Denon DN-mc6000 vs Reloop 3 (vs s4) !!

[GI Trackt]

Wasup everyone. Been reading DJTT for long time now, finally posting though. Soo I know there's a thread on the mc6000 vs s4 already. Just throwing the reloop 3 into the mix too...

Looking into finally buying a controller and I'm definitely leaning towards the DN-mc6000 over the S4. I like Torq more than Traktor (bc I grew up on Torq). I do however like the upcoming Reloop Mission III though. Any opinions? The main thing pushing me towards the Reloop is just the fact that its going to be cheaper than the Denon mc6000. Not sure how I feel about the 2 physical channel faders (even though you can still control 4 decks). Plus the Denon is a stand alone mixer which is siiiiick.

Probably going to map my controller either to Traktor Pro or to Torq 2.0. Any thoughts? Basically asking on thoughts bw the Denon and the Reloop. Budget is important, but they're all relatively close!

Reloop Mission III : $700 (supposedly)
Denon Dn-mc6000: $800
S4: $900 (not really looking to get this bc I actually prefer Torq).

I've done lots of research and know a lot about each controller. Just wanna know what you guys are thinking! Thanks!

p.s. DEFINITELY looking forward to DJTT reviews of dn-mc6000 and Reloop Misison III

[qyzyx]

I own the DN MC6000, and have been writing a reply to this post for the past six hours. Yeah, sorta got carried away. On the plus side, due to the lack of reviews on the net (seriously, Denon marketing is fucking abysmal) about this unit which I lovingly caress on a daily basis, it's the most in depth review you'll find, and it's unbiased since there's nothing I like more than being an unsatisfied customer. I overshot the character limit by about 50%, so it would be a very healthy 2 posts, and I'm kinda thinking it might be a bit overkill for a response. I guess I'll post it on request, maybe in its own topic.

Short version: It's fucking awesome.
Almost as short version: It's fucking awesome, but could have been perfect with a few key features left out to keep the price low.

[GI Trackt]

Dude! post post post post! Definitely looking forward to your review! This is the one place on the net where we indulge ourselves in our passions. Your post won't only help me out, but will help people around the world! haha. Thanks for taking the time man. 2 posts or whatever you gotta do would be awesome. Thanks homie!

[l0rdr0ck]

Anyone notice that with a minor XML hack, the MC6000 can control SSL decks with the
platters.

[Kaek]

That XML hack is available for a wide variety of controllers but yes someone has already posted a youtube vid of it for the MC6000

[qyzyx]

Dude! post post post post! Definitely looking forward to your review! This is the one place on the net where we indulge ourselves in our passions. Your post won't only help me out, but will help people around the world! haha. Thanks for taking the time man. 2 posts or whatever you gotta do would be awesome. Thanks homie!

Alright, regarding the Jockey III: I've never seen it in person, you'd have to ask someone who was at Namm about it. Anything else is speculation, but I can tell you that with only two channels on the mixer section, it'll be a huge pain in the ass to do anything with 4 decks. It's absolutely vital to have all your EQs, faders and cue switches readily available when playing 4 potentially badly clashing tracks at the same time. Like the mc6000, they're saying it's a standalone mixer, which I'm guessing is digital because low budget analogue units sound like garbage. Again, the quality of said mixer is the definition of nebulous at this point, so you'll have to wait and see how the eqs sound. It looks like it has balanced outs, but only TRS, so they won't be as hot as XLR outs, and it's easier to find XLR-XLR cables lying around than ones with TRS at one end. Pretty minor issue though.

(Wow, big post here. I formatted it to keep it from being the Great Wall of Text, but you can only do so much in a forum post. Parts that I think are more important are bolded.)

Now the Denon controller. I can be alot more specific about this one, since I own it. This is a review from a cynical person who's not afraid of regret, so take comfort in the fact that I've included all the shit that Denon wouldn't mention. To begin with, I could've bought this or the S4, which I had been excited about for months. I was disappointed, to say the least, when the people who had the finances to snap up the first batch reported that it was nearly unusable on windows vista/7. Since products that come with software keys can't be returned, I decided not to risk it and went with the mc6000. The S4 still looks awesome and truly is one of a kind (until the new traktor release ), but I'm not nearly white enough to own a macbook pro, so...whatever. That being said, I'm completely satisfied with the mc6000. Using it with Traktor Pro 1.2.7, and it's running perfectly on windows Vista (Note: make sure you upgrade to at least sp2 (sp3 for xp), thought I had a dead unit until I installed it). The denon asio driver is fucking solid. My laptop wasn't build for audio work; 2.0 ghz dual core, 3g ram, ricoh firewire chipset, and no doubt low end chipsets driving my usb 2.0 ports. Despite all that, I can still get it down to 3-4 ms latency without glitching out, even with a spike to 1000 microseconds of dpc latency every 10 seconds.

