Numark Mixdeck - First Impressions

Overview:
The size of Numark's New Mixdeck was a little smaller than I thought. It is made of a very sturdy hard plastic and very light. The cover on the fader/mixer controls appears to be metal. Works well with Traktor. I did the controller setup up in Traktor Pro and selected Numark Mixdeck and the CD controls were mapped to Deck A and B. Just need to be sure to set the audio to external mode so that you can use the onboard mixer. Sound quality is excellent. You can have one deck playing music from Traktor Pro and the other from another source (ie: CD, HD).

Looping/FX:
Looping and FX on the the Mixdeck accesses the effects in Traktor which was really nice. You can select 1 FX at a time. I really like the looping controls, you can easily set loops and adjust their size on the hardware as well as jump back to the beginning of the loop without any issues.

Scratching:
You can enable scratch mode. In Traktor, you just touch the wheels and it stops the music. You can move back and forth and then play resumes when pressure is released. While playing a CD, you have 5 scratch modes. (have not fully played with CDs yet)

iPod:
Controls worked fine. It has it's own dedicated channel which is controlled by it's own fader. Have not tried recording to the iPod yet.

Drawbacks:
Only drawback is only using two decks. Only benefit of upgrading to Traktor Pro would be to get additional effects. I do not believe Deck C and D can be used in this setup since I am using external mode and there are only 4 channels with two being used by Deck A and two by Deck B.
I do need to get the fader adjusted. The curve in normal mode is too tight. I only use the middle 50% on the fader to go from one deck to the next. I also found the gain levels coming out of Traktor to be low, so make sure you up the gain on each deck a little and change the setting to make sure it's not reset each time you load a track.

Future:
I will be playing with the USB HD capabilities, music CDs and mp3 cds. Will post my results.

If you have any questions or things I should try/look at, holla at me.

 

Wow. That was fast! (from the time you had posted that you had ordered it).
Thanks for the quick review.

 

More Questions

@chakaw. Thanks for the rapid review. Looking forward to more from you.

Can you tell us which comparable version of Traktor does the mixdeck come with? It's advertised as the "Numark Traktor Edition", but what equivalent version would this be? Tractor LE, maybe? Can this be easily upgraded to a better version of Traktor?

Also, I noticed there are two colored versions of this mixdeck. One is the black version (black mixer and platters) and the other is the silver version. Just curious as to which one was shipped to you. Numark rep told me today that the black version is not available.

Is there really no way to control the pitch on the Ipod input, and so making it effectively useless? Can you send music from the Ipod to each deck separately?

Looking forward to your YouTube video review post

 

@DJKALEL - It comes with Traktor LE. I didn't load it since I alredy had Pro installed. It can be upgraded to Pro.

The one I have is all black

No pitch control on the iPod ... but I suppose you may be able to get an iPod app that could control pitch if you wanted to. It does record well though. I used the Voice Notes app to record 1 minute of playing and it worked fine. I downloaded iProRecorder and will be trying that later. iPod can't be sent to any deck and is completely independant of the decks and cross fader.

 

SO what is your overall impression, does it live up to your expectations? Mine should be coming next week. Also does it say if its Traktor certified? I doubt it but just wondering, also how many stereo outputs does it have?

 

It has stereo outputs for:
Master
Booth (Seperate Volume Control)
Recording
CD1 and CD2 Out

I'm not impressed with the USB sound card. The volume levels coming from Traktor Pro are extremely low. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but I shouldn't have to turn up the gain in the software and on the Mixdeck to come close to the sound levels of playing an audio cd or reading an mp3. Everything else has worked well thus far. I still need more time with it.

I put in a support ticket with Numark to see what shakes out.

 

With all those outputs there should be a way to utilize them in Traktor pro to send deck C&D in stereo separately to another mixer which is what I would love. You could do the same thing with your Stealth. Check your volume level in your sound control panel of your comp, that may be why the level is so low. You are now using the mixdeck's sound card so you may have to adjust that output level.

 

Mixdeck play using Serato Itch

Hello,
Do you know how much the Mixdeck weigh and can it play using the Serato Itch Software on my Laptop?

 

I'd say it weighs about 20lbs. It is very light.

 

Hi! So I got the Numark Mixdeck a few days ago and I am having trouble with the USB Functionality. I bought a wd Passport and it wouldn't read the drive. Then I traded that in and got a Seagate 1T drive that came with a power supply hoping that would work and it worked better but all the music is mixed up on there and it doesn't play what it says it's playing. I was hoping to be able to use something on this that would hold alot of music so I don't have to use cd's and stuff.

Anyone else figure this out yet? Do I need to use certain kbps on the mp3's? or do I need to label them a certain way?

Please post any info if you have any!

 

Chakaw, does the 5 scratch modes work with the MIDI interface mode in Traktor or does it only work in CD mode of the Mixdeck? Hit me back soon. I am considering buying the unit this week.

