I N D E X
1 - First Impression
2 - Quality (Built & Sound)
3 - Conclusion
1. First Impression
1.1 Size
My first Impression was woooooow! I’ve used a smaller mixer before, so the DDM4000 will be a lot larger than the stuff you might have used before. In the end, it’s a 4 Channel Mixer, packed with hundreds of features, so I think the size is justified.
1.2 Weight
For a mixer that size it is incredibly light! 4.2 kg is not much - when you lift it it feels like you’re carrying your shoes around, believe me, it’s light as a feather !
1.3 First Glimpse
Again, Wooohoo! So many knobs, buttons, faders, all conveniently placed within different “sectionsâ€, it’s like India from space! They even included a LCD Screen with Backlight! Switch off your room lights and the baby lights up like a christmas tree, shiny shiny! One problem though (our first), the Status light of the Mode Selector for the EQs is way too bright, if you’re mixing in the dark it really blinds you! You can barely see the other controls around the area since these tiny LEDs are right in your face bright. That’s a con! Also, having the Headphones Jack on the TOP of the Unit is simply stupid, you always have your cable hanging all over the unit, not Good!
2. Quality (Built & Sound)
2.1 Knobs
As my first impression I have to say that most of the Knobs turn easily, unfortunately very few of them have this small resistance when you zero them in (to let you know the Knob is at the ZERO Postion), which is irritating because if your mixing and you turn your EQs back to 0 you’re never really sure if they are at Zero already or not - Not Good at all! Also, the knobs don’t feel heavy, yes, it’s plastic, but they turn really nice and are precise, and that’s all that counts!
2.2 Faders
Faders are amazing! Since this is a digital Mixer, all Faders are digital, giving them more life expectancy and more precision, which is awesome! Both thumbs up! Incredibly precise, a good feeling to them, what else do I want! You can even set each Volume fader into 3 modes: Sharp / Mid / Soft, which determines how fast and how much sound they cut out and in if you move them. Works like a charm.
2.3 Buttons
Made out of plastic as well, but hell, they are solid, very precise, and only require one push to activate! Awesome!
2.4 LCD Screen & Built-in Menu
As already mentioned above, the screen comes with Backlight (duuuh xD), which is not too bright or too weak, it’s just perfect. The Contrast can be adjusted in the Settings, you can set it up the way you want to. Overall, crystal clear Screen with good and easy to understand Menu Structure. Again, Thumbs up!
Another cool thing is that you can save different user settings, so if you have different DJs in a club using this mixer, each of them can always save, load and edit his own profile in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, there is one problem: for each effect section you need to assign a channel (this can be CH 1-4 or the Master), this works great, but this option doesn’t get saved in the user settings, so every time you load your profile you need to set these settings again. Well, once you know how to do it it’s fairly easy and can be quickly done, but still a nuisance.
2.5 Effects
There are 9 effects in the unit, each with various parameters:
- Flanger
- Phaser
- Pan
- Delay
- Echo
- Pitch
- Bitcrusher
- Reverb
- Filter
The effects all sound amazing, they are all beat syncable, and have many parameters you can tweak - some of them are still a mystery to me, but I’ll get there! Controlling the effects is simple, all corresponding menus have a nice structure and make perfect sense. It takes a while to get used to though!
2.6 Mixer Sound Quality
For me, the sound quality is simply impressive. Clear highs, clear lows, clear everything! If you use the kill buttons to cut off various frequencies (Lows & Highs for example) you think it’s part of the song, so impressive!
2.7 Mic Quality
Haven’t tested that yet, won’t be needing it, but I’ve read that the Mic Gains are sometimes over-sensitive, resulting in great volume jumps? Couldn’t confirm that!
2.8 MIDI
Almost every single button is Midi Mappable, that includes all the faders + the Crossfader - the entire Midi Setup is very easy to configure, once you\'ve connected the unit to your MIDI Interface you can just use the LEARN Function in e.g. NI Traktor DJ. Another Job well done!
3. Conclusion
I think you already get the idea, this baby rocks! It retails at roughly 250 pounds in the UK and for $399.99 in the US, for that price you get an extremely versatile mixer with a lot of power and quality, both sound and built. If you’re looking for a decent mixer, or want to kick Traktor up a notch, I can only recommend this little baby! It does have a few downsides, yes, but these are minor sacrifices you will be able to make or fix!
Therefore: RECOMMENDED! 5/5