Build Quality

Body - The whole thing is matte black steel, build like a tank and just as heavy. The only visible part of the body that isn't solid metal are the left and right ends, where the actual chassis is covered by silver plastic. This part is removable so that you can install the included rack ears if you want to use it in a case. Immune to fingerprints unlike the S4, and doesn't reflect light.

Faders - Upfaders could be smoother, especially since they're so short. Crossfader feels good, but I don't scratch, so take that with a grain of salt. Pitch faders could stand to have a little less resistance. They stay totally locked in to wherever you leave them, no shift at all, but they're kinda short, and less stiffness would've made it easier to do micro adjustments to get it right on the mark. But then, I don't build controllers, so I'm not sure if that would change anything. Might be limited by the resolution, more on that later. Also, the fader tops come off. Ouch, sounds bad right? Read on. The first time it happened, it was pretty alarming, but I stuck the top back on anyway and started a mental shitlist of reasons to return the unit. It happened again the next day, but on a different fader. Upon closer inspection, the tops aren't fixed on; they just have a slot for the actual metal fader. I can only guess that this is by design in case you wanted to switch them out or replace em. Regardless, they only come off when handled the wrong way, and a dab of crazy glue would obliterate the problem if you were worried about lost fader tops in a dark booth.

Knobs - Great stuff here, nothing that I would actually complain about, but there are some things to mention for detail's sake. There are no kill buttons, not enough room I guess, but there are workarounds. When mixing with the controller, it's a full kill eq, so you don't need em. When mixing with Traktor, the knobs are in midi and you could easily map the kill as a shift function. I don't cause I'm lazy and don't mix in traktor as detailed below.

Interface/Sound Quality
No problems here. The interface is pretty regimented though; the only sample rate is 48k, and the only resolution is 16 bit digital going in and 24 bit analog going out. I know that the S4 goes up to 96k, but I've only ever used that for production and don't see the use of it on a DJ interface even if my laptop could handle the extra load. Also, it can't pass timecode. Moot point for me since I don't use turntables, but I thought I'd mention it since it's the deciding point against for some people. The S4 can't either, but NI have promised to include the feature in an update, and it's Traktor timecode protocol, so it's a no brainer for them. Then again, NI makes alot of promises they don't deliver on, and it would have to mean that the S4 sound card was already timecode capable, otherwise an update would mean new hardware. If you want to use the mc6000 with timecode, you'll need the extra hardware to support it. This really doesn't seem like a downside. Honestly, how often do you see a Traktor Scratch certified controller? And don't say the Xone 4D; if you can afford/carry one of those, you can afford/carry the addition of an Audio8.

Layout
No points for originality, but it's hard to get this part wrong. There's a rulebook I guess, since everyone threw a shitfit when NI put S4 the transport controls under the jogs. Check out some pics to get a good idea of it. When my laptop is centered above it, it extends about 2.5" outward on either side. I'm not gonna lie; the EQ "block" is pretty cramped, so you'll have to get used to turning the eq knobs with your fingertips instead of between your index knuckle and thumb. That's how I usually do it anyway though, feels more precise to me. Some people don't like the asymmetrical pitch faders, but I don't mind it, and I've never bumped the left one on accident. I'm also right handed, so it actually makes it a bit easier to fine tune the pitch. Poor lefties though...

Continued below. Stop whining, or I'll assign you a book report on it.

[qyzyx]

Continued from above. And you thought I would show you mercy.

Meters - Getting the bad out of the way, starting with the channel meters. They look great, 6 green leds up to +0, 3 yellow up to +10, 1 red for peaking, all labeled as such. Kick the shit out of the S4's pathetic meters. It's a good thing they're such high quality, cause you only get two of em. Both controllers kinda fail on this front. Pick your poison I guess. The mc6000 meters have a switch just above to assign them to either both inner channels, both outer channels, or master L/R. Not only that, but when mixing with traktor, they don't function at all, so expect some screenlooking. Bleh.

