Your Thoughts Chaps

[Mayhem 1]

Gentlemen:

Further to my post about a new mixer, I would now like to hear your thoughts on this item - American DJ SD1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2Rj3aj2pa0&eurl=http://www.idjnow.com/StoreModules/ProductDetails.aspx/PID=SDJ1--BranchID=--DepartmentID=DJ%20Media%20Controllers--S

I would especially like to hear from anyone who actually uses one.

Many thanks,

[CRAZY K]

Gentlemen:

Further to my post about a new mixer, I would now like to hear your thoughts on this item - American DJ SD1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2Rj3aj2pa0&eurl=http://www.idjnow.com/StoreModules/ProductDetails.aspx/PID=SDJ1--BranchID=--DepartmentID=DJ%20Media%20Controllers--S

I would especially like to hear from anyone who actually uses one.

Many thanks,

This has been discussed--personally I cant see you getting enough music on the cards for a full Disco.:confused: 1600 songs two cards.

Do you want to fiddle around shoving SD cards in and out the machine AND do you know whats on what card????????

Might suit you for kids parties though, and me for Barn dance /Country but as I sometimes cover Weddings I need the full 4999 tracks on my Hard drive.:D

CRAZY K

[JAMdisco]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2Rj3aj2pa0&eurl=http://www.idjnow.com/StoreModules/ProductDetails.aspx/PID=SDJ1--BranchID=--DepartmentID=DJ%20Media%20Controllers--S

I would especially like to hear from anyone who actually uses one.

Many thanks,

I might be wrong but I think John from Twinspin has one these (or something similar). He swears by it.

[Mayhem 1]

Cheers Chaps,

I hope to hear from Twinspin soon

[Adam_F]

I believe Danno13's got one too.

[Danno13]

They're good for a backup player, but I don't think I could work all night off it for the reasons Crazy K mentioned. I have 1 SD card with around 1000 classic tracks, and a second one with current and dance tracks and room for B&G requests.

[CRAZY K]

They're good for a backup player, but I don't think I could work all night off it for the reasons Crazy K mentioned. I have 1 SD card with around 1000 classic tracks, and a second one with current and dance tracks and room for B&G requests.

Fair comment--I also have said I think for back up just have another HD
( leave at home to keep pro dub happy of course) and a spare £200 Cortex, Excalibur might have one for sale apparently:D

Gary, if most of your work is using the same tracks every week--like me--might be ok--trouble is you would need a separate set up for full Disco events like Weddings so you end up buying two different sets of kit:eek:

When you can hold 4,999 tracks on two SD cards then I may buy one:D

CRAZY K

[One Vision]

I dont think you can get better than with a hard drive controller.
The actual HD and the controllers are designed for large storage purposes so are far more reliable when it comes to storing a huge amount of files plus in the way the data is actually stored.

SD cards are good for cameras etc. but as a pro play-out system?

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

I have one in a back up system and though it's never been used 'live', I've never had any problems with it when sussing it out.

I'm not sure what reliability has to do with it? I use SD cards in all sorts of applications and have never had any problems.

[Danno13]

If anything they're more reliable than hard drives, as they're solid state and don't have any moving parts which can go wrong!

[djsteve10]

Gentlemen:

Further to my post about a new mixer, I would now like to hear your thoughts on this item - American DJ SD1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2Rj3aj2pa0&eurl=http://www.idjnow.com/StoreModules/ProductDetails.aspx/PID=SDJ1--BranchID=--DepartmentID=DJ%20Media%20Controllers--S

I would especially like to hear from anyone who actually uses one.

Many thanks,

Great bits of kit, nice and easy to use and does exactly what it says on the tin, If you are wanting a decent media player for a big music collection how about a Denon HDC2500?

[One Vision]

I have one in a back up system and though it's never been used 'live', I've never had any problems with it when sussing it out.

I'm not sure what reliability has to do with it? I use SD cards in all sorts of applications and have never had any problems.

Hya Darren I know SD cards are used in allot of digital equipment but in honesty do you think in say a camera they would work as hard as in a DJ MP3player, were your constantly looking through for tracks and at the same time playing tracks from it and all night long?

Hard drives are designed specifically for this purpose

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Hya Darren I know SD cards are used in allot of digital equipment but in honesty do you think in say a camera they would work as hard as in a DJ MP3player, were your constantly looking through for tracks and at the same time playing tracks from it and all night long?

Hard drives are designed specifically for this purpose

Read Danno's last post.

[One Vision]

Read Danno's last post.

