Mini DNS1200 review

Well here's my mini review of the DNS 1200.

I needed a compact all around cd player with midi control so I picked up a pair of these. The idea was to use it as a controller for Traktor and have thumb drives with back up music attached as a fail safe in case something happened to my laptop during a gig.

When I brought them home and unboxed them my wife thought I pick up toys for my son who was 2 1/2 years old at the time. She was shocked that my new purchase was actually real dj gear. To tell you the truth they do look like toys.

I am very impressed with the midi capabilities of Denon products. Everything can be mapped, lit up and even the characters on the display can be mapped as far as the dj software of you choice will let you. You can see the values of fx parameters as you turn the dial, you can get the phase meter displayed to tell you if your mix is off, you can scroll through tracks while your laptop screen turned off. Traktor has come halfway with text support so you can see track info, pitch and time elapsed.

As a cd player it can hold it's own against anything out there and perform just as well too if not even better. I enjoy everything that this deck has to offer in cd mode. The keylock is perfect and the fx are very good also. It is a feature packed deck.

As a usb drive player unfortunately I can't comment too much about it. The reason is that I've been a Mac user for most of my computer using life so all my musical work and foundation for my music collection is all in the Apple format (aiff). I did rip some cds to wav on a usb drive to try out but wasn't feeling it. I even bought a netbook for the music manager software that came with the players but wasn't feeling that either. For me, as a mac user, there seems to be too many steps to follow and more money to spend to get tracks tagged to Denon specs, analyzed and then build a database for tracks that I already have anally tagged. Maybe if I was in my early 20's I would have the time to make it work. Tracks did play from the usb thumb dives and I was able to plug in a keyboard to search for tracks. Actually the keyboard search works very well.

One thing that surprised me is that these players did not come with usb cables in the box. I had to wait a day later to buy a pair of cables so I could hook up to Traktor.

Another thing to mention is that it takes a long time for the deck to switch to pc mode and to get out of pc mode. I think there is enough time for a club owner to come over with a couple bouncers to string me up before I can get a "proper" track loaded to play if my laptop failed.

Overall I'm very happy with the DNS1200. It's a very good cd player and an excellent controller, it was also light on my wallet.

Here's a tsi I've been working on

 

Thks for your review. I'm about to buy of pair of those. Wanted to buy two DNS-3700 but they are twice as expansive.

 

I just bought a pair of these decks and they are great! The platter is 100 times better than it was on the 1000's. A real nice deck for the price. Was gonna go with the Pio cdj400 but went with these and don't regret it.

Haven't really got MIDI control to work right yet. I tried the native support in TPro but the latency was way too high and not enough buttons for Traktor IMO but I will try your TSI file out...Thanks! Not working too well with VDJ and haven't tried anything else yet.

I'm a PC user so there was little to do to use thumbdrives and IMO this is the way to go with these. The control is spot on as if you are using CD's...very nice.

Overall a great value for the money!

 

I forgot to mention that the tsi that I posted is the same as the default one provided by Traktor.

The only difference is that I added control for dry/wet for the chained fx which you can access by holding down the echo/loop button and turning the parameters knob. Also I added extra led and display feedback that were missing from the default tsi.

Looking over my tsi I forgot to add some commands cause I missed a page from my notes but I will update it soon. It' not perfect but when Traktor adds more output commands it will look more native.

 

Do you use the internal sound card on the 1200 or do you use an external?

 

I don't use the internal soundcard on these players, I only use it for midi and cds.

I have a TSP certified firewire mixer that I use for all audio

 

got them ordered. As i'm really into midi mapping from scratch, i'll post my TSI as soon as i receive those babies.
I'll mainly use them as CD players though, as i have a vci-100 and xponent for midi controls

 

Got those decks yesterday and i was really suprised by their size (i've tried the CDJ2000 for a few hours and this deck is much bigger). Despite the compact size, buttons and knobs are quite easy to use (i have thin fingers) but i thought the jogs would be better (i'm used to the xponent and vci-100 jogs and i like the cdj-style jogs) but i guess i'll get used to them. The main difference as far as the jogs are concerned is that the dn-s1200's ones are pressure sensitive, not TOUCH sensitive (like the xponent or vci-10 jogs).
The USB functions are quite impressive, it read the BPM tags of my files that were analyzed by Traktor and that helped me mixing without assisted sync like i used to do on TT many years ago, it helped because of the tagged BPM information letting you quickly adjust the track pitch/tempo. I admit i have to train a little bit more, as i often use the Sync functions of Traktor. I'm pretty sure that i'll use these units paired to USB keys.
The Cue and loops function are easy to use, but i had to read the manual to properly use advanced functions such as cancelling cue points, resizing the loop/moving the in and out markers of the loop, etc.
Effects are pretty cool too, they are (almost) the same effects i use in Traktor (chained Flanger/Beatmasher2/Delay T3). I know use the dn-S1200 effects rather thant those of the mixer (DDM4000). The drawback is that i might be impossible to change the effect parameter before activating it. The effect needs to be enabled so you can change the parameters).

