NUMARK HDX
Jul 1, 2006 12:00 PM, BY ROBIN SMITH
Numark has developed DJ products for more than 30 years, but a few years ago, its reputation was fairly poor. Recently, however, the company has experienced a rebirth, most notably from the TTX turntable — a favorite of many scratch DJs.
In 2003, Numark fashioned the groundbreaking CDX after the TTX. The CDX was a DJ-oriented tabletop CD player with a twist — scratchable control of CD audio through a 12-inch vinyl platter. Now, with the HDX Hard Drive CD/MP3 Player, Numark upped things another notch by including an 80GB hard disk for storing music in multiple audio formats. Numark is the only company so far building hard drives into DJ products, and unlike many DJ equipment manufacturers, it develops products with an in-house engineering team.
FIRST SPIN
I've played with various scratchable CD players that disappoint when it comes to accurately emulating the feel of vinyl scratching. The CDX was one of the first to convince the skeptics that good vinyl emulation was possible in a stand-alone CD player that — unlike Rane's Serato Scratch Live or Stanton's Final Scratch — requires no computer.
The HDX looks identical to the CDX except for its slick silver color. The design is futuristic when compared with the utilitarian look of much DJ equipment. The deck is designed to be oriented “battle style” (90 degrees counterclockwise from a traditional turntable position), with its CD-loading slot located on the front. The battle orientation was a wise move for appealing to scratch DJs.
When powered up, the HDX features a trendy blue lighting scheme and a four-line Vacuum Fluorescent Display (VFD). There are a wide variety of knobs, dials and buttons — all of which are clearly labeled and intuitively arranged. Most of the controls sit along the back section of the top surface, well out of the way when scratching but still easily accessible.
Looping controls are located on a slightly raised platform in the center. To the left are the effects buttons, the Beatkeeper section, a reverse/bleep switch, a record button and a jog wheel for tweaking the effects and browsing songs. To the right is a series of settings buttons, the pitch fader, VFD and the raised knob used for navigating menus and selecting songs. The front section sports the CD eject button and left and right start/stop buttons with startup and braking adjustment dials — identical to that of the TTX turntable.
SETTING UP
The HDX's connectors are crowded into a recessed panel on unit's underside. Accessing the connectors requires lifting the HDX — a clumsy operation made more difficult by the number of connections crammed into such a small space. The 5.75-by-1.75-inch panel houses the following: RCA line outputs, RCA line inputs, USB port, PS/2 keyboard connector, relay connector, remote start connector, power jack, HDX link, MIDI I/O and a digital out. That would be easier to manage were the panel directly accessible from the back, but you need to perform a contortionist move to lift and support the table as well as connect and route all your cables. For DJs on the road, that is a pain.
The HDX connects to a Mac or PC via a fast USB 2.0 connection. The manual recommends powering off the HDX before hooking it up to a PC. Once powered up again, the HDX appears on the computer's desktop as a removable hard drive called NumarkHD. While connected, the HDX is not available for playback. You can transfer MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC or Ogg Vorbis files to the HDX by simply dragging-and-dropping them to the hard drive's Audio folder. When finished, turn off the HDX, disconnect the USB cable and turn on the HDX. It's not exactly plug and play, but it's simple enough. The HDX takes a few moments to scan the new files into its database and then stands ready for action.
You can also play music directly from CD or rip CDs to the hard drive. When you load a CD into the HDX, it scans the CD for a few moments before it's ready to play. If the CD is recognized by the onboard Gracenote database, the artist and song information will be displayed.
It is critical that your music files contain good ID3 tag information; otherwise, you'll have difficulty finding songs. There is no option to search by folder or file name. I transferred my own audio samples and loops to the HDX, none of which had good ID3 information. Although I copied those files into a well-organized folder structure, it was not visible for navigation through the VFD, and they were difficult to find.
WHAT'S ON THE MENU?
You select songs by navigating the straightforward menus on the VFD. Using the Track/Menu Select knob, you move through the list and press the knob to choose a song. Music is browsable by artist, track, bpm, album or genre. You can also create and store custom play-lists and perform custom searches. Best of all, the HDX stores this information even after you turn it off.
The HDX comes with a small PS/2 keyboard that you can also use to navigate. Numark programmed the HDX to recognize some shortcut keys, and learning them allows you to use the keyboard more effectively. While the keyboard is quicker, the knob interface works well enough if you don't want to haul the keyboard to a gig.
DOWN FOR THE COUNT
The HDX features Numark's patented Beatkeeper technology for bpm detection. The detection engine does a good job of accurately detecting the bpm, but if it is wrong, you can easily correct it by hitting Tap in time with the music. Start tapping on the first beat in the bar, so the detection is accurate. Holding the Tap button for two seconds instructs the HDX to try calculating the bpm again. Having the correct bpm and downbeat recognized is critical if you use the effects and looping functions because many of their settings are based on the track's bpm. Tempo information is stored on the hard-drive database, so if you manually correct a song that was incorrectly detected, the HDX will remember your corrected bpm.