Unfortunately its not that simple, flash drives also have no moving parts and are generally reliable, but are less reliable as far as data loss/corruption especially if worked out of their comfort zone.

SD cards are good but I dont think for the purpose of this thread, all I can say really is why take the risk?
At current technology standards, CD and hard drive players are probably the most proven reliable on the market so why spend a decent amount of money on something thets not really designed for the job, maybe for something to play with at home but not at gigs.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

SD cards are good but I dont think for the purpose of this thread, all I can say really is why take the risk?


What risk?

There's several people whoi have them and no-one has said they have died on them as yet.

I know you're talking from a technical point of view, but have you used one?

Also, are you going to tell me that HDD are made for the playback of music?

[One Vision]

On the SD side of things I guess its just a case of see how it goes, at the moment they are only along the lines of a standard flash type mp3 players which in most cases are quite reliable for their current storage size capabilities.

Am not trying to knock them down but just give from the other side of the coin and what the actual technology they were designed for which is for smaller sized file storage purposes, so can be put in your pocket or a small camera, even a mobile phone.

Of course HDs were note designed purely for "music files" that side of things were not even an option when they first designed the technology.
BUT in saying that "Music" is just another file format and HDs were designed with multi file format in mind and is capable of storing any file format.

The HD players are Linux based which is probably the most reliable "operating software based" you can get today, thats why in general most hosting companies use Linux on their servers for its reliability in conjunction with huge storage drives.

HDs are actually a simple technology, although do have obvious moving parts are highly reliable, thats why they have been around for so long now and is generally the software that has any issues.
In simple terms a HD coupled up with a HD player is doing nothing more than what it does on a PC, probably working far less than when used on a PC as its probably only doing 3-4 processes at anyone time whereas on a PC can be a load, all you have to do is go to Windows task manager and see how many processes are active in the background.

[DJ Davy]

Hi, I have one of the ADJ SD card mixers with the on board SD player... I had the same thoughts about playing from the card! I was not really too interested until my d2 went down during a 40th birthday party... cue a very uncomfortable 40 or so seconds for a system reboot!:eek: ... my own fault I hasten to add, due to me not installing the latest software. After viewing the SD mixer in the shop and seeing first hand the boot up speed I was sold. The controls are very easy to use, has keylock, vari speed etc etc. I do not play from the card all night but have several cards with mixes to use at the beginning of the night, for a pee break, or, god forbid, in event of failure. I have also a card with popular party stuff that I use when having a brain freeze. The player has never let me down, the mixer is good quality and it was very reasonably priced too!

[Excalibur]

OK, War and Peace, the unexpurgated version. :D


I might be wrong but I think John from Twinspin has one these (or something similar). He swears by it.

He has, and I think he's just coming to terms with it.


Fair comment--I also have said I think for back up just have another HD
( leave at home to keep pro dub happy of course) and a spare £200 Cortex, Excalibur might have one for sale apparently:D

Gary, if most of your work is using the same tracks every week--like me--might be ok--trouble is you would need a separate set up for full Disco events like Weddings so you end up buying two different sets of kit:eek:

When you can hold 4,999 tracks on two SD cards then I may buy one:D

CRAZY K
Mischievous little soul, aren't you? ;) :D :D


If anything they're more reliable than hard drives, as they're solid state and don't have any moving parts which can go wrong!
Ah yes, the Rob school of thought. ;) ;) :D :D ( Actually it would appear to make sense, but don't tell Rob. ;) ;) )


Great bits of kit, nice and easy to use and does exactly what it says on the tin, If you are wanting a decent media player for a big music collection how about a Denon HDC2500?
Or save £400 and buy a Cortex? :confused: :D :D


Unfortunately its not that simple, flash drives also have no moving parts and are generally reliable, but are less reliable as far as data loss/corruption especially if worked out of their comfort zone.

SD cards are good but I dont think for the purpose of this thread, all I can say really is why take the risk?
At current technology standards, CD and hard drive players are probably the most proven reliable on the market so why spend a decent amount of money on something thets not really designed for the job, maybe for something to play with at home but not at gigs.

As Crazy and I would assert, that statement is erroneous. By far the most reliable and bombproof format we have ever used is the Minidisc. I may retire mine if I get a second HD controller, but it will be reluctantly. :( :( :( :(


Hi, I have one of the ADJ SD card mixers with the on board SD player... I had the same thoughts about playing from the card! I was not really too interested until my d2 went down during a 40th birthday party... cue a very uncomfortable 40 or so seconds for a system reboot!:eek: ... my own fault I hasten to add, due to me not installing the latest software. After viewing the SD mixer in the shop and seeing first hand the boot up speed I was sold. The controls are very easy to use, has keylock, vari speed etc etc. I do not play from the card all night but have several cards with mixes to use at the beginning of the night, for a pee break, or, god forbid, in event of failure. I have also a card with popular party stuff that I use when having a brain freeze. The player has never let me down, the mixer is good quality and it was very reasonably priced too!

