12am.com.au : Mixing Music Media

Denon is a company associated world wide with quality audio products for the home or DJ setup. The history of Denon’s commercial use cd players dates back to 1981, when they released the world’s first professional cd unit, the DN-300FE as pictured here. The world of DJ cd mixing took a huge step forward in 1993, when Denon released the worlds first DJ duel deck cd player called the DN-2000F that became the industry standard for club DJ booths across the world. Denon now have their new generation of cd technology released to the world and the only question is…. What can’t it do?

What is it?
It has literally taken me days of thought to figure out how I can best explain what it is that the DN-S5000 is and what it does. You see, Denon has created a single cd unit that combined a series of high quality features such as sampling, duel play modes and a moterised rotating scratch platter, but its not so much just the extent of features that intrigues me about Denon’s new player, its how well all of these features work and how highly editable each parameter is for these on-board features.

The DN-S5000 is not for the faint hearted, but to those who take up the challenge and put in the time to learn how to use it to its potential , will never disappoint their crowd.

What does it need to make it work?
Like all DJ instruments, you will need a mixer to take advantage of the DN-S5000. There are two outputs for the Denon DN-S5000 connected by RCA to mixer inputs. If you are looking at buying just one unit you can plug it into an AUX or line input of your home stereo, but this of course will not allow you to take advantage of the duel play modes through separate outputs.

Who is it made for?
Denon have created this player in my opinion for the individual user, as opposed to for club/bar instillation, due to its complexity. In order to get the most out of this unit you need to program in your cue points and also have the opportunity to memorise up to 5000 memo settings. (1 memo point available for every track on the cd, so if you have 15 tracks on a disk, you can program up to 15 memo groups including hotstart and sample points, play pitch and the key parameters.) You will also need to be using this tool constantly if you want to be able to drive it properly,

Dj’s who are looking for a third deck will be impressed by its uses. Accapellas and samples work as a highlight for club dj’s looking to layer more and more sounds over their tunes. The DN-S5000 will also play MP3’s, meaning you could pack up to 200 tracks on one cd or hundreds of loops and samples ready to go at any gig, just plug it in and re-invent.

This unit would be a fantastic addition to the growing number of bands, utalizing dj’s in their live setup. With just the one unit, all the tricks of a turntable can be executed and enhanced and with the setup functions, memo groups can easily load new samples and scratch points within seconds.

Features

The features contained within the DN-S5000 are as diverse as they are comprehensive. New cd performance technology in recent years, especially in terms of interface control and design has created a new standard of common features such as scratch platters, effects, looping, memory and sampling being found on most top of the range players from the larger DJ gear manufacturers.

Denon truly takes this a step further through its ability to play multiple tracks, plus samples while also selecting the source (either the main track, alpha track, sample or search modes) to tell the machine which sound source you want to effect with the platter. This for example enables you to play a track from the main source, setup an accapella on the alpha track then scratch and sample the vocals over the top of the main track.

Lets check out the new and improved features up close...

Active Motor Platter

By far the most prominent new feature, not only to Denon, but to CD technology world wide is the DN-S5000’s motorised scratch platter. The 19cm platter rotates in a clockwise direction courtesy of a belt driven motor. Very cool idea, and it works amazingly well after some practice. The platter comes in 2 main parts, firstly there is a metal platter, with a design based on the SL1200 turntable. On top of the platter lies a plastic slip, or scratch disk that is basically the main control surface for all sound control. At the flick of a dial, you can select which sound source you are going to work on with the motorised platter. Another very cool thing about this moving platter is the fact that you can design and print out your own slip mat designs to lay under the scratch disk. This means you can personalise your decks with either your DJ name or one of the many cool designs available already on the web.

Alpha Track
As described by Denon on their website, the alpha track allows independent and simultaneous playback of another track from the same disc. You can manually mix tracks together using only 1 drive as you would with 2 drives.

What the hell is the alpha track? To be honest, I don’t know. In fact I failed highschool science so am not even going to try and get into a definition. What it does however is a different story and this I can explain. The alpha track is a feature that allows you to set up a secondary cuepoint anywhere within the same cd. This is more than just a cue marker however. You have an alpha control pad section that allows you to play and re-cue your alpha track while also being able to make pitch and volume changes. The alpha track also has a separate output meaning you can run two different channels of sound for even more control.

Newly Developed Removable Slot In Drive
What the? Denon have nailed it here. If you are a professional DJ or a venue that can’t afford to have gear issues, you want minimum down time if one of your players finally gives up the ghost. Denon have developed a drive that can literally be removed and replaced within minutes .... As they say, the show must go on.

Hot Disc
Yet another idea brought into cd technology by Denon is hot disk. This allows you to eject the CD that is playing and the next 35 seconds are automatically stored into memory and continues to play. You can then loop any part of the next 35 seconds to get a seamless and endless loop or you can simply insert another cd and set it up in cue mode and it will start as current track fades out after its 35 second memory.

Hot Starts
From Hot Disk to Hot Start now and I think we are seeing a pattern forming with these hot features from Denon! A total of 4 Hot Starts (A1, A2, A3 and A4) can be recorded in and played: This is an upgrade on their DN-2600 that had 2 start points

Stutter Cue Points
There are 6 Stutter Cue Points available ( CUE, Alpha CUE, A1, A2, A3 and A4). A Stutter allows you to use any of the Hotstart cue points or the cue points from main and alpha tracks in simply a different mode that starts the cuepoint when you press it, but stops when you take your finger off the button.

