eks: the xp5? good controller?
has anyone heard of the xp5?
is it a good controller?
hi resistance i own a pair of xp10s and they are pretty good.
off the top of my head…
pros:
- you can use them with an external mixer
- jog wheel feels nice and the touch sensitive area is cool
- sound card isn’t bad
cons:
- buttons are a little hard to push at times
- tempo slider feels a little plastic
- build quality isn’t GREAT
i haven’t had any problems with them as of yet and i got them for reasonably cheap.
i own a pair of xp5. i use with traktor/virtual dj and they work fine.
pros:
very good touch sensitive jog wheel for traktor/bison
hig resolution pitch slider
cheap price (usd129 each from florida music but not include traktor le)
cons:
sould quality not very good
poor console. no volume control (i have to set the volume from window xp control panel)
cheap plastic button and pitch silder
no knobs for fx parameter
i use them as controller only, so, sound quality is not a issue for me. i never had problem with them also.
yeah man, i got traktor 3, a trigger finger for all my knobs and stuff.
its just i dont know whether i should get and vestax vci-100=$500
or
two xp5’s with a midi mixer such as m-audio’s xsession pro?=about $360
what do you guys recommend?
these buttons are really, really hard but the faders and jog wheels are nice!
It’s so strange they don’t have any knobs. Seems like a huge draw back.
hmmmm. the addition of a trigger finger to my set up has solved the knobs and buttons problem.
use my xp’s for cueing (jogs), tempo and file navigation/track loading etc
work great
What do you do about effects?
trigger finger 
I seriously thought you meant your index finger. After Google set me straight: LOL.
That’s a who’s on first moment.
“When i raise my trigger finger all you ******* hit the deck” 
Sorry the junglist in me couldnt help himself
Seriously though, there is no piece of hardware out there that will do everything. It seems every piece of hardware on the market is made to have something next to it to fill in the gaps. The difficult part is picking a small number of controllers that will give you a large variety of different controls to play with.
I’m still thinking about 2 XP5’s with a DDM4000.
I like the idea of the VCI 100/300 but I prefer the idea of seperates so I can expand/change components if I feel the need.
The Stanton SCS.1d looks like a nice peice of kit. Still gives you the feel of old skool DJing (to an extent) but has a fek off massive price tag!!
XP5’s seem to give you a good compromise. There are alot of different opinions, some say they are a good midi unit for scratching, some say you can’t scratch with them! Who knows, it’s a fekin minefield out there !!!
Stace 
I forgot to mention that I also use an external mixer with my XP10’s and Trigger Finger, so all the fading, eq and limited fx are done with that.
As for scratching, they are probably better than most controllers out there as the jog wheels are larger than most, and they feel really good. However the software is very important when scratching. I found Virtual DJ was much better for it than Tracktor, Deckadance is also not so bad.
I’m in no way an expert on it though as I can only do some basic scratches.
← Not me! Just a video to give you an idea.
sorry to bump this old thread but i got a xp5 to experiment with and i’m trying to control both decks in deckadance with one xp5, anyone know how to change deck focus?
thanks
charo, how do you like them? I’ve been itching to get the xp5s because they’re so cheap. I dont’ know if I should.
i just got one so far. like mentioned, the buttons are hard to push and when you push some of the buttons the case creaks a little. a little hard to get used to coming from the vci-100. I’m sure build quality varies a little from unit to unit.
The jog wheel is really nice IMO, spins much nicer then the vci-100 jogwheels.
I haven’t tried the audio out yet, using it as a controller only so far.
I normally use deckadance with the vci-100 and tried it with the xp-5, but at the moment it can’t switch deck focus so it only controls one deck. there is a custom mapping for virtual dj that works very well and enables you to control both decks with the one xp-5.
the bison software is pretty interesting, i would like to try it more if i had two xp-5s, but you can only control one deck with it like DD.
I’ll probably try and tinker with Traktor as well. probably looking to make a rig consisting of the xp-5 and my evolution mk225 midi keyboard for controllerist experiments while leaving my vci-100 and DD as my main mixing rig.
can anyone explain more about the high resolution pitch fader? in bison, the pitch fader increments were .01, which is nice compared to the .1 of virtual or whatever DD’s is. how does one utilize the higher resolution of the eks pitch fader
4 XP10 AND A DDM4000
haha 4 of them ! nice dude
Whats your opinion on the xp10’s ?
i went with the xp10 over the xponent and vci and the like because i wanted a stand alone mixer with effects.
the only issues with the xp10 is the buttons are a little stiff and some signal noise, but thats sorted with some ground loop isolators.
i got 4 because i didnt want to rely on the focus view and wanted dedicated decks for a b c and d, and at 99 euro its a sure thing vs the otus which is super expensive without a pioneer logo.
allen and heath with 4 touch sensitive jogs would be cool but not available yet.
so 2 little niggles, i would recommend to anyone.