HEAVY ROTATION
The HDX features a high-torque, 4.7kgf × cm direct-drive motor, the same one used in the TTX turntable, and the highest in the industry. The platter features both a slipmat and a real piece of vinyl, sandwiched by a small locking disk to the mechanism below. As the platter spins, you scratch on the vinyl exactly as you would with a regular turntable. You can also switch out the slipmat or vinyl for those of your own choosing. I tried the HDX with one of my ISP Butter Rug slipmats, but it was too thin for the locking mechanism to engage properly. With a Slikmat, everything was good, and it felt identical to scratching on my standard turntable (besides the lack of a tonearm).
The HDX spins at 33 rpm or 45 rpm. If the default is set to 33 (configurable through the Playback Options menu item), changing the speed to 45 will have the same effect as playing a 33 rpm piece of vinyl at 45 rpm. If you prefer the platter to spin at 45 rpm for normal playback, however, you can change the default in the menu — very slick.
TEST DRIVE
I was impressed with the HDX's remarkable sound quality, even when scratching or playing low bit — rate MP3s. Slow and fast scratches sounded great, with no obvious digital artifacts from the DSP used for scratch emulation. Numark has this down to a science. One of the hardest scratches to emulate is the hydroplane (performed by placing the moistened pad of one fingertip on the record and pressing down until it makes the record vibrate). Using the popular aaaaah sample, I was able to hydroplane backward and forward with no noticeable difference from hydroplanes on vinyl. Simply put, a scratchable CD player either feels right or it doesn't; it's one of those things you will know in an instant. I'm pleased to say the HDX comes through with flying colors.
Pitch control is configurable to one of four range settings: ±6, 12, 25 or -100/+50 percent. Press and hold the button for two seconds to disable it altogether. The fader resolution is precise and, with the help of the pitch-setting display, can be adjusted in 0.1-percent increments. When set below — 80 percent, the platter motor will deactivate; however, you can still scratch with the platter even though it is not spinning. Pitch control is also tied in with bpm detection, so when you adjust the pitch, it adjusts the bpm displayed according to the amount by which you change the pitch — a nice feature.
The pitch fader felt a little cheap, and it was annoying that it had no zero detent. That problem is alleviated by the VFD pitch display; however, I prefer the feel of knowing that you are at zero without having to look. I also had qualms with the Key Lock feature. That feature should allow you to lock the key of the song and adjust only the tempo, but it sounded very digital even when making only minor adjustments. That is not too surprising, though, as Key Lock has proven difficult to implement well.
DIGITAL EXTRAS
The HDX comes equipped with an impressive number of effects to apply in real time: sonar, slide, echo, decimate, filter, kill, chop and pan. Each effect's setting can be adjusted with the jog dial. For effects such as echo, chop and pan, accurate bpm detection is essential because the HDX uses the bpm when determining how to apply the effect. The effects sound very good, but other than chop, their usefulness for scratching is limited because they are applied prefader. I am sure that club DJs and live remixers will appreciate them.
The HDX features a reverse mode and a bleep function, both of which trigger the turntable to reverse the audio. In reverse mode, the switch causes the audio and the platter to play backward, identical to reversing the platter on a vinyl turntable. Bleep mode temporarily reverses the music from the HDX's buffer without reversing the platter. When you release the switch, the song continues playing from the point where it would have been had you not engaged bleep mode. It sounds good and can be easily worked into a scratch routine with great effect.
Looping and cueing works similarly to that of most other DJ CD players; however, the HDX also adds Smart Loop. When used in conjunction with the bpm detection, Smart Loop works well to create accurately synchronized loops, reducing the potential for user error when looping audio.
The HDX also includes the ability to record audio directly to the hard drive through the RCA inputs, provided you have enough disk space. That is an excellent feature, reducing the need to lug one more piece of equipment around. Recorded audio files can be played back from the HDX or transferred to a computer via USB.
Numark's attention to detail with the HDX is commendable. It is one of the best designed pieces of DJ equipment I have used, and the hard-drive features truly set it apart from the competition. It is a major investment for the average DJ, and the high price will be the barrier for many. The wealth of features and 80 GB of audio storage, however, could make this excellent piece of audio gear worthwhile.
NUMARK
HDX > $1,899
Pros: Excellent scratch emulation. 80 GB of searchable hard-drive audio storage. Impressive attention to detail. Record-to-disk feature.
Cons: Expensive. Crowded and hard to access connector panel. Poor Key Lock performance. Lack of file/folder name search.
Contact: www.numark.com
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