Denon DJ MC7000 Review
——————————————————————————
One on One Skype lessons now available
Send me an email to set up a one on one Skype lesson. My email address is fiercemule@gmail.com
——————————————————————————
My name is Brennan Galley and I was the Canadian Technical Sales Manager for inMusic Canada. I toured Canada from coast to coast to show musicians how to use innovative instruments, DJ and Music production equipment. One of the companies I represented was Denon DJ, the MC7000 was a piece of gear I extensively toured with.
01. Denon DJ MC7000 Introduction
The Denon DJ MC7000 is a DJ controller that has two USB ports on the back, allowing it to be used to control two different laptops simultaneously. It ships with the full version of Serato DJ and three expansion packs: Pitch ‘n Time, Flip and Serato video. In this intro video I show how to use the cue points to perform a track.
02. Cue Section Loops
If you press the cue button a second time you enter into Cue Loops. What this means is that when you press one of your cue points the song will loop at that location. In this video I show how to perform using the Cue Loops and how to increase or decrease the size of the loops.
03. Roll
The Roll feature on the MC7000 allows you to quickly repeat sections of the song. The Roll is unlatched, which means that when you release the pad the song will play back from where it would have been, as if you’d done nothing. This allows you to stay with the flow of the original song but quickly grab parts to repeat.
04. Jump Track
When you are in the roll section of the MC7000 the bottom four pads are for jumping around the track. The bottom left pad will jump backwards, and the bottom right pad will jump forwards. The two pads on the bottom middle are used for increasing or decreasing how far the track will jump. This video shows how to use this feature for a performance.
05. Serato Slicer
Slicer gives you continuous parts of a track to revisit. If you press a pad in slicer mode it will play back the part of the song that you heard when the pad was lit up during playback. If you press the slicer button a second time it will turn blue and loop that portion of the song. This gives you an added performance tool while you prepare a new track. This video shows how to use the slicer feature on the MC7000 for performing.
06. Sampler
The sampler section in Serato allows you to play back single drum hits or cue points from songs over the music playing back. Serato allows you to assign the output of the sampler, which means that you can create a channel for deeper control of sampler playback. In this video I show where to assign the audio out in Serato. By doing this the filter will process the audio to either cut the highs or cut the bass. You can also add effects to your sampler by selecting channel 4 in the effect control section.
07. Instant Doubles
An instant double in Serato allows you to have the track playing back from the same place at the same speed on both decks instantly. This allows you to apply an effect or filter or quickly jump to a part of the song you want to repeat later. In this video I show how to load an instant double and how to apply a filter to it. I also show how having the cues all landing on the ones allows you to jump around the track using cue points.
08. Stop Time
The Denon DJ MC7000 has stop time controller. This make the playback sound like a record slowing down. In this video I show how to pick the stop time back up by hitting a cue at the proper time. I also demonstrate how the ribbon strip under the effects section allows you to jump around the track to locate sections that you want to play back.
09. Serato Pitch N Time Expansion Pack
The MC7000 comes with three expansion packs from Serato: Pitch ‘n Time, Flip and Serato Video. These will really add to your performance opportunities. This video is a precursor to how the expansion packs work and explains how to identify which keys will sound good with other keys in Serato by identifying their key assignment. I also show how to speed up and slow down your track using the pitch fader. Please note that in this video I have Serato set up to control the time with the pitch fader but not the pitch. I will show how this is done in future videos.
10. Pitch n’ Time Sync
When DJing, a lot of prep time can be spent finding songs that blend just right. However, sometimes you want to go from one track to the next on the fly, but the songs don’t sound right together. The MC7000 comes with the Pitch ‘n Time expansion, which allows you to do achieve this. Good DJs focus not only on time but also keys when transitioning to new songs. In this video I show how to sync two keys together using the key sync button on the Denon DJ MC7000. I also show how to use the crossfader and cues on a second deck to move around and remix a song.
11. Pitch Knob Control
The MC7000 has a pitch knob on it that allows you to quickly change the key of the song. The knob is notched so that you can feel when you’ve jumped to a new key. If you push this knob in it will return to the original key of the song. In this video I show how to use this as a performance tool.
12. Cue Pitch
Another benefit of the Pitch ‘n Time expansion is that you can pitch out any cue point and use the eight pads to control the tracks key. In this video I show how this is done. As a bonus, I also demonstrate an Easter Egg. The Easter Egg is that if you pitch sync two tracks together (I show this in video 10 in this series), the decks will move around in key together. This means that you can control the key of a track without having to re-trigger a cue point. It also allows you to play any cue point track back in whatever key you want.
13. Flip Expansion
The second Serato expansion pack that comes with the MC7000 is “Flip”. Flip allows you to record a performance of a pad mashing routine. It also allows you to record the “Censor” or reverse playback feature. This means that you can create your own radio edits of music in your collection. In this video I show how to use the Flip expansion as a performance tool.
14. Video Expansion Pack
The third expansion pack is Video. This allows you to associate any video with any song in your collection, and have in-depth video playback control. In this video I show how to associate videos with songs. I also show how the audio effects will let me control a video effect simultaneously. The video footage I used is from a Sunday afternoon nature walk captured on my phone. Something to note is that doing this video series pushed the Serato Video feature. I was using the video card on my computer to both play back video in Serato and to record with Screen Capture simultaneously. It worked without a hiccup.
15. Dual USB
The Denon DJ MC7000 has two usb ports on the back, allowing you to operate two computers simultaneously. What this means is that if you want to switch DJs using one controller but two computers this is totally doable. Also, if you are playing for a large crowd and want a backup computer you can use Ableton Link, which is part of Serato, to lock two computers’ operations together. I will show how this is done in a future video.
16. XLR Booth Outs
The MC7000 from Denon DJ has XLR booth and main outputs on it. The XLRs are balanced and can plug directly into an active monitor, which helps make the set-up quick, and also sounds much better than unbalanced outs.
The Denon DJ MC7000 is affordable, well built and feature full. Thanks for checking out this and my other videos. A big thank you goes out to Dan Evans. If you would like to set up a SKYPE lesson send an email to fiercemule@gmail.com