out using the Denon SC5000M units, because the failures in the analysis of the BPM of the tracks and not being able to solve it as easily as editing the BPMs or the elastic beatgrid autonomously from the units, not reading the labels correctly, not loading their rating, and the minimun information about the track that is displayed in a floating window when you press over it, that you can’t even see the quality of the track. A disaster and a horror at the software level.

Of course, i agree with @mufasa

DJ survey on DDTips - people spent more money on DJ gear during lockdown 2020

@NoiseRiser

I recommend that you take a look at the tweet thread of this user who hacked the firmware of the Pioneer CDJ-1000, leaving it as a CDJ-2000.

https://twitter.com/G33KatWork/status/1146860054718509056

This user, as you can read, mentions that the Pioneer software runs under Ubuntu 9.04.

So @PKtheDJ knows much better than you what he is talking about. I do not understand in any way the comparison with Mac OSX. In any case, the linux kernel and libraries are always there, and it is not the same as starting from zero, much less to develop Apple Watch firmware.

Nah not really here, there’s a script in the Engine OS (Linux) init section that literally just launches the Engine app on boot complete.

Though the Denon devs did have to add some things to Linux, for example the jog LED display firmware binaries and build kernel support for the SOC (although the drivers for that may have already been given to them by the manufacturer), but that’s really the extent of the Linux customisations.

We are coming to this point over and over again :slightly_smiling_face:

Of course when you’re developing such software, you usually try to not re-invent the wheel without reason.

Although building an OS is not rocket science. Don’t think about Windows or MacOS as an OS you would use on such a player. You need only very basic functionality, basic resource (cpu, memory) management, drivers for graphics, touch, USB and your custom hardware (jogwheel, knobs, switches, sliders, audio).

However, to save time and expensive dev resources, you would try to re-use an existing OS, and Linux is very welcome here, because it is “free” and already adapted to many different CPU architectures. The Linux kernel is not too big and self-contained. If you have custom hardware, you may have to develop a few kernel modules for hw drivers (if you cannot get this from your hw manufacturer).

From there you are building your stuff on top of the OS. But it is not like for any new feature you have re-engineer everything. Usually you build your software in re-usable modules. So e.g. you have the module to draw the simple graphics and text stuff, on top of that you may have another module which is managing opening / closing of windows and other layered stuff etc

So once you have already built all your modules, making changes to the “top layer” stuff - the real functionality - is usually not a big effort. It becomes a bigger effort if you have to re-write or even re-design parts of the modules which were already finished.

That being said, I believe a high percentage of the changes requested here are doable without too much effort. But nobody here knows how many people are really working in the software dev team at InMusic and how many products they have to manage.

EDIT: So as an example, the different “phase meter” some people (like me) were requesting: Most probably there is a module to draw this existing phase meter on top of the screen. So implementing another one, which better dsplays the beats/bars in a scrolled fashion, like we know and like from “other vendors”, would incoorporate very few things:

  • Add a setting for the phase meter style (or toggle with long touch)
  • Program the graphics display (really not too difficult)
  • Implement the scrolling and make sure the graphic output it is done in a timed fashion (so called at least 25 times/second) Honestly, done some software programming by myself, this is something which could be finished in a few days. But it has not been done for years.
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Ehm… where did I say they didnt earn any mone? If you havent realised, its COVID times and every manufacturer in the entire world struggles with delivery due to restrictions or missing components. I just ASKED a question if they earned more or less money than previously.

Neither did I say that they had to write the OS that Engine is built on themselves. I didnt even mention MAC OSX.

So stop crying about them not implementing your suggestions. There is lot more people than just you that doesnt get their wishes.

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Yes, when consider buying this player, only take the features into account which it has right now, not which features it may have in the future - agreed. You buy it “as is”, not what you might get in the future (besides bug fixes).

However, it is still frustrating to know what would be possible and to see how slow things are progressing, even because DenonDJ could be - in contrast to the “club standard” - be more agile because they don’t have to care for so many legacies which is the justification of the competitor to not implement so much new things.

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