Thinking of buying a Denon SC2900…
Anybody out there use them and have some pros and cons to share? I’ve read up on them and watched every vid I could find. Just looking for some “real world” experience, if you can share it. I’ll probably buy one to start and if I like it ok with Traktor, I’ll buy a second.
I’ve had a pair since they first came out back in October 2012 after trading in my CDJ 900s for them. They have been fantastic pieces of kit. They do everything my 900s did but with the added bonus of stuff like hot cues, jog tension adjust, separate start/stop time adjust, pitch bend etc.
They have also been more reliable than my 900s, having needed no replacement buttons etc in the 2.5 years of use. The build quality is second to none, the entire unit encased in thick durable plastic that doesn’t seem to scratch. Though the downside of this is they are over a kilo heavier than CDJs.
The jog wheel is excellent, it is mounted on a central spindle rather than the ‘floating’ jog mounted on plastic bearings that you get in the Pioneers. This means it is completely quiet, and buttery smooth at any tension setting, and also removes one of the failure points (the plastic bearings).
The only downside really is the screen. This wasn’t an issue when new as it was comparable to any of the Pioneer offerings apart from the CDJ2000. But with players like the XDJ-1000 now offering decent res full colour displays the 2900 screen does now look a little dated.
Also there is no HID support for Traktor (this was one of the first players to come out after NI seemed to pull the plug on offering HID). That said, for mobile gigs I use mine exclusively with Traktor in standard midi mode and it works absolutely fine. Yes there is no on-screen feedback (there are mappings out there to get track name / time elapsed etc onto it) but then with the low res screen it is not something that bothers me anyway. The feedback with Traktor is excellent, everything is mapped as you’d expect (hot cues / slip mode / looping / transport controls etc) and the jog response is excellent. I have no complaints whatsoever with it’s Traktor compatibility.
I believe it does have out-of-the-box display support in Serato though.
So yeah they are incredibly solid players, and the cheapest way to get media players that support all formats, network linking, quantized loops/cues (for Engine analysed tracks), slip mode, hot cues, jog tension adjust etc in a package with professional grade build quality.
However, I would argue that solely for Traktor use you would still probably be better looking elsewhere. Yes they do work extremely well with Traktor, but so will a decent controller that costs significantly less. Their biggest strength in my opinion is as a pair of standalone players, networked linked to a laptop/notebook/iPad running Engine software for track browsing. In this regard they offer a CDJ2000 experience minus the colour screen and needle search.
But that said, the price on these has come down loads in Europe since Denon were acquired by inMusic (they are half the cost of even the xdj1000/CDJ850) so if you find a good price on them then you can’t really go wrong.
I have also had a pair of these for over 2 years now, and agree totally with everything Irrational said. This part stands out the most though:
I would recommend the exact same thing. I have only used mine with Traktor a few times, because it’s a lot easier to just use them with Denon’s engine software. I am also a mobile dj, so I don’t really need all the fancy effects and stuff that traktor has, engine is more than enough for what I need. I do run traktor as well, using an MC6000, but that’s mainly for the beginnings of the evenings when I just want to set up a playlist and have it play by itself, which the SC2900’s running engine cannot do.
(Side note, I run engine and Traktor on the same red Asus laptop that Irrational shows in his pic!)
Funny you should mention the MC6000 because for our mobile setup my mate now runs Serato on an MC6000mk2 (on the red laptop) routed into my mixer. Whilst I run Traktor across my 2900s with the grey laptop. I also have Engine running on my Traktor laptop as it’s a good backup.
The only thing I’ve found is that for smaller gigs it can be a pain taking the 2900s (in two separate flight cases), along with everything else as we have a decent sized light truss system. So I am awaiting delivery (today hopefully!) of a zomo mc1000 to use with Traktor & my x1600 mixer. I will still use the 2900s for larger gigs but it will be handy to have a more compact setup for smaller stuff.
We have found that the MC6000k2 is just so good for mobile stuff (playing party stuff) that for instance last Saturday we just used that for 90% of a 7 hour gig with the 2900s setup as a backup. I think I played about 15 tracks on them! However for more dance-music orientated gigs I stick to the 2900s as we don’t strictly beatgrid our Traktor/Serato stuff and it’s a lot easier mixing on them than the controller.
You don’t make sense there.
If you use iPad then you not only have a colour screen for track browsing and loading them to players but it’s double the size of CDJ2000 screen. So the only minus is the needle search and the need to bring cables and a wi-fi network hub.
No.
But Denon did had a Serato Scratch Live XML map for Hybrid Midi mode which worked fine (all the LED’s worked correctly) then Serato DJ came and as far as I know there is a Serato DJ XML mapping but it still doesn’t have 100% working LED support.
Why didn’t you consider a pair of SC2000? They were like 110$ on amazon a while back.
Yes but you don’t get the big detailed waveforms and all the detailed live cue point / loop info that you get on the CDJ2000, which for many people is the main benefit to the big colour screen. Also you’d still need an iPad which not everyone has (myself included).
Ah ta for the clarification. I’ve never used them with Serato but I’ve seen a couple of videos of people who have and they had all the track info on screen so figured it was out-of-the-box.