Sampling
The DN-S5000 comes with not one but two Samplers. Once again, ths component within the Denon tool is powerful and precise. There is 15 seconds of sampling time @ 20 Hz that will basically let you record in a 4 bar loop from a track travelling at around 130bpm. Very long sample in other words. Because you record this into the unit, it is stored until you either clear it or turn the machine off, that means you can load up samples of tracks you are going to play many track ahead to start introducing different beats or melodies to help enhance your sets. It would be great if Denon gave us an external drive option for memory space and MIDI as I believe this unit could be used by live DJ’s in the same way an MPC2000 is used, allowing high precision sound manipulation through the unique control surface.

Seamless looping
There are 4 seamless loops available, that can be recorded in and then edited through A-B Trim/Move. The A and B points for the seamless loop points can easily be adjusted using the Scratch Disc as can be done with sample and hot start points.

A-B Splice
This function allows the removal of unwanted sections or dead-spots within a track. The DN-S5000 has a huge memory for you to store these splices in, but is especially handy for removing really big breakdowns that you have in tracks that may work in a club when you can play tracks for 8 mins each, but if you want to play a shorter mix, use the splice to cut out the breaks or other unwanted sections!

Mirror Mix
Mirror mix in my eyes is simply a different way of approaching a delay effect. Mirror Mix allows you to have the same track playing in the Alpha track as the main track, but with a specified time delay in beat with the music set by the BPM, at 1/4, 1/2, 1/1, and 2/1. Always a cool effect that works well, but a little bit limited in my opinion considering the delay effects that have been available for dj’s for years now.

Memo function
The memory of the Denon DN-S5000 once again highlights how comprehensive this unit really is. There are no card slots but internally you can hold up to 5000 memo points made up of cue points and seamless loop A and B. You can even memorise the playback pitch, whether the pitch is on or off, whether the key adjust is on or off. This is amazingly handy. I remember when I bought the Denon 2500 when it first came out and I used to store all of my cue points for CD’s that had unusual beginnings etc... Amazingly quick and effective tool. The settings that you store can also be copied between 2 DN-S5000’s as well as the DN-9000 / DN-2600f meaning that if you are upgrading from one of these older models you wont have to lose all of your important memo points!

On-board Effects
There are a number of effects included that can be turned on and off through the play button. The effects include Drag Start, which replicates the dragging sound of a belt drive starting up, Brake/Echo, Dump and reverse. Considering the variety of functions available on the DN-S5000 I was definitely expecting a lot more from Denon in the effects arena. There are all the standard DJ effects available, but is very basic in its application and parameter changing. As there is no pre set timing or queuing, these effects either need to be calculated or guessed which is not the quickest in a performance environment.

The DN-S5000 Display and Control Interface
The controlling interface of the DN-S5000 is amazing to look at but at the same time, amazingly hard to use. Technical DJ’s will shine with it mastered, but the average DJ out there will struggle controlling its different features. After two weeks with the DN-S5000 it still seemed impossible to coherently get my way around all the different functions without looking up how to do them time and time again. Almost all of the buttons on the top of the unit are multipurpose meaning constant shifting of the same knobs and buttons to change the area you are working on and how in fact that parameter in the current area is being effected. Considering the ability of this unit I would also like to see a larger display so the control functions of every section of the unit are displayed at once also

Pitch Control
There is more control over pitch than any of Denon unit to date. The closest pitch shift range for the main/alpha tracks is 4% with a 0.05% step rate. This is great for DJ’s who want to have a highly sensitive pitch variance for more control in mixing.

Oh no, I dropped my CD player!
Don’t stress, the DN-S5000 has a shockproof memory time of 16 seconds for both the main and alpha tracks. So, this shockproof memory, for those of you who have never bought DJ gear before is like anti-skip on your home cd player, except it actually works. In my testing (don’t tell Denon) I took the liberty of giving the Denon a good shake while playing upside-down and it did not skip a beat.... Now that’s what we like to see! The casing is strong and the unit is remarkably heavy weighing 5.7 kg.

How Much and where can I buy the DN-S5000?
You can buy the DN-S5000 now but due to popularity getting one in Australia has been a big effort this year. They are available at most good DJ stores and I know the boys at Pro Light and Sound have one you can play with down at their Melbourne store, so go check it out.

Summary, Thoughts and Other resources....
Well, it has bells, it has whistles and they all sing in tune. Denon has responded to the new generation of CD Decks with all the power and quality Denon is famous for. It is a unit I would recommend, for the DJ or musician who has a sound knowledge of the features or willing to put in the time to master this tool to take their performance one step further than conventional DJ equipment can.
I am really impressed by the amount of information available for this product on the web, but I guess that’s not surprising considering it has been available for many months now in other continents. I am unsure what Denon is going to do in Australia however to place themselves in the DJ market now that they are aiming at individual DJ’s as opposed to the club and corporate market. Hopefully we will see Denon setting up some promotions such as product nights, sponsorship of events and get Australian DJ’s using the gear as ambassadors so the product can get the recognition it deserves as I believe there are a number of different styles of DJ’s that would benefit from using this tool.