As said, tomorrow I am going to receive my Prime 4.
After a very disappointing approach with Traktor S4 MKIII, I wanted something different, and since in HIFI world Denon is way far better than Pioneer, I wanted to give them a chance.
But now I have a lot of doubts: I love mixing 70/80 music, and the awful beat gridding offered by Prime Engine make me feel as I chose the wrong way. I downloaded RekordBox and fed him with some very nasty tunes that on Traktor needed around 60/70 beatmarks to stay in sync… and it did it flawlessly at the first try - ok maybe they need some fine tuning here an there, but the whole thing sounded pretty ok.
Is it true that when I was in my 20 I used to mix with my SL1200 without any problem, so I may say “who cares”… but you know, the neighbor grass look always greener.
Let’s see, I will try this one, if will work I will keep it… if not I will move to a DDJ1000 or the XDJ-XZ.
Please, tell me I did not make the wrong choice, and Denon will come soon with a new versione of PRIME.
They’re on it, i have to admit… there is much room for improvement here, but i am sure by giving them the right feedback they will mold the app to perfection, it just needs time…
I mean if you compare V1 of Rekordbox back in the day to their version now…
They’ve come a very long way…
I predict a similar progression with Engine Prime. Just be a part of the supporting community.
You made the right choice I used pioneer for 5 years it was ok but denon is awesome in build quality and sound quality I used Traktor and rekordbox and prefer engine over both of them.
That depends on how you want the 70/80s music to sound
Do you want them to be one fixed bpm instead of fluctuations? Warping - Engine Prime, Ableton
or
Do you want them to stay on grid but with fluctuations? Flexible beatgrid - Serato DJ, Rekordbox DJ
Whilst we are all waiting for the promised improvements to Engine Prime on how we use option 1 and add option 2 , you can download Serato DJ which is licence free to use with your Prime4 as I see you are considering getting a DDJ1000
the solution 1 should be the best, but I have to buy Ableton. Then I have to do the warping of any track manually, since it does not do that automatically. Such a waste of time.
Serato is not able to manage flexible beatgrid, at least as rekordbox. So I have to do event here manually all the fix.
It looks that Rekordbox is the best one here. The choice to send the Prime 4 back looks seriously close: for my need, as the software is right now, is impossibile to use.
Exactly: the only one that seems to make a really good job is Rekordbox: you put a couple of '70 tracks, it analyze them (with the dynamic beat grid analysis), it puts the beat markers, and when you mix them it keeps them perfectly aligned, no mistakes.
With all the other softwares you have to put manually beat markers, check the whole track, add beat markers here and there, and the result is still poor.
I expected at least from Serato a good job, but it looks that I am not able to set it to analyze dynamic tempo tracks…
If it helps I’m also disappointed in the p4, I’d have thought they’d been making DJ equipment for long enough and had enough DJs using the units that they’d know what was good or bad or what was needed
I am in the same boat. Just got mine coming from VJ world and producing with Ableton. Used to have Serato with a Novation Twitch years back and the flexible style beat gridding was available then. Worked fine. Now I am finding StageLinq isn’t as nice as it is advertised let alone not open enough a protocol that I could find a way to work it with TouchDesigner. I am looking at the Engine Prime beta now that is supposed to have improved the beat gridding but to say I am having buyers remorse would be somewhat accurate. I won’t be doing shows for a while given the worlds situation but I would hope by then the developers would at least reply to some of these topics.
I just received the Prime 4, and I have to admit that is a fantastic toy.
Played a little bit with some tracks downloaded from tidal “on the fly” and after few minutes I was totally into it. Very easy, very intuitive. Of course Prime Engine is very primordial… super basic. If the fix beat gridding and something here and there, this machine has definitely the potential to run a club… since for my experience looks pretty wasted used just in a room.
I started using Melodyne for warp songs and it looks pretty good at it. Honestly I do not get how Ableton works since when I warp the track it does not change anything… but since I am not into it, it depends by me.
