What do you think about Gemini MDJ-1000?

[NiltonOffBeat]

A comment from the YouTube video above:

"I'm going to return 3 of them! I've tried USB, Hard Drive, linked, mapping on Traktor. IT'S BAD! They are very very unstable, the software still keeps lots of bugs. The guys of Support are good, and try to help for every problem, but is not enough! I'm still wondering why Gemini introduced this product not in perfect conditions!"

Very good question that nobody from Gemini can answer though.

[Paulymorph]

As said here: https://www.discogs.com/fr/group/thread/671034

"Gemini? Gemini is made for kids. straight-up. Are you 13? Great product then."

One record shop I was visiting recently had a Gemini turntable for listening. Terrible piece of junk.

Even if it's not directly related to MDJ-1000, Gemini is bad. End of story. Gemini should just stop existing.

[deevey]

Even if it's not directly related to MDJ-1000, Gemini is bad. End of story. Gemini should just stop existing.

Gemini have their place in the ultra low end market and without manufacturers like them alot of respected dj's would not have been able to afford to buy their way into being a DJ in the first place.

They manage to put high end tools in low end gear and give bedroom dj's access to big-boys-toys at a fraction of the price. Lets face it the parents of a 15 year old kid aren't likely to shell out 3k or 4k for a pioneer setup to feed a hobby, but happy enough to spend $500 bucks on a Gemini CD setup even if its not perfect.

Where I really have issues with gemini is not even the quality of their gear but the sheer blatant design theft of other manufacturers designs going back to the mid 90's.

I used to sell their gear back then and despite it feeling like junk and sounding at best mediocre, rarely was there too many issues besides replacing faders. The hardware is reasonably solid, just don't expect to use it professionally.

Most complaints about Gemini Gear seems to always come from guys used to playing with "real" equipment, which really isn't their market anyhow.

In the case of this particular unit however they screwed up - bigtime. They rushed out a new shiny product and now over a year and a half later bugs are only being fixed. Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad.

A recall should IMHO have been made as soon as the flaws were found.

[PartyMcFly]

i support direct competition with pioneer but if you put a rekordbox usb in from an existing rekordbox library and it just gives you a flat folder tree to scroll through without metadata or waveforms, it's pointless. it's not competing with pioneer at all without interoperability.

it totally sucks but nobody will find something that doesn't work with a rekordbox usb useful in the long term. kids who start out with a set of these will switch to rekordbox when they get booked for their first set and find out their gemini usb's cue points or tempo ordering or whatever are completely ignored on a pioneer deck.

[deevey]

I support direct competition with pioneer

This isn't about direct competition, certainly not at the price-range. It's about getting used to a the basic functions of CDJ-style-units at a fraction of the cost.

$1200 = 2x MDJ's + Mixer

$1200 = 1x Pioneer XDJ1000

And the XDJ's are the low end Pioneer Players.

it's not competing with pioneer at all without interoperability. it totally sucks but nobody will find something that doesn't work with a rekordbox usb useful in the long term.

Again - not competing, and they are not supposed to be long term - its like training wheels for DJ's.

Do you like DJ'ing ? Yes > Proceed to purchased CDJ's / XDJ's and move up your skill level.

kids who start out with a set of these will switch to rekordbox when they get booked for their first set and find out their gemini usb's cue points or tempo ordering or whatever are completely ignored on a pioneer deck.

You don't "need" any of those features to be a decent DJ ever. And starting out I'd never recommend a newbie uses them without first knowing the basics. Even catching and releasing a single cue point on-time can be a chore to alot of people starting out.

Secondly, on-the-fly track selection and reading a crowd is a bucketload more important than playing a pre-programmed set with oodles of cue points and cheap units like these (but not these) help new DJ's initially.

[PartyMcFly]

jfc i'm really sorry i made you spend all that time on this unsubstantial reply.

