Numark Mixtrack Pro Review

[imadje]

Numark Mixtrack Pro: Review

Straight out of the box the first thing to strike me is how incredibly light this unit is. It feels a little plastic and cheap at first but the rotary pots etc feel sturdy enough. This is the first entry level controller I’ve tested so I am only comparing it with my knowledge of pro kit.

I’ll try not to let that taint this review.

This ships with traktor LE so this review will also cover any points worth mentioning on that too.

I am already a Native Instruments user so could log in to the service centre to register the software very easily. If this were your first NI product you’d have to register with service center then register your product.

PC users would also have to install a driver from the installation disc and chk online for driver updates. Mac users do not need a driver.

So (remembering I’m on a mac) it’s a straightforward plug n play that leads me to the traktor setup wizard. I didn’t do anything clever here, just followed the steps as instructed…. And it didn’t work… Not sure why but I went into the traktor preferences and noticed that when choosing an audio output source the mixtrack was listed as “core audio” but the actual routing of outputs was odd.. It only lists front and back outputs (a pair of each) but these do not correspond to the front and back of the unit. Odd indeed. So a quick look in the manual and it tells me which is headphones out and which is master out. Sorted.

The layout on screen doesn’t give much opportunity for modification. Eg I cannot choose to hide the cover art, preview player, fx units etc like I can on traktor scratch pro. It does offer layouts to pick through one of which has no cover art shown but still not as easy to personalise as I like… But this is just an LE version so no worries.

On the mixtrack the browse library rotary pot seems to work backwards. i.e. I turn it to the left to go down a list and to the right to go up a list. To me that is backwards.

There is a useful “back button” which essentially switches whether the browser pot is browsing folders or songs. I have set the software to import my itunes folder at startup so I am essentially browsing playlists I have pre-prepared.

One issue with this: I cannot move tracks between playlists unless I set up a new playlist in traktor itself. This makes sense as it will maintain the itunes library integrity.

There are no Hot Cues on the mixtrack. There are eq kill switches and fx controls which you would have thought you could midimap with a modifier to set as hot cues. But not on traktor LE! So I’m left trying to hot cue using the keyboard.

There is the usual loop in/out and reloop or auto loops if you prefer that sort of thing. The auto loops seem to set to 1 bar of loop length but you then have the option of doubling or halving the size of the loop with dedicated controller buttons.

With “scratch” button turned ON the platters have a go at scratching in real time. They are not going to please vinyl or cdj scratchers and the results do sound a little digital but they are better than many I have heard in this price range.

With “scratch” ON the platters no longer act as nudging platters. This is a real pain to me. I like to scratch in a 1st beat than manipulate the platter for fine-tuning of my beat match. The only way you can do that on the mixtrack is if you press the scratch button in-between releasing your scratch and starting to nudge. There are pitch bend buttons if you like that sort of thing.

With “scratch” turned OFF the platters act as nudging platters and are reasonable.

The effects are Delay, Flanger and Reverb. The controls available on the unit are “select” “wet dry” and “amount”. The “select” pot has a push function to select whichever effect you want. The effects sound reasonable for this price level.

There is a useful “view” button which toggles between viewing the decks on screen and viewing your playlist. There is also a “tick” button which plays a metronome tick thru your cue channel. I guess this would be very useful to any one learning how to beatmatch?

There is also a “sync” button but I wouldn’t know about that.

Main transport buttons are “cue” to set a cue (if in pause) or go to the cue point and wait (if playing). Then there is “play/pause” and “stutter”. If you don’t know what “play/pause” does sell it now. “Stutter” is the same as “cue/play” on some units. Basically it jumps to the last set cue point and plays whenever you press it. Like a hot cue on pioneer cdjs but it is automatically set to the same place as your last cue point.

It also has “cue/pgm” selector if you like headphones mixing.

As mentioned at top it does feel light but all the controls are actually nice and sturdy and feel fine in use. Everything on screen follows the movements on the unit well and buttons on the unit which have a function that toggles light up to let you see what they are currently doing.

The pitch fader is a little short and you cannot alter its range but that may be a Traktor LE issue again.

