Numark Industries THED2 User Manual

TECH

104

www.djmag.com

DIGITAL DIAMOND

THE D

2

Director is a digital media
player. It has no storage for music itself
and instead relies on the user connecting
devices containing MP3, AAC or Wav
audio fi les.
The D2 joins the Cortex HDC-1000 and the
Denon DN-HD2500 as the third player of
this type on review. Similarly, it will play
tunes from USB memory sticks, hard drives
and MP3 players (such as iPods and even
mobile phones) — practically anything with
a USB port or USB cable interface.

The D2 console is overwhelmed in the centre
by its massive screen. This area is dedicated
to navigating music and controlling the
player’s functions. There’s loads of space to
permanently keep an overview of the two
decks, with track text and ID3 tag
information, plus pitch settings, a progress
bar and times.
Below is the main window. Hit the view
button to reveal full tag info for each track
(there’s no Wav Meta tag support at the

moment), and again to see an overview of
the actual audio.
The very bottom row of the screen displays
menu choices. These are selected using four
soft keys directly under the screen, and a
pair of left/right direction keys give access
to further menu options when available.
On either side of the screen are menu
buttons to access different views, utility
modes, the library and the D2’s unique
Crate feature. The console is designed to
keep the menu and navigation separate
from the audio player controls, so playback
is not accidentally interrupted by using the
jog wheel to scroll menus.

UPLOADING TRACKS

The D2 comes with a 128MB USB key to get
you started. There’s not enough room to
hold more than an album, but it’s useful to
upload fi rmware updates and play fresh
content.
Tracks can be copied to any memory device
on Mac or PC. The D2 can read most fi le

formats with only read-only limitations for
the NTFS format.
As with most media players, the D2 needs to
build a library of the device’s contents
before all features work properly. This can
be done on the D2, but it’s much faster to
use a computer.
Numark provide Librarian software, which
is now PC and Mac compatible. Other than
speed, the advantage of using the Librarian
software is that is creates a Profi le View.
The D2 is the fi rst DJ media player available
to offer an overview of the peaks and
troughs of the music. The tracks appear on
top of each other, with the different volume
levels represented by different shades and
thickness.
The DJ can then compare the play position
of the two audio fi les in the view mode on
the D2’s screen. It’s even possible to jump
to breakdowns and the start of sections
using the parameter dial, but this is a bit
sluggish to do regularly.

SPECS

PRICE

£449

CONTACT

01252 341400
numark.com

TECH

*

Plays practically any
USB memory device

*

USB connectors front
and rear

*

Large backlit display

*

Seamless looping,
stuttering

*

Scratch and search

*

Beatkeeper™ BPM
technology with tap

*

Track waveforms

*

Keyboard and USB
memory included

*

XML playlist support

The new media player from Numark is put through its paces

Numark’s BeatKeeper tool helps get

the beats in line for beginners

words DAVID ESERIN

USB port on the front
provides quick access

One of the biggest screens
on the market provides
unique track preview

DJ437.numarkd2 104 19/3/07 18:57:34

The hook of the D2 and other media players
is the ability to plug in iPods and even
charge them. We plugged in a variety of
Mac and PC iPods to test and with some
initial problems solved during the review
with Firmware updates, we’re confi dent
that compatability issues will be smoothed
out. One in particular that we were
promised was seamless integration;
including iPod playlist support.
Similarly to the Cortex player, the D2 can
also play data and audio CDs from a
connected USB CD drive and there is a
maximum of 12 devices that can be
connected to the D2 using a hub.

IN THE CRATE

The D2 can create playlists really easily and
will also read m3u lists saved to your
device. But one of the best things about the
D2 is its Crate feature. The Crate mimics a
DJ’s record box and provides features that
make it as versatile as having the vinyl in
front of you.

NUMARK D2 DIRECTOR TECH

When searching the Library, the DJ has
options to browse by track, artist, album,
genre, BPM and so on. The Crate acts like a
temporary pool of tunes, so rather than
sifting through the entire library for the
next track, you can use the Crate to sift
through a narrowed-down selection.
Whole albums, playlists or genres can be
added and deleted, and when it comes to
DJing, the Crate provides some really
useful tricks.