I did consider those but I wanted something more compact, the Zomo is the same width as my mixer and is just a single unit. Plus the Zomo is currently only £75 ($115) and you only need one of them whereas the sc2000 is £125 ($192) and I’d want two of them… 
I love all things denon!
First controller I ever bought was the MC6000 mk1 and It survived many bad times haha.
I now own 4 DNS 3700s and a DNX 1500 mixer and they perform perfect!
I have had the chance to play extensively on the 2900s and the performance is excellent, great features and rock solid units.
I recommend to all dj, just practice on Denon gear in the house and play on Pioneer in the club.
True, but you do get that if you use Engine on a small netbook or laptop. Have no idea why they didn’t included that on the iPad version..
I also don’t have an iPad but for the price difference between a single SC2900 and a CDJ2000 you can buy not one but several iPads 
And Engine works great even on a second hand iPad 2. If I get a SC2900 I would definitely get a iPad just to use it with Engine.
It’s probably the same mapping file “hack” that was used to bring track name with Traktor (using part of mapping files from native Traktor/SSL Denon controllers and using them in a custom file). But I’m not sure so if somebody knows for sure please correct me.
Yeah, true.
You don’t get that waveform display in Engine when playing though annoyingly! Only in prep mode. Unless they have changed something recently that I’ve missed which is entirely possible!
Thanks for all the info, guys. You’re just reiterating what I’ve already found in my research but with “real world” usage of the units. I already have 2 Denon sc2000’s that work great as midi controllers for Traktor but the 2900’s would let me “untether” from the Traktor software if I wanted to, which is a plus. Do you guys find it painstaking to keep up both a Traktor database and an Engine database? Does Engine overwrite the Traktor metadata or vise versa?
They are cheeky little buggers, I just checked the YT video on Engine (I only had first hand experience with Engine on iPad) and they showed Engine prep mode with waveform on a laptop connected to the players. Misleading…
Yeah I know what you mean. I knew what to expect as I’d used Rekordbox in this fashion with my previous CDJ900s so I knew there would be no waveform in the software when playing. All of the track processing takes place on the players rather than the software (unlike traditional DJ software) so it makes sense that there would be no live waveform in the software, I can imagine that would be a tricky thing to implement.
If they could find a way it would be awesome, and for a while it was one of the most requested things on the Engine section of the Denon forums. I suspect if it was easily doable we’d have already seen it in Rekordbox though, the fact we haven’t suggests otherwise (I suspect it will happen eventually though when Rekordbox inevitably becomes full-on DJ software).
But you are right, it is a bit misleading to concentrate on the waveforms in the videos when it actually only appears in track prep.
Do you guys find it painstaking to keep up both a Traktor database and an Engine database? Does Engine overwrite the Traktor metadata or vise versa?
I’m not sure about the metadata as I don’t generally do much to my tunes in terms of prep in either Engine or Traktor- so for me keeping two databases is as easy as simply updating my music library whenever I’ve added new tunes.
All of my music is kept in a single folder on my hard drive so I only have to update that periodically within Engine and any new tunes are added and analysed right away. I would have thought that any data regarding cue points etc would be separate between Traktor & Engine, which is good in some ways as the data would be unlikely to conflict, but on the other hand you would probably have to be added in both.
I know Rekordbox has Rekordbuddy for transferring data, not sure if there is something similar for Engine. But like I say it is simply not something know too much about as I don’t do much at all in the way of prep in either software.
They are both stored as separate databases. Cue points etc. are not carried across between softwares, but they also don’t affect each other as well. I update both my Engine and Traktor (and Mixvibes Cross) databases weekly and never have any issues with using the same files in all 3.
They haven’t done any updates to the Engine sooftware (Laptop and iPad versions) for a while now… either they are still working on it and have a big update coming, or they’ve forgotten all about it. I hope they haven’t forgotten about it, with a little bit of work and a few tweaks it could be excellent!
So I think I’ve decided against getting these. I was reading the manual and the players can’t play 48K files only 44.1. That might be a deal breaker for me as I have quite a few 48K files. Bummer. Why would they make their mixers capable of 48 & 96K playback but not their media players? Oh well. Thanks for the the info guys.
Because mixers with internal sound interfaces are often used for production where higher sample frequency is preferred.
I also have a few 48K MP3 files and they give me nothing but trouble with playback, you will do yourself a favour if you convert them to 44.1K. CDJ-2000 plays 48K MP3 files but…is it worth to pay over double the amount?
I had no idea about that, I guess that means I must not have any 48k files! It wasn’t something I was ever aware of when buying any of my CD/media players, nor have I seen it mentioned in any other threads over the years. You learn something new everyday!
But yeah as above, surely it’s got to make more sense to convert the files than spending 2 or 3 times the amount of money on the players themselves? I mean you would really have to love those 48k files. Here in the UK that love would need to be worth approx £2,260… 
I also didn’t know about the 48k thing! I’ve never come across a file that didn’t load into engine though, so I guess I must not have any 48k files. I also agree on converting them, you’re probably not going to hear a difference on any system you will play on anyway!
