Cortex Dmix-300 Help

[Andy Sav]

Hoping anyone can help me.

Probably a bit behind the times now re-digi DJ'ing as I still use the Dmix 300 but it hasn't caused me any problems whatsoever, until a 21st two weeks ago. I'm not a hugely experienced DJ but I've never had anything but praise and thanks from the events I've performed at. I don't however, use the Dmix 300 to is full extent.

Anyhow, on to my request for help...

It seems at some point I engaged the Unit's 'autocue' mode so everytime 'CUE' is pressed the Dmix takes the track in question back to the first bar of sound instead of my desired cue point.

So question one is... how do I turn 'autocue' off. The handbook/guide says autocue comes under the 'Options/Edit' menu. For the life of me I can't find either and Options or Edit menu on the Units display windows. Anyone any idea where it is?

My second issue, and the cause of two big breaks in sound during my 21st set, was the appearance of an error message which read something like 'This track is not 440Mz and therefore not compatible with current firmware'. Does this mean the track in question isn't good enough quality for the Unit to play? I got the message a number of times but whilst most tracks acutally then worked, two of them (one being Edison Lighthouse's 'My Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)'), actually caused the unit to freeze and the track playing on the other side to stop.

So question two is... how do I stop this error message appearing?

Any help is hugely appreciated as I am doing and engagement party on Friday night.

[Corabar Steve]

Please take the time to introduce yourself in the Newbies section of the forum

[Andy Sav]

Sorry. Will do.

[DJ Jules]

It seems at some point I engaged the Unit's 'autocue' mode so everytime 'CUE' is pressed the Dmix takes the track in question back to the first bar of sound instead of my desired cue point.

In theory, (this is according to the manual) Autocue is linked to the "SINGLE" button on the unit and when it's on it'll load the track and cue to the first audio frame. When it's off, it'll load the track and play immediately. However, I've got the HDC3000 and there is an option under the edit menu for Autocue which does something a bit different - but not the behaviour you're talking about. The option I've found which influences the recall of Cue points is (logically) "Recall cue points on load". My unit occasionally resets it's settings on one or both decks for no apparent reason - I'm guessing you've probably experienced a similar random reset.


So question one is... how do I turn 'autocue' off. The handbook/guide says autocue comes under the 'Options/Edit' menu. For the life of me I can't find either and Options or Edit menu on the Units display windows. Anyone any idea where it is?

Cortex manuals are notorious for being a) rubbish and b) not telling you about half the things you can do. The weird thing in this case is that the manual tells you to use the edit menu, but doesn't tell you how to get the edit menu up, and there isn't the "Edit" button present on this device like on other Cortex units which would pull up the menu... Do you have a keyboard you can attach to the unit? If so, CTRL+E will probably bring up the menu!! :confused:


My second issue, and the cause of two big breaks in sound during my 21st set, was the appearance of an error message which read something like 'This track is not 440Mz and therefore not compatible with current firmware'. Does this mean the track in question isn't good enough quality for the Unit to play?

The message would have been that the track is not 44.1Khz. It doesn't necessarily infer anything about the track quality (DMC have recently issued a few compilations with tracks encoded at 33.9Khz - which stops them from playing on lots of digital devices, but doesn't really mean much about the quality). The best thing I've found to do so far is to actually run Denon's music manager across the hard disk you've got your music on as it weeds out problems like this (and files with zero size frames which also seem to make the Cortex units unhappy) and then you can deal with them. Dealing with them usually means re-encoding them. Just google "mp3 re-encoding" for lots of help on doing this - it's painless enough.

Julian

[Excalibur]

In


The message would have been that the track is not 44.1Khz. It doesn't necessarily infer anything about the track quality (DMC have recently issued a few compilations with tracks encoded at 33.9Khz - which stops them from playing on lots of digital devices, but doesn't really mean much about the quality). Julian

I got that one, on Saturday night. The player was in continuous play, so it just flashed up the message, and went on to the next one, no problem. I'll have to look into this re-encoding thing. Thanks for that.

PS. The D2 played it. :o :o :o

[Andy Sav]

In theory, (this is according to the manual) Autocue is linked to the "SINGLE" button on the unit and when it's on it'll load the track and cue to the first audio frame. When it's off, it'll load the track and play immediately. However, I've got the HDC3000 and there is an option under the edit menu for Autocue which does something a bit different - but not the behaviour you're talking about. The option I've found which influences the recall of Cue points is (logically) "Recall cue points on load". My unit occasionally resets it's settings on one or both decks for no apparent reason - I'm guessing you've probably experienced a similar random reset.

I have tried turning 'SINGLE' off but this doesn't seem to have any effect on autocue, it still lines the track up at the first sound. Unfortunately after trying it on the night I forgot what else turning single mode off does and ended diving for the channel volume to mute the next track!


Cortex manuals are notorious for being a) rubbish and b) not telling you about half the things you can do. The weird thing in this case is that the manual tells you to use the edit menu, but doesn't tell you how to get the edit menu up, and there isn't the "Edit" button present on this device like on other Cortex units which would pull up the menu... Do you have a keyboard you can attach to the unit? If so, CTRL+E will probably bring up the menu!! :confused:

I'm pretty sure there isn't an 'Edit' menu at all! Unless it involves pressing 'shift' and something to get to it I can find it anywhere! As you said the Cortex manual doesn't give even the slightest clue where to find it, its just there apparantely. I shall try plugging a keyboard and see if 'ctrl+e' works.



The message would have been that the track is not 44.1Khz. It doesn't necessarily infer anything about the track quality (DMC have recently issued a few compilations with tracks encoded at 33.9Khz - which stops them from playing on lots of digital devices, but doesn't really mean much about the quality). The best thing I've found to do so far is to actually run Denon's music manager across the hard disk you've got your music on as it weeds out problems like this (and files with zero size frames which also seem to make the Cortex units unhappy) and then you can deal with them. Dealing with them usually means re-encoding them. Just google "mp3 re-encoding" for lots of help on doing this - it's painless enough.

Julian

Cheers for the advice Julian, will try this tonight. When I get the message the Unit either i. skips to the next track ii. goes back to the track in question and lets me play it or iii. jams up, stops or slows down the track playing on the other channel.

Wish me luck!

[Excalibur]

Those of us who use NTFS drives can't store cue points, so can't face this problem. :whistle:

[Andy Sav]

Well I've done two gigs since the original post and lots of fiddling around and I can't for the life of me turn the autocue feature off.

The 'Edit/Options' menu

http://i643.photobucket.com/albums/uu152/andysaville/dmixguide.jpg

as displayed in the cortex dmix300 pdf manual doesn't exist. God knows why, really does seem utterly stupid!

[DJ Jules]

Well I've done two gigs since the original post and lots of fiddling around and I can't for the life of me turn the autocue feature off.

The 'Edit/Options' menu

Did you try pressing "CTRL+E?"

Julian

[Creature]

The message would have been that the track is not 44.1Khz.

have had this message on 2 tracks purchased recently from a mp3 site - they were both at 48000khz - i used ReZound and converted them to 44100 - they now work perfectly :)

[Andy Sav]

Did you try pressing "CTRL+E?"

Julian

Yep, did nothing I'm afraid. Tried it on various menus and nothing.

I also submitted the query to Cortex on the feedback thing on their site. Nothing back :(