KONTROL s4 - Where is the INnobender?

[JSM]

@JSM: The main point of the Innobender is not for sound quality but for reliability. The standard faders that most manufacturers use for MIDI controllers is usually something that a DJ who does lots of scratching can break in a matter of weeks. The S4 fader is one of those faders that's easy to break. This is not nearly as much of an issue for DJs who do mostly mixing and little or no scratching.

Also the cost of the Innobender is due to several factors:
- durability
- longevity
- ability to adjust cut-in and curve
- special mechanical adapters to fit the very large fader into small spaces
- ultra-smooth fader operation with tension adjust.

Elliot

it would be nice to hear from someone other than the salesman ! I was talking to the actual DJ's who use this. Can you really hear the cuts change? Is the NI fader that bad ? I can't hear a difference in the response times ... it would be useful to have a side by side comparison with a quality scratch DJ, doing the same cuts etc.

As for reliability Elliot...hmmmm ..

I have a Gemini PMX-7 sat in the living room, bought way back in 1989, never serviced (cleaned and oiled a few times) nothing replaced ... and it still works perfectly well.

BTW Elliot, it was one of the first scratch mixers, and i used it for almost 3 years non stop before upgrading to a unit with FX. and after that it was a backup unit.


I'm interested to hear how many people have actually worn out a x-fader .. i certainly haven't and i'm not gentle with mixers ... all i do is clean them periodically and store them safely after gigs.

[DJGRiM]

Uhhhhh... Some DJays actually us the fader and the one on the S4 isn't so great. The innobender allows tighter cuts and much better performance and longevity. If you own an S4 and you beat your fader up like us, who gig out 4 nights a week and scratch vinyl time code or CdJ like it's our duty you will need an innobender soon!!! There is a story somewhere on the net about a kid that got an S4, and 2 months after purchase his fader went byebye and he couldn't get a replacement anywhere!!! It's also called replacement parts, call NI and try to get one!! Hahaha that's a joke!!

[JSM]

i am gigging regularly each week, and have done for the last 25 years... the only equipment failure was a mainboard on a DJM800 and two really poorly built VMS4's ..nuff said about those the better.

Also if an NI unit failed after two months it's covered in the guarantee ... opening up the S4 for any reason invalidate the same guarantee .... so i have to be dubious over "there's a story on the net", because according to the net, there's fish on Mars, the last three presidents of the US have been aliens ... you get my drift.

Facts are needed, not speculation.

So I ask again, does it REALLY make a difference, is there ANYONE using one right now ....

[emarx]

@JSM:

The older Gemini mixers actually used good scratch faders based on the Alps long body fader design (may even be the actual Alps long body fader design - we'll need Professor Bx to get on here to confirm). The most popular derivatives of the Alps long body fader currently on the market are faders made by TKD in Japan. They go under the brands Flex Fader for Denon, CP-Pro for Numark, and CF-PCV etc. for Vestax; all of them use a long lasting carbon + conductive plastic film along with very sturdy brushes.

The one issue with all of these designs is as you know contact faders require cleaning to work. Surprisingly not too often but still a bit of maintenance. Non-contact faders like the Ecler Eternal, Rane magnetic, and the Innofader are designed to get around this drawback. Our focus with the Innofader and Innobender is to allow DJs to use such a technology in whatever mixer they want, and we've expanded to DJ controllers.

Again, no need to elaborate too much because I'm representing my own Innofader design, so I'd say try posting your questions on a bunch of other forums with many scratch DJs like Skratchlounge, DJ Forums, and Serato. I'm sure you'll get plenty of responses!

[emarx]

@JSM: BTW Most crossfaders aren't covered in the guarantee, read the fine print. Even if they say the crossfader is covered NI may claim that the failure is due to mishandling or something like that if it does wear out.

Also if possible please write to me directly about the VMS4 issues you found to audioinn@audioinnovate.com. It's unrelated to the S4 so I'd like to take this offline.

[JSM]

emarx .... i won't be contacting you "offline" to discuss the VMS4, i know you designed that and that you know me personally ! You have insulted me plenty of times of the VMS4 forum, that was then and not now ... i'll not be drawn into another battle.

At least you are not a moderator on this forum and can't have me banned!

So onto the issue at hand.