It may well be, but since as far as I know, it's pretty much the same price as a Cortex, it's no contest.

[nigelwright7557]

I dont think you can get better than with a hard drive controller.
The actual HD and the controllers are designed for large storage purposes so are far more reliable when it comes to storing a huge amount of files plus in the way the data is actually stored.

SD cards are good for cameras etc. but as a pro play-out system?

The SD cards are more hardy than a hard disc drive as seen in the video.
A sharp knock to the HD and the drive head will hit the platter and damage the drive. I tripped over my PC table once and completely wrecked the hard drive. It did get a fair kick so hard drives will take a little abuse but not a lot.

The price of flash HD is coming down so I can see them taking over in years to come. They are faster and hardier than HD.

[One Vision]

OK, War and Peace, the unexpurgated version. :D

As Crazy and I would assert, that statement is erroneous. By far the most reliable and bombproof format we have ever used is the Minidisc. I may retire mine if I get a second HD controller, but it will be reluctantly. :( :( :( :(

The loyal mini disk, how did I forget that?

The SD cards are more hardy than a hard disc drive as seen in the video.
A sharp knock to the HD and the drive head will hit the platter and damage the drive. I tripped over my PC table once and completely wrecked the hard drive. It did get a fair kick so hard drives will take a little abuse but not a lot.

The price of flash HD is coming down so I can see them taking over in years to come. They are faster and hardier than HD.

I agree as for physical structure the cards are less likely to pack up whereas with HD is relies on the external shell against shocks etc.
So yeh on that point are a hardier.

My point was more towards data corruption etc.
When I first got my D2 the only drive I had available was the 128MB Numark flash drive that came with it.
So I could have a play I put a couple of now albums on.
Great I was having a good time flicking through the tracks etc.
A couple of weeks later I was having a play again and for some strange reason one of the albums would not open, all I got was the vacant look of the D2 trying to search the file but failed to open the actual file, I thought that's strange it opened the file the last time I had a play.
So I plugged the flash drive in to the PC and tried to open the file but again would not open and the PC was saying can not open the file, the data may be corrupted blaa blaa blaa.

I had seen reports in the past of flash drives messing data up but had never experienced it for my self until recently when using on the D2.
I would hate that to happen at a gig, although I have CD back up.

Edit:
All I can say as far as shocks to a HD is to place in the flight case were its not going to get knocked and Velcro it down.
I have mine plugged in to a powered hub placed behind the keyboard on the rack drawer and velcroed down, although is never kept in the flight case, once a gig has finished I eject it and put in my inside pocket of my coat so it doesn't get dropped or knocked off the deck stand etc. Or infact nicked.

If you tripped and dropped most equipment it may do some damage to it, so in that case be more careful :D

[nigelwright7557]

Flash drives are prone to problems if they are not dismounted properly or if the power goes off while it is being written to.

I bought a cheap and nasty MP3 player off ebay that kept on telling me it had format errors. Not much use if your in the middle of a gig !

[Corabar Steve]

I bought a cheap and nasty MP3 player off ebay that kept on telling me it had format errors. Not much use if your in the middle of a gig !
I'd stop buying things off eBay if I were you. You don't seem to be having too much luck. (or did you sell that on as well?)

[DazzyD]

Flash drives are prone to problems if they are not dismounted properly or if the power goes off while it is being written to.

I think this is a good point. Flash/SD cards, etc mostly use a format (can't remember whether it's FAT or NTFS!) which is more prone to corruption if it's not shut down/disconnected properly. It's because this format is continually being written to as every I/O action writes to the disc. For example, if you are just reading a file, update information is also written to the file. Therefore, if the power fails or it's not shut down properly, it could well happen during a write operation which will cause data corruption. Also, this shortens the life of the device.

The other format, on the other hand, doesn't continually write to the drive so if the power fails or it's unplugged without being "safely removed" there is less chance of corruption. Likewise, the device will also have a longer life.

At the moment my head's not with it so I can't remember which format is which (but I think NTFS is the more error-prone format).

Hope this makes things a little clearer as I think this is where Karl & Nigel are coming from.