Mixer - Good news, the built in mixer sounds great, much better than mixing in the box. Plus, you don't even need external sources to use it; you can mix with this legit hardware mixer straight out of Traktor. If you flip a switch on the back, the interface starts converting the separate channels of usb audio to analog before sending each to its respective channel. It's essentially a digital w/ external mixer setup, but everything is right in the controller. Bad news, the sound card only has 4 mono outs (8 probably would've bumped it up to $1000), which means 2 stereo decks with the hardware handling the cueueing. It's the first major downside for me, as this thing is an absolute BEAST when using the built in mixer. Channel meters are active, fully adjustable xfader curve kicks in, any latency when using the mixer section is gone. Make no mistake, the mc6000 works fine as a midi controller with 4 decks running, but with 2 decks, it's the best all in one solution, period. But all hope is not lost, because you can still hook up some cd decks and have traktor giving you audio at the same time. Matrix input on every channel, with 2 line (selectable on all channels) and 2 auxiliary (selectable on 1 and 4) channels. Not sure why you'd buy a midi controller to mix with 4 analogue inputs, but it's possible. TRS booth out with separate volume, eq, assignable to any channel or the master. EQ for each mic input, with ducking and delay as well. XLR and RCA mains, standard shit here (*coughS4cough*), basically everything you'd expect from a $500-$700 mixer, but with filters and efx left to the software.

Transport Controls- 4 hotcue buttons with a switch to toggle the remaining 4 which backlight green rather than orange, though they're labeled as sampler buttons since VDJ has em, and I guess traktor will too pretty soon. To those who haven't used denon gear before, I'll describe the standard Denon button used on pretty much every model they make, including this one: they're hardened rubber, with a definable center that the rest kinda wobbles around to make em easier to press. They'll work no matter what way you hit em, and have a nice solid click, but these are not arcade buttons. Cue point juggling is possible, but don't expect any midi fighter virtuosos to be rockin these. Still, they're more rugged and have a better feel than most, and have a distinct, professional, almost futuristic look, and the rubber diffuses the leds to give a beautiful solid glow. I can't tell you how dope this thing looks in a dark room. Moving on, the jogwheels are amazing...for jogwheels. Smooth as a greased midget, dead on center, high resolution, etc., read the product sheet for specs. The sides have a raised pattern to give better grip, but the top is a little smooth. Thinking about covering em with something for better finger traction. But despite being incredibly well built physically, they're still using midi...and midi sucks balls. For pretty much every controller, midi's slow transfer speed is unnoticeable for every control except the jogwheel, where the heftiest streams of midi commands are being used to control the software's most time sensitive function. I don't scratch, but I know that there's definitely some latency going on here. This is where both lose to the S4, or itch if you prefer Serato, both of which have specialized software to take advantage of much faster protocols. So yeah, scratching on small jogwheels is kinda lame and looks profoundly stupid, but if you're still too cheap to buy some turntables and scratch pro, then go with the S4. You might not be able to scratch (Alright, you can make the wiki wiki sound on it. Hip hop DJs will still laugh at you though.), but beat matching isn't too tough. Even with a good 50-100 ms of jogwheel lag, I can usually get the track to within a quick pitch bend of what I need it to be. Alternatively, there's an auto sync button if you just can't be bothered with all that stuff.

Misc Shit- I didn't know where to put this in relation to the review, but you might want to know anyway:
1. While using the hardware mixer, the up/xfaders, eq knobs and gain knobs all stop sending midi. There's nothing you can do about this, even if say, you're using autogain in Traktor and want to use the gain knobs for something else. But using the software mixer, if you wanted to have dedicated filter knobs on all 4 decks (without using shift + parameter), you could map the gains to do that. I thought about doing this, but I don't trust autogain and don't use 4 decks enough to care.
2. I had the idea of using the deck switch mechanism to also switch to FX units 3 and 4. You can't do this, at least not in any way I've discovered. All switching the decks does is change the midi channel, and all 4 decks have unique mappings that only work on their channel. Sadly, both fx sections are linked to Deck A, making them unaffected by channel switching. Looks like you'll have to cough up $1400 for a 4midiloop to get full control of traktor's effects.
3. There's some wasted space for Traktor users right beneath the browse/loading area, I think they're VDJ buttons squatting on my controller. In Traktor, they do absolutely nothing beyond some useless utility functions that you'll never use.
4. Mic EQ and Xfader curve adjust are on the front, which bothers some people. The mc6000 is shorter (looking at it from the top) than most controllers, so I don't really see these causing space problems. Then again, I wouldn't be happy if I pulled it out and saw a bunch of knobs at the bottom of the bag.