If any product fails after two months, it's time for your money back! It's called "not fit for purpose" in legal terms.

I have asked the same question to may scratch DJ's, and they don't see an improvement over the latest non contact faders. Most of them are still happy with P&G's

But getting back to the point ...the S4 is a MIDI controller, there are no analogue streams to mix ... are you really improving the response time (and therefore cut speed), can you REALLY notice a difference .... and if you are a full time scratch DJ, why are you using an S4 in the first place, a rane/eccler with DVS is far superior to any MIDI control system ... thats why i still have the Pioneer & tech12's.

[emarx]

@JSM yes I do recall the discussions on the ADJ forums. Actually the feedback you gave was instrumental to generating a lot of internal discussion at ADJ and getting ADJ and myself to fix these issues. The various noise, low output, and distortion issues are all fixed on the VMS2, VMS4.1, and VMS4 Traktor. You have every right to complain that these issues weren't fixed prior to the product being released the first time. Unfortunately what many companies do (and I've made a lot of noise internally many times on this exact point) is they use their first few production runs as a "beta test" when what they should be doing is setting up a team of beta testers doing everything possible to test products way before customers ever see them.

I just thought if you found other VMS4 production quality issues that we don't know about (esp parts not holding up mechanically), sending email is perfect then I could get it forwarded to the appropriate people.

About the S4 crossfader: If someone scratches for hours per day on the S4 crossfader, it's going to wear out faster than normal. I think the people who came on this thread just want a practical solution and if they have an S4 that is otherwise fully working they just want to get an upgrade fader.

[DJZILCH]

it would be nice to hear from someone other than the salesman ! I was talking to the actual DJ's who use this. Can you really hear the cuts change? Is the NI fader that bad ? I can't hear a difference in the response times ... it would be useful to have a side by side comparison with a quality scratch DJ, doing the same cuts etc.

As for reliability Elliot...hmmmm ..

I have a Gemini PMX-7 sat in the living room, bought way back in 1989, never serviced (cleaned and oiled a few times) nothing replaced ... and it still works perfectly well.

BTW Elliot, it was one of the first scratch mixers, and i used it for almost 3 years non stop before upgrading to a unit with FX. and after that it was a backup unit.


I'm interested to hear how many people have actually worn out a x-fader .. i certainly haven't and i'm not gentle with mixers ... all i do is clean them periodically and store them safely after gigs.

i worn out a pioneer djm-400 xfader in about 2 months when i was scratching heavily, i dont know if that was normal or if it was a defective unit but i sent it for repair and then sold it

after that i learnt that if you are into scratching, non-contact faders is a must, i have since then bought a Rane TTM-56s and very happy with it so far, but i am really looking into upgrading my S4's fader into an innofader as well

by the way elliot, is installation very easy?

[emarx]

i worn out a pioneer djm-400 xfader in about 2 months when i was scratching heavily, i dont know if that was normal or if it was a defective unit but i sent it for repair and then sold it

after that i learnt that if you are into scratching, non-contact faders is a must, i have since then bought a Rane TTM-56s and very happy with it so far, but i am really looking into upgrading my S4's fader into an innofader as well

by the way elliot, is installation very easy?

The Innobender installation for the S4 is fairly standard. You pretty much just prepare the Innobender as shown here:
http://www.innofader.com/installations.php?id=30&pid=11
and then mount it inside the S4. Most of the difficulty will be removing all of the screws holding the plastic case together and opening & closing the unit back up.

Pioneer uses just a standard carbon crossfader on the DJM-400 so it's pretty normal with frequent scratching that you wore it out in 2 months.

Elliot

[JSM]

Elliot, sorry for the long delay, but i was waiting for an official line from Native Instruments.

Two points really.

If any of the NI faders fail (for any reason) they will be replaced under warranty.

Opening up the S4 will cancel any warranty left, at the moment it's two years from sale.

In other words put an Innobender/fader in the S4 and kiss goodbye to support, or if in 18 months the S4 soundcard fails ..... tough. No warranty whatsoever.

If you don't like my answer, take it up with Native not me.


-----------------------from native Instruments--------------------------------------------

Hello Mark,

Thank you for contacting Native Instruments!

1.) If any hardware has a technical failure within the warranty period, we´ll replace it.

2.) Please note that warranty will be void if the device is opened by unauthorized persons.

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