Gear Reviews
Review of Numark CDN-88
The Numark CDN-88 offers quite a bit in terms of technology for such a small package. The rack-mounted unit is compact for a CD unit and offers the user symmetric side-by-side control over both CDs. The players themselves are very sturdy and resist shock quite well. The control panel is a little small for a nineteen inch mount as it is only about four inches wide. The side-by-side control is easy to understand although many programmable features are a little difficult to enable on the fly, however.
The control unit does contain a jog-wheel for easy queuing and good scratching. It is worth mentioning, however, DJs moving from a vinyl setup to the world of silver should perhaps save up for some Pioneer CDJ800s or the like. The jog-wheels are very sensitive in terms of sound handling and variability of use which makes the players easy to manipulate. These wheels however do not respond to pressure the way vinyl does and are only about two inches in diameter. When not selected, the wheels act to shift the pitch of the record but upon effect activation (using the buttons and LEDs above the wheel) the wheel provides FX to the album. Scratch, phase, reverb, slide, chop, iso, and reverse are all included at the touch of a button. By holding down the FX keys, one can program many of the effects to hold or change frequency (more on the FX later).
The display is well lit and provides a nice way of quickly checking settings and functions in the dark. The display shows track number, song breakdown in minutes, seconds, and frames (75fps) as well as a countdown (or count up depending on the user settings) of the song time left and even the time left in the entire album if so desired. The display also provides number of remaining tracks, pitch, key variability, and a bpm counter.
One major selling point in this unit is the BeatKeeperIII as an internal beat keeper with corresponding 4 LEDs (useful as long as mixes are in 4/4 time). The internal computer will lock into the deepest frequency sound (i.e. kick or baseline) and compute the number of times it will beat in 30 seconds. This will count out the beat in both numbers on the display and as LEDs going up the middle of the unit. The CDN-88 also designates one player as the Master and the opposite as Slave. By using the interlock function, the slave will automatically match the bmp of the master. This may be seen as lazy to some, but in clubs where a very tight mix is needed very quickly, it can be a godsend. This function is quite reliable as changing the pitch of the Master unit by a few hairsbreadths will update the Slave unit as well.
The pitch controls on the CDN-88s are very, very advanced, using a few quick key presses switches between 6, 12, 25, and even 100% pitch change. The pitch blend controls will quickly nudge the pitch when tightening the beatmatch or if the beats start to drift in a mix. The impressive feature, found only on CD units, is the master-tempo or key-lock function. This allows the pitch to be changed without an impact on the key of the record played. This is a nice feature when the 12 or 25% pitch changes are employed as they are high enough to truly warp the key of a song. The 100% change is useful for pitch scratching and the slider is quite easy to use, with a dip giving some impedance to the slider when 0.0% pitch is encountered.
The loop features on the CDN-88s are easy to use simply pressing line in to start a loop and line out to close the loop. The replay of a loop is seamless and can be stuttered at any point. The loop can be locked in on any track on a record and then cut to seamlessly from any other track currently playing on the album. The dropping of a loop will then start in exactly the same place the loop was cut in on, allowing the user to continue the original song.
The FX for the units are nice to use, though scratch is quite counter-intuitive to actually turn on instead of quickly manipulating the wheel. The phase and reverb effects add a very nice touch to house-style music, giving a renewed energy to vocals. The slide effects are quite useful in causing renewed energy as it raises the key of a record without a change in pitch, becoming useful in cutting two records that will not mix well: the key will make the sound tine very high into the treble or dive low into the bass, allowing a quick cut into the next record. The echo function is nice for acapella and adds a manipulative element of brining in vocals from an echo or letting them ride out by using the jog-wheel to set plus or minus echoes and even change the echo delay. The reverse function is useful in mobile DJing (should you need to quickly bleep out a word not for the kiddies) or conversely in situations where reverse effects will cut back to a great vocal or drum set (spinback, mista selecta!).
With the FX in specific and many other features in general, the major problem with these units is the lack of ease in activations of interesting and useful features. Often a combination of key presses (always on two sides of half of the unit) or a press-and-hold style of pressing are needed for activation of some very simple functions such as reverse or pitch selection change. This lends itself to one of two methods: on one hand, this player may have too many functions for the user and on the other hand, would require a much longer learning curve to master the methods. The Numark CDN-88 is great for the beginner DJ, studio DJ, House DJ, or DJs in styles that lend themselves to long mixes and less technique-driven methods. DJs who wish to complement their vinyl turntables or are looking to switch to the silver-side completely are encouraged, to (by this reviewer, at least) to shop for CD units (Pioneer and Denton make fabulous models) with vinyl emulation in their setup as the learning curve will be much shorter and the body-memory built up with vinyl could be better put to use in this way.
Numark packs quite the technological punch with this small unit, but the ease of use is somewhat lacking in creative button-mashing with a long learning curve. The CDN-88s will be a great addition to the beginner DJs weaponry as the effort required would be greatly suited to those who have a good amount to learn about the craft.
- Ratings: (1 lowest - 5 highest)
- Ease of Use: 3
- Sound Quality: 5
- Skip Resistance: 5+
- Price: 4
- Overall: 4.5