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View Full Version : Review: Denon DN-HC5000



Gjhowe1
02-25-2012, 07:16 PM
Welcome everyone!

After owning this particular piece of equipment for a while now I feel I know it well enough to do a nice mini review on it. Ive been using it with Serato ITCH for about 8 months now and have enjoyed it quite a bit. Its an older controller now, compared to current choices like the Novation twitch, but still holds its own.

Overall Impressions:

Overall Ive found this to be a wonderful little controller for ITCH. Its small, compact and features two decks for use within ITCH. In terms of build quality it follows the Denon tradition of being built like a tank, I would feel comfortable dropping the unit (although i would not recommend that for ANY hardware), worst case scenario you know that this will survive the fall. The unit is a bit heavy due to the solid construction and you will notice the weight when you install it in the rack the first time. The pitch faders are very smooth and have a nice little 'click' when they are at 0. The buttons are the standard Denon rubber buttons you find on most of their hardware, they have a nice tactile click when they engage so you don't need to check twice to see if they are on or off. The jog wheels I find to be a tad on the small size, however that is to be expected in a rack mounted controller. There is a center hub in the middle of the jog wheel that secures it to the platter, I find this a bit annoying as my hand always seams to bump into it when searching though a track. I would have liked to see a nice flat jog wheel similar to those on a pioneer CDJ.

Layout:

Denon has done a nice job with the layout on this controller, given its small footprint. The controller will take up about 3U of rack space and features two deck controllers and a nice navigation section for moving around within ITCH. The two decks mirror each other and are identical in layout and appearance. On the left side of the deck you can find the hot starts, manual looping, search, next track and play / pause / cue buttons. The buttons offer good spacing and don't feel to crowded for my hands. If you have large hands you might find these buttons a tad close. Beside the buttons we have the jog wheel (which is touch sensitive) and pitch control. There is also a button to switch between pitch bend and scratch mode (not that the jog wheels would be very good for scratching anyways). On the top of the deck is the tube display and all the settings and auto looping. We also find sync, bitch bend and the censor control in this area. Not a bad little layout, I would have liked to see the auto loop by the manual loop controls but the spacing is nicer this way. The tube display is quite nice, very bright and give you all the relative info you might need. It will show you pitch but unfortunately not BPM. The middle of the mixer has the navigation section which is very nicely laid out. At the top we have controls for loading songs to the decks, followed by a rotatory midi encoder for navigating though menus and selecting. There is also options for source select (Itch or CD player), crate management, Itch layout, and the shift key. The spacing on the navigation pane is very nice and the buttons are all colour coded to help you along the way.

Functionality:

Since this controller was designed with ITCH in mind it will work best with ITCH, Denon makes a separate midi controller for for use with traktor / VDJ. The controller has a two channel sound card, one for deck A and one for deck B. The downside to the HC5000 vs other ITCH controllers is the Denon does not have a mixer section, meaning you would have to buy an external mixer to go with it. I paired mine with a Denon X500 mixer. The controller does have the ability to double as a controller for the Denon CD player, either the D4000 or the newer BU-4500. I used the D4000 with mine as a backup if Itch were to crash or if people had a CD they would like me to play. Another important note is the HC5000 can be configured as a sound card for your computer (at least on a mac it can, not sure about windows). So if a client were to present you with a USB key of music, you could play it with iTunes using the sound card on the HC5000. I used this a lot when i just wanted to listen to music, or during that boring part of the night where you just play dinner music off iTunes. Unlike other ITCH controllers, ITCH does not need to be running to use the HC5000 as a sound card.

Practicality:

The thing I liked the most about the HC5000 was there was nothing I didn't need on the controller, no extra bells a whistles. Every function had a use and I think I used every single one of them. The downside was this controllers works best in a rack with other denon gear IE. D4000 CD player and X500 mixer. If your a mobile DJ who already has a mixer that's not a rack mount then this might be a bit awkward for you. However if your a rack junkie and love having all your gear in one spot without having to plug everything in once you get there, then this is aimed at you. I would recommend this to anyone who brings a rack with them to a gig (ie. you wedding guys, mobile dj, school dances, ect) and wants a nice little compact solution that gives you the added redundancy of being able to control a CD player if your computer decided to crash.

So to recap in short:

Pros:
Quality! This thing is built like a tank
Mobility *if you have a rack*
Durable
Nice layout
Good sound card (very nice sounding)
Doubles as a cd player
Nice faders / buttons

Cons:
Need an external mixer
Better suited for use in a rack
Small jog wheels
A bit heavy
No effect control

Well everyone, hope that helps a bit. I know we lost some great reviews on here when we switched over to DJF 2.0 so its a step to rebuilding that helpful section. Constructive criticism welcome, as long as its not trolling or just being negative.

-Greg