Each player has four modes for when a track
fi nishes. Manual mode requires the DJ to
load up the next track. Automatic mode
loads up the next track in the Crate and
cues it up at the beginning. Continuous
mode loads up the next track and starts to
play it straight away (with a crossfade time
of one – 12 seconds). These three modes
remove the previous track from the Crate
once it’s been replaced on the deck so you
won’t play it again.
The fi nal mode is Cyclical. This puts the last
played track at the bottom of the Crate and
continues to play its way through the whole
Crate in a cycle — great for early evenings
at a bar.

SPECIAL REQUEST

For those moments where you receive a
request or decide against a track at that
particular time, the Crate allows you to pull
a tune back from either player and add it to
the top of the list. It will also swap tracks
from the Crate to the player, which is
extremely handy.
Searching and organising tracks into the
Crate is made a lot easier using the included
mini keyboard. The D2 has a whole stack of
shortcuts for using the keyboard to
navigate around the library, open menus
and search for music.

IN THE MIX

Mixing on the D2 is really simple, the player
buttons are all very clear and getting the
mix in time is smooth. The pitch slider is
accurate, if not the most solid feeling
component, and there are various pitch
ranges to choose from.
Using the jog wheel to bend the pitch is
accurate, but some pitch-bend buttons
would be handy. When using the jog wheel
to search through tracks, it can be a little
slow to respond, and again, dedicated
buttons would be preferable.
To set a cue point, simply hit pause and play
again. The point can be more accurately set
by using the jog wheel, which scratches the
audio back and forth like a record, rather
than the usual stuttered frame playback we
normally hear.
The play buttons also acts as a stutter, and
the cue button simply brings the track back
to the cue point and pauses it. Sadly, the D

2

has no memory functions for any track
settings, such as cue points and loops.
There are plans for this in the future.

IN EFFECT

The D2 is rather lacking in exciting features
for creative mixing. Other than its seamless
loop, which works well, there’s no fun to be
had with reverse, key lock or any effects.
There is a scratch feature though, which is
pretty basic because the jog wheels aren’t
touch-sensitive either — making any kind
of skilful operation pretty impossible.
The scratch sound is surprisingly not too
bad, but it has a limited nominal speed; so
spinning the platter backwards actually
induces a temporary reverse effect, rather
than a whirling backspin sound.

The D2 has a BPM detection engine, which
works pretty well. The DJ can hit the tap
button once to set the start of the bar,
which then makes the BeatKeeper function
track the beats and bars correctly. This
gives a visual aid to lining up the beats with
its three rows of four lights that represent
the beats of the bar. And if the BPM
recognition is way off, you can then tap it
in manually.

FINAL WORD

The D2 benefi ts from a massive screen,
which provides the essential track overview
mixing tool, while the record Crate is
another unique feature. It best serves the
working DJ taking requests and dealing
with monstrously massive databases of
tunes, but misses a few tricks here and
there, which should hopefully be cleared up
with fi rmware updates.

*

*

Three unit, 19” rackmount

*

Support for USB hubs

*

Connect 12 devices

*

Seamless looping with

stutter-start function

*

Pitch control in 6, 12, 25 and

-100/+25%

*

Large 5” backlit screen with

brightness adjustment

*

Track profi le visualization

*

Three USB, two ports

*

Plays MP3, Wav and

unprotected AAC

*

Supports FAT, NTFS (read

only) and HFS+ drives

*

Fader start

*

Software updates for future

enhancements

*

Audio path: 24-bi

www.djmag.com

105

VERDICT SCORES OUT OF 5

BUILD QUALITY 3.5
SOUND QUALITY 4.0
EASE OF USE 4.5
FEATURES 3.5
VALUE FOR MONEY 4.5

HYPE

Intuitive Crate, large screen and unique track
profi le feature.

GRIPE

Limited scratch and track memor y functions.
Still some iPod integration issues being
smoothed out.

Working DJs will love
this for its clear and
simple approach to MP3
mixing.

TECH VERDICT (OUT OF 5) 4.0

Set cue points on-the-fl y
and stutter loops

Very basic
scratching
feature

DJ437.numarkd2 105 19/3/07 18:58:27