[Paulymorph]

" Overall: This product falls so short. The player responds poorly and is not suitable for using in a live performance. It's prone to freezing and the interface is klunky. It in no way shape or form is comparable to Pioneers products. The Vcase software is a joke. My thoughts are that there are so many problems with this product, that Gemini will discontinue it. There's too many things wrong with it. When you call Gemini they just seem to be bandaging a severe wound. The product is just not a serious tool. It's more like a toy than a piece of equipment. While the better option would be almost three times the $$$. You would at least get a reliable professional product. Not something that may cost you a Gig or a bad rep. "

Reviewed by zZounds: https://www.google.fr/shopping/produ...44821474642149

[Reticuli]

The pitch resolution of the fader is my current biggest complaint about the hardware, but to be fair, it is not hugely worse than Pioneer and Denon. I've been sort of spoiled by the Hanpin faders. Granted, the Pioneers can do 0.05% at 16% and that's twice the Gemini, but the Hanpins' pitch resolution blow everyone else away, it seems, at wide ranges, even compared to the CDJ2000NXS2.

I can't imagine the MDJ has less inherent hardware capability than my Hanpin players. I hope Gemini scale-back the MDJ's current capabilities in a kind of passive mode that you can turn on in the settings, and then portion by portion, feature by feature attempt to improve various extras and automated "cheat" capabilities. Simply getting rid of the split screen in the browser and pushing that knob in causing the ID3 tags to show instead of the current automatic loading of ID3 tags and art on the right would help. Or even just letting ID3 tags and/or album art be optional in the settings to replace filename in the browser. In combination with passive mode this would, I believe, make them usable in a live setting... assuming link issues clear up, too, which considering right now it's two-way is, I think, a safe assumption. With split screen in the browser, I can't even see my full file or folder names on the MDJ currently. Without having to display file names, ID3 tags, and album art simultaneously during browsing and also without a lick of analysis, the Hanpins have no issues very rapidly moving between tracks on very large drives, they have no perceptible latency, hot cues are clean and precise, and are very stable. I obviously can't be certain about the potential of the MDJ, but I am hopeful. Furthermore, I would probably keep activated such a passive mode that shuts off analysis and all writing to the drive to speed up any browsing, track-loading, and general response regardless of how improved the visuals and cheats become, but that's just me.

V-Case does have some serious issues in its basic function and features, as I elucidated in my Amazon review, but if the former MDJ usability was addressed, V-Case features and behavior would be secondary or a non-issue for me. V-Case could certainly be useful for some people even now in its current limited state, as long as you realize how it deals with your library and where it's storing the analysis files, some issues that might need to be mitigated by the user through links/junctions.

I personally also don't think the Pioneer standardization thing is valid. I use the Hanpins and Geminis at home and the Hapins and Pioneers gigging, and I have no issue using my flash drives on Pioneer CDJ2000NXS2s. If you're dependent on waveforms, pre-analysis, and pre-set cue points and playlists, then you can always prep your boring, non-spontaneous, pre-prepared set on whatever free software Hanpin (under various brandings), Gemini, Denon, or Pioneer have available based on the gear you intend to use. Since that's playlists, anyway, most people who do that get one specifically ready before the gig.

[Paulymorph]

The pitch resolution of the fader is my current biggest complaint about the hardware.

I can't imagine the MDJ has less inherent hardware capability than my Hanpin players.

V-Case does have some serious issues in its basic function and features.

That guy called "Rene" seems to be loving and having zero issues with his units. Troll or paid guy from GeMEHni?

[Reticuli]

I don't recall seeing the database search function in the manual, which is extremely sparse currently. I've noticed the MDJ's ability to make a database when you hit shift plus push in the encoder. I'm curious if it's possible to take a large pre-existing drive and use the MDJ to create a database on it. I would think it'd take a very long time. Maybe there's some way to add a "create database" feature to V-case that is separate from the normal library system and could take advantage of your faster computer for analyzing pre-existing drives, while not requiring the creation of a playlist. I found that taking a pre-existing collection on a drive and putting it through V-case was essentially useless other than creating a play list somewhere else. Now that I think of it, I'm not even sure if the database feature is connected to the pre-analysis or not. I have not tested it.

Oh, another issue I have with the MDJs right now: you're limited to 25% pitch range when you use Link. I hope that gets cleared up, too, not the pitch resolution is high enough to be particularly useful at those even wider ranges. Who knows, though.