Mitch

 

@djcutmastmitch

There is only 1 scratch mode with the MIDI interface. Depending on how fast the platter is moving when you release can cause a slight slow down or speeding up of the track after you scratch.

I plan to check some of the midi settings to see if I can get a tighter response when releasing the platters after scratching. It's perfect for cueing music and scratching into the next song. Not too good for scratching a song in progress. Maybe I just need to practice with it.

 

Impressions Update

MIDI Controls:
I'm going to play with platter settings to see if I can adjust scratching response. The only thing the display on the deck shows when a track is playing is how far along it is. No BPM, track name, etc.

Sound Levels:
I was able to get the sound levels up, just needed to adjust volume in the software.

iPod Recording:
iPod plays great and sounds very clean. Still static when recording. I tried iPod Touch and iPod Nano with the same issue. As before, noise is only generated when recording from Traktor.

USB:
I hooked up thumb drive and it worked fine. MP3 only. Ignored my iTunes m4a files.

Fader:
Once I got the levels on the fader up, the curve does not seem as tight. So thumbs up there.

CD:
Loads the songs into memory and plays it from there. Scratching is very responsive and lights rotate around the touch pad to visualize what you are doing. CD loading times are fast.

Recording:
Since I"m having issues with iPod, decided to use the line in on my laptop to record my sets from the Record Out on the Mixdeck. So far so good. I'm using RecordPad sound recorder from NCH Software. It has a small footprint and can run from the tray in windows. I stop and start recordings with a right click. This gets me around not being able to use multiple sound cards in Traktor.

I'm very pleased with it and will likely keep it. It is very light an portable.

For those that bought one also, let me know your findings/opinions/tips.

 

Can Numark Mixdeck talk to the Serato "Itch" software? I use the Itch with my NS7 and I like the itch format.

 

The USB connection to your computer allows a midi connection to both platters and the built in sound card. There is NO midi control for the mixer. All mixing controls would be external to itch. As long as there is an option in ich to direct the output from each deck externally to the sound card and you can specify which of the stereo pair to use, I would think you can use ITCH.

I have never used ITCH, so I can't say yes or no for sure.

 

?

does the traktor numark edition only come with 2 types of effect ; leaveing the other effects on the mixdeck un-usable while on midi mode?

thanku

 

It comes with Traktor LE. I did not install it, but the package and the tech guy told me it was. I think it's called that because it comes with drivers for Mixdeck, Stealth Control and Omni Control.

When in midi control, it uses the FX in Traktor Software.

wlcm

 

More Mixdeck Feedback

Just got my mixdeck (black version) delivered 2 days ago and still toying around with it. I want to add a few other items to what's already been posted here.

I haven't found a way to load tracks to both decks using only one USB port. If any of you mixdeck owners find out, please feel free to chime in. If it truly doesn't include this feature, then it's an annoying flaw that hopefully can be fixed by a simple software update by Numark.

Unit comes with Traktor LE aka Traktor NE. Basic entry level version (only 3 FX, for example), so I'm going to quickly upgrade to Traktor Pro.

BPM counters are unreliable, inaccurate and often change counts for no apparent reason while a track is playing. This is not a crucial factor to me as I beatmix the old fashioned way (by listening), but it's another annoying useless feature that I should be fixed easily by software update. If anyone else is experiencing this problem or has any clues as to a solution, please chime in.

 

More mixdeck feedback

Just got mine last night. Cue button had a small scratch on it. In all, impressed with the wet-dry fader and loops. Still messing around. Haven't tried tracktor yet. USB thumb drive works well. I haven't tried if it will work on both decks with one thumb drive. Platter sensitivity is pretty good for scratching. BPM counter, I would rely on it either. It's more of a reference. Still can't figure this key option other than locking it.

Some problems:

1. Yes, the fader at 50% needs adjustment from previous post, so it's a little lite. Anyone know how to do that?

2. Everytime I load a CD it reads the wrong text for the song. Song #1 says unknown album. When playing track #2 it will give me track #1 text and so on. So it's off by one for the song titles. Both decks have the same problem. Annoying. Used Nero and Roxio to burn my CD's. Anyone have the same problem?

3. Used the Record output to see how much output to record on computer but it very low and the led master display drops. I would have turn the gain all the way up. Tried master but not as good. Ended up using the Booth output.

The small scratch on the cue button is bugging me. Maybe I can use a Sharpie to cover it up.

More reviews to follow.

 

@dj-t-trance
1. I contacted Numark about the fader and they said that is all hardware driven and the curve can't be adjusted.

2. I had no issue with recording levels. I just adjusted the loudness in the software. My recordings have been pretty clean so far.

Few challenging questions:

1. The latency/scratching using the pads with Traktor Pro is horrible. Does anyone know what I should look at to tighten this? Can it be adjusted or does it require a software update form N.I.?

2. If I use Traktor Scratch Pro, can I still map the midi functions? I'm doubtful about this. My only reason to do so is the latency issues with Traktor Pro. I see others using Pioneer CDJ's are experiencing the same.

I'm using Traktor Pro 1.2.4