Here are some numbers
Build Quality - 5/5
Sound Quality - 5/5
Versatility - 4/5 (No built in timecode support)
Faders & Knobs - 4/5 (Faders aren't perfect, but they're still quality)
Jogwheels - 5/5
Pricing - 5/5

Final Thoughts-
I have no idea how Denon managed to fit so much into one travel sized package. It looks great, feels great, works great. It's closer to being perfect than any midi controller we've seen so far, and doesn't require a top shelf computer to run. As usual with Denon, you're getting way more than you paid for, who've raised the bar for price and value in a controller. If their marketing hadn't been nonexistant, it could have been a club standard by now. But at this moment, you can be assured that it's the portable, professional and high quality controller that we've been waiting for, and that no one will ever notice.

[GI Trackt]

Continued from above. And you thought I would show you mercy.

Meters - Getting the bad out of the way, starting with the channel meters. They look great, 6 green leds up to +0, 3 yellow up to +10, 1 red for peaking, all labeled as such. Kick the shit out of the S4's pathetic meters. It's a good thing they're such high quality, cause you only get two of em. Both controllers kinda fail on this front. Pick your poison I guess. The mc6000 meters have switch just above to assign them to either both inner channels, both outer channels, or master L/R. Not only that, but when mixing with traktor, they don't function at all, so expect some screenlooking. Bleh.

Mixer - Good news, the built in mixer sounds great, much better than mixing in the box. Plus, you don't even need external sources to use it; you can mix with this legit hardware mixer straight out of Traktor. If you flip a switch on the back, the interface starts converting the separate channels of usb audio to analog before sending each to its respective channel. It's essentially a digital w/ external mixer setup, but everything is right in the controller. Bad news, the sound card only has 4 mono outs (8 probably would've bumped it up to $1000), which means 2 stereo decks with the hardware handling the cueueing. It's the first major downside for me, as this thing is an absolute BEAST when using the built in mixer. Channel meters are active, fully adjustable xfader curve kicks in, any latency when using the mixer section is gone. Make no mistake, the mc6000 works fine as a midi controller with 4 decks running, but with 2 decks, it's the best all in one solution, period. But all hope is not lost, because you can still hook up some cd decks and have traktor giving you audio at the same time. Matrix input on every channel, with 2 line (selectable on all channels) and 2 auxiliary (selectable on 1 and 4) channels. Not sure why you'd buy a midi controller to mix with 4 analogue inputs, but it's possible. TRS booth out with separate volume, eq, assignable to any channel or the master. EQ for each mic input, with ducking and delay as well. XLR and RCA mains, standard shit here (*coughS4cough*), basically everything you'd expect from a $500-$700 mixer, but with filters and efx left to the software.

Transport Controls- 4 hotcue buttons with a switch to toggle the remaining 4 which backlight green rather than orange, though they're labeled as sampler buttons since VDJ has em, and I guess traktor will too pretty soon. To those who haven't used denon gear before, I'll describe the standard Denon button used on pretty much every model they make, including this one: they're hardened rubber, with a definable center that the rest kinda wobbles around to make em easier to press. They'll work no matter what way you hit em, and have a nice solid click, but these are not arcade buttons. Cue point juggling is possible, but don't expect any midi fighter virtuosos to be rockin these. Still, they're more rugged and have a better feel than most, and have a distinct, professional, almost futuristic look, and the rubber diffuses the leds to give a beautiful solid glow. I can't tell you how dope this thing looks in a dark room. Moving on, the jogwheels are amazing...for jogwheels. Smooth as a greased midget, dead on center, high resolution, etc., read the product sheet for specs. The sides have a raised pattern to give better grip, but the top is a little smooth. Thinking about covering em with something for better finger traction. But despite being incredibly well built physically, they're still using midi...and midi sucks balls. For pretty much every controller, midi's slow transfer speed is unnoticeable for every control except the jogwheel, where the heftiest streams of midi commands are being used to control the software's most time sensitive function. I don't scratch, but I know that there's definitely some latency going on here. This is where both lose to the S4, or itch if you prefer Serato, both of which have specialized software to take advantage of much faster protocols. So yeah, scratching on small jogwheels is kinda lame and looks profoundly stupid, but if you're still too cheap to buy some turntables and scratch pro, then go with the S4. You might not be able to scratch (Alright, you can make the wiki wiki sound on it. Hip hop DJs will still laugh at you though.), but beat matching isn't too tough. Even with a good 50-100 ms of jogwheel lag, I can usually get the track to within a quick pitch bend of what I need it to be. Alternatively, there's an auto sync button if you just can't be bothered with all that stuff.