As i have not used the usb audio/midi yet, i'll post something about it later.

 

Yeah it's just a disk...supposed to simulate vinyl on top of the platter as if you're using a tt but having used the 1000's i can tell you the simulation is so much better. As for the being pressure sensitive...on the 1000's you had to put a considerable amount of pressure (or so it seemed to me) in scratch mode...with the 1200's only a small amount pressure is required. I had the xponent and i did not like the touch sensitvity on it. It seemed to be a hit or miss affair...the 1200's are much more accurate in my opinion.

Anyway, in the words of a famous youtube personality...practice and enjoy!

 

So i had my first gig with the denons today and most people were quite amazed by this little things. Of course, those people were not into djing so no one could tell 'ha, pioneer's cdjs are better'. I have to say i was lucking bringing them as a backup to my current setup (used my xponent today)....'what what what? Two dns-1200 and DDM4000 as a backup to an xponent and a Mac?' Well yes the second setup is my current config (the one i can use best) but unfortunately, my internal drive decided to fail (Kernel Panic Error)...
Even though i have a backup bootable partition on my usb drive, i thought it wouldn't be reliable mixing on my xponent only today (my backup system did not fail though).
So i used the denons as stand alones and my first 'live' impression is that i had to focus more on tempo/pitch matching than usually (i remind i have to train) and therefore i didn't use loops and effects like i most often do. This is the reason why i'll now set them as CD players (stand alone) AND audio outputs and controllers for my computer/traktor.
What i'm saying is that the hybrid cd player/midi controller thing is much appreciated. Even more when the mixer also has midi capabilities.
One thing i couldn't solve is that:
i added two tracks at the very latest time (happy birthday song.... ) and i couldn't find them when browsing with the denon, as the DB Library was already created. Is there a way, when switching to usb mode, to call a DB Reconstruction or rescan the key WITHOUT deleting the dedon_dj folder on the usb key?
I haven't deeply read the manual
+++

 

Self answer : Utility Mode lets the deck Create the database (replacing existing one) and thus rescan the files

 

I'm going to give my usb drives another shot. The only thing holding me back from playback from usb is having to covert and retag my files. Maybe I won't have to retag if I use mp3s.

 

My mp3s are all correctly tagged cause i rip most of them from cds. The great thing is That the denon is reading the bpm from the id3tag and locks to it.
I also use mixmeister to analyse the files as it calculates bpm and the harmonica key and tag them. Then i analyse the files again in traktor if i feel the
bpm is not correct. To rename or retag files, i use emusic mp3 tagger and Mp3tag. I didn't tried denon média manager but it seems it does this too plus cue points. You'll see that the USB connectivity is great. I reencoded my tracks into 320kbps cbr for best results.

 

Mp3s are the way to go while usnig a usb drive with this deck. If your Traktor collection is in the mp3 format then it's just as simple as exporting your playlist from Traktor to a usb drive for playback. This can all be done on a mac.

I just hope Denon can support aiffs and aac files. The work flow using mp3s with the dns1200 is so simple and I wish that it could be the same for the format I use. Even with .wav files the workflow requires more steps.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about making an mp3 version of my collection but I don't think I can handle another collection to manage.

I guess I'll wait and see what's up Denon's sleeve this year. On the DN-S3700's display there are icons for aiff,aac and wma. When I asked Denon about it he told me that when they were making the display they were thinking of their next generation of products and that making the displays the same was a means to reduce costs.

Right now exporting playlist from Traktor and burning them to cds have been serving me well for a long time.

 

how do you get the track names to come up on the dns1200 when using traktor? do u guys have problems when hiting the cue or play buttons? not very responsive

 

You have to go to the controller manager and add the hc4500 as a device, one for each deck.

The response of the buttons depends on your latency.

If you take a look at tsi I posted it will give you and idea on how to do it.

Make sure you are on the latest update of Traktor and firmware for Denon

 

its got nothing got to do with the program im saying sumtimes you hit the cue or play and it wont do anything, llike it doesnt click down

 

Maybe you have to hit the cue button at its very center because of the soft padded button.

 

Here's my 2 decks TSI for the denons. It works for two decks set with midi channel 1 and 2. It is based on the original TSI for Traktor 1.1.x (not the one delivered with 1.2.x) so i added
Key Adjust function on the pitch/key button. When in effect mode (Flanger/Echo or Filter button pressed), the parameter knob (used to browse the list) is adjusting the DRY/Wet effect value for the FX unit according to the unit number. To return to List Browse mode, simply push the Scratch Mode button to leave the FX mode (the scratch mode doesn't have to be effective/on though).
The three effects enabler buttons are set to HOLD type, according to my very own convenience (brake/Dump/Reverse buttons). The flanger enabler button also reset the FX LFO.
The Tap button sync the deck to the Master, so i also set the TitleID3/Util button to set the Deck as the Master for Tempo.
I'm planning to use the Time/Cont.Single button as another modifier so the loops button are turned to cue points launchers.
Stay tuned.
Edit : file was used on Traktor 1.1.2