Here is my review of the S4 after playing with it for about 4 hours for the first time last night.
Just to give you a bit of where I’m coming from, I’ve been DJ’ing over the last 10 years on and off. It’s always been a hobby of mine and I enjoy mixing house and trance the most.
From the beginning I use to mix using tape decks, yes tape decks! From then till now I have owned and rented all sorts of brands of DJ equipment from Gemini to Ecler which I recently own. I’ve also been using Traktor since the very beginning and spent days midi mapping out and tweaking the mappings of my Denon and Ecler.
So here’s my 2 cents on the S4:
Picked up the S4 and drove it home with a big stupid grin on my face like it was Christmas morning. Hooked it up to my ASUS 17” lappy (2GB ram can’t remember the other specs but it’s almost 4 years old).
First thing I noticed (this is coming from an Ecler EVO5 owner so bare with me) was the sound quality. Not as sharp as my Ecler but good enough, I’ll give the S4 an 8 out of 10 with the Ecler at a 10 for sure.
So I started playing with the settings and mixing with all the features before really setting it up properly. Here is where I see ppl can run into problems. You need time to read and go through the settings before rushing into mixing. It’s not plug and play and if you don’t take the time to go through the settings you will get stuck and run to the forms and bash the hardware as I’ve been reading.
Example: I plugged in my headphones and started cue’ing a track and noticed the level was way too low so I increased it on the hardware but still wasn’t loud enough to mix when the main speakers are pounding. First reaction was to post about it and return the unit because of this! I was a bit pissed but started looking into the settings.
I finally noticed the mix/cue volume in the software was turned down low so what do I do? Turn it to max!!! That should fix it right? Cue up a track and notice the sound is distorting in my headphones big time!! Yup the forms were right, the S4 sucks!!! Again my initial reaction. I then set the mix/cue volume to default and my problem went away!
So take your time when setting up!! LOL
Over all the unit is a bit large but the layout is great a spacious! I’d rather have the room to mix then be crammed and afraid of bumping into faders and knobs.
Not so crazy about the line levels, wish they had a yellow then red colour LED’s as my Ecler but I can live with it. I’m so use to my Ecler that I couldn’t go with the Denon MC6000 because of the way the line levels were made.
The feel of the unit is great but not the best. Wish they used all metal casing as Denon but the S4 has a way better feel then the Pioneer’s.
A couple of things that bugged me but maybe there is something I’m missing, (any help would be appreciated) are:
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When switching FX’s the knobs of the FX’s in the software don’t correspond with the knobs in the hardware? Not sure if there is a setting for this? So when I change the type of FX the knobs in the software change to a default setting, so I need to move the knob and then they sync together. That’s pretty annoying.
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Is there any adjustment for the cross fader curve? With my EVO5 I have it set up that the cross fader in the center with two tracks playing wont clip out the mains. I can’t seem to do this with the Traktor software. I know there is a soft and hard cross fader setting but even in soft if the fader is in center and both tracks playing the mains clip.
Ok that’s it for now, I’ll try posting more once I get more time on it. Over all my first impressions of the S4 is an 8out of 10. Only concern for me is the durability of it but time will let us know on that one.
I forgot to mention I had no issues with my laptop and sound using the newest drivers from NI and windows XP with a bunch of stuff turned off XP.