Misc Shit- I didn't know where to put this in relation to the review, but you might want to know anyway:
1. While using the hardware mixer, the up/xfaders, eq knobs and gain knobs all stop sending midi. There's nothing you can do about this, even if say, you're using autogain in Traktor and want to use the gain knobs for something else. But using the software mixer, if you wanted to have dedicated filter knobs on all 4 decks (without using shift + parameter), you could map the gains to do that. I thought about doing this, but I don't trust autogain and don't use 4 decks enough to care.
2. I had the idea of using the deck switch mechanism to also switch switch to FX units 3 and 4. You can't do this, at least not in any way I've discovered. All switching the decks does is change the midi channel, and all 4 decks have unique mappings that only work on their channel. Sadly, both fx sections are linked to Deck A, making them unaffected by channel switching. Looks like you'll have to cough up $1400 for a 4midiloop to get full control of traktor's effects.
3. There's some wasted space for Traktor users right beneath the browse/loading area, I think they're VDJ buttons squatting on my controller. In Traktor, they do absolutely nothing beyond some useless utility functions that you'll never use.
4. Mic EQ and Xfader curve adjust are on the front, which bothers some people. The mc6000 is a shorter (looking at it from the top) than most controllers, so I don't really see these causing space problems. Then again, I wouldn't be happy if I pulled it out and saw a bunch of knobs at the bottom of the bag.

Here are some numbers
Build Quality - 5/5
Sound Quality - 5/5
Versatility - 4/5 (No built in timecode support)
Faders & Knobs - 4/5 (Faders aren't perfect, but they're still quality)
Jogwheels - 5/5
Pricing - 5/5

Final Thoughts-
I have no idea how Denon managed to fit so much into one travel sized package. It looks great, feels great, works great. It's closer to being perfect than any midi controller we've seen so far, and doesn't require a top shelf computer to run. As usual with Denon, you're getting way more than you paid for, who've raised the bar for price and value in a controller. If their marketing hadn't been nonexistant, it could have been a club standard by now. But at this moment, you can be assured that it's the portable, professional and high quality controller that we've been waiting for, and that no one will ever notice.

Dude thank you so much for taking the time to write such an in depth review. This is exactly the type of reply that every person who posts a question on a forum wishes to get! Just thought I'd mention that this was the first time I ever posted on DJTT and you gave me the best answer possible. Good looking out bro! I completely agree with you on having only 2 physical channels controlling 4 decks. That definitely can get messy. Definitely looking forward to mapping this out to Torq 2 soon. Thanks again for putting in the time for the reply. :-)

[DigiDom]

Continued from above. And you thought I would show you mercy.

Misc Shit- I didn't know where to put this in relation to the review, but you might want to know anyway:
1. While using the hardware mixer, the up/xfaders, eq knobs and gain knobs all stop sending midi. There's nothing you can do about this, even if say, you're using autogain in Traktor and want to use the gain knobs for something else. But using the software mixer, if you wanted to have dedicated filter knobs on all 4 decks (without using shift + parameter), you could map the gains to do that. I thought about doing this, but I don't trust autogain and don't use 4 decks enough to care.
2. I had the idea of using the deck switch mechanism to also switch to FX units 3 and 4. You can't do this, at least not in any way I've discovered. All switching the decks does is change the midi channel, and all 4 decks have unique mappings that only work on their channel. Sadly, both fx sections are linked to Deck A, making them unaffected by channel switching. Looks like you'll have to cough up $1400 for a 4midiloop to get full control of traktor's effects.
3. There's some wasted space for Traktor users right beneath the browse/loading area, I think they're VDJ buttons squatting on my controller. In Traktor, they do absolutely nothing beyond some useless utility functions that you'll never use.

Thanks for the review - I agree with most of your comments.

I can't believe this can't pass timecode - huge oversight imo. I'm looking at a hardware bypass, but since I just got it, I'll wait a little bit to see if someone else who know electronics a little bit better than me to take a crack at it...

In Traktor it's possible to assign FX3/4 - just change the mappings on the fx to include a modifier (M2=0), assign M2=1 (toggle or hold, whatever your preferance) to the little EFX button in the middle of the mixer, then duplicate all the FX controls from FX1/2 to FX3/4 but with M2=1.

It can get pretty complicated, especially when you start adding in light output, but it's possible.

You can add all kinds of functionality with those 4 useless buttons below the browse/load area

I've been working on a better tsi, and will post it when I'm happy with it.

[FUFR]

I bought a Denon mc-6000 last week.
I love it even more than my VCI.
Can't wait for the weekend so I have finally some time to play with it again