SO… I may have seemed to pick out bad points but it is honestly not bad as a unit at this price. Plenty of buttons and reasonable build for an entry level unit. The thing that is letting it down IMO is the constraints put on it by only having traktor LE. If you could midi map the buttons you won’t use to do more interesting functions this would be a good unit instead of just a “not bad unit.” For example I would definitely add a modifier so that the eq kills could double up as hotcues.

One of the best things about this for beginners is that audio is included so there is not messing with external soundcards. USB to laptop, audio to speakers, headphones in the front: you're off.

For beginners this is a very affordable very suitable and very cheap unit to learn all the basics on. For anyone who just mixes and has traktor or another DVS already I would guess this is an option for a lightweight set-up where you didn’t want to take real decks. Let’s say you were branching out into doing mobile DJing for some spare cash: this unit would do the job using your playlists and DVS software on your existing laptop but without you carting and setting up decks and mixer etc. You wouldn’t be able to do all the tricks you like but then it’s just a mobile gig right?

This would not be suitable for anyone who considers themselves a turntablist but for a beginner who wants to play at scratching while learning mixing it will be fine.

If my kids asked for one of these for Christmas I wouldn’t hesitate. If they asked for playstations DJ Hero I would give them coal. If one of my students wanted a budget set up to start playing at home I would happily recommend this.

TECH: This is a Numark Mixtrack Pro running Traktor LE on a macbook (2.4GHz intel core duo, 2gb ram, OSX 10.5.

I have set the latency on the traktor software to be 2.5ms and haven’t noticed any major issues while running 2 loops both with fx. When switching from “scratch” mode on the platters to be able to nudge I did hear a little digital squeak but nothing went out of time.

It’s not my kit BTW, I have been lent it by local council to prepare for a project in a primary school with children age 8/9 who want a better understanding of musical arrangements, dynamic, tempo, pitch etc. After a meeting with the teachers we decided this route of beat-matching and mixing would be a fun way to get all that info across.

sales blurb, tech spec and other info to be found here: http://www.numark.com/mixtrackpro

[SolDios]

Nice read + rep

but I could have swarn it had hot cues, it even shows dj madflip using them in the unique squared video.

and this pic here says it has them

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/wp-content ... _media.jpg

Edit: prehaps because he was using it with VDJ

[imadje]

yer sol, On any other software I'm sure you could midi map and set hotcues. The review is only on what came in the box.

cheers for rep bro.

[SolDios]

Yeh, perhaps try it with vdj, who knows, might work better.

Also ive discovered it ships with eather traktor or vdj if your american or auzzie.

[Mitch]

I also own this controller for me to learn on, I have found it great to learn on. The main things I don't like:

- As you mentioned, pitch sliders are pretty short, and sometimes find myself one notch out when beatmatching, which makes me lead to 'cheating', by looking at the tempo numbers on the screen after i have beatmatched to make sure it isn't that one notch out. I don't like this, as I consider it a bad habit to myself while learning.

- I also think the track select dial works the wrong way, but you get used to it kinda quickly.

Foolish, there is a mapping available that changes the eq kills back to their standard (and originally intended) function as hot cues, can download it here:

http://traktorbible.com/freaks/_downloa ... spx?id=138

Otherwise have found it great to learn on for the price, and will get me by until i purchase turntables/cdjs later this year (just holding off til i finish school so i don't distract myself too much lol).

[imadje]

nice one mitch. i think noob on here has one too, didnt know you were in the club.

cheers for .tsi knowledge, will try it next time i set up.

good post mate, +rep

[tommykesh]

Awsome review you covered all that one would ask + rep

[imadje]

Foolish, there is a mapping available that changes the eq kills back to their standard (and originally intended) function as hot cues, can download it here:

http://traktorbible.com/freaks/_downloa ... spx?id=138

.

just updating: mitch's knowledge is good but unfortunately the traktor LE software that i got with this mixtrack doesnt allow me to import .tsi

lol.

Ok controller but get yer own software... also I found a nice .tsi where some clever boffin sorted it to use all four decks of traktor proper: there are loads of maps in this list in fact but chk which version of traktor they are set to work with as they dont work with traktor LE: http://www.traktorbible.com/freaks/mapp ... spx?id=150