Denon MC-2000 review

DECKS

The MC-2000’s deck sections have 4in jog wheels, transport controls, a pitch fader and a Sync button. As it’s a Denon controller, each deck also gets a set of Pitch Bend buttons that let you get your tracks in phase without using the jog wheel.

The jog wheels are small, much smaller than the Mixtrack Pro’s excellent 6in jogs, and you can feel it when scratching and beatjuggling. We found the latency was too high unless we had the sample buffer set to its lowest setting. Although scratching and beatjuggling is possible with the MC-2000, we prefer the response and feel of the Traktor Kontrol S4’s jog wheels, although it’s worth remembering that you’re locked in to Traktor with the Kontrol S4.

The pitch fader’s travel is very smooth and it works well in both Serato DJ Intro and Traktor Pro 2. It has a centre detent, which might annoy turntablists, but it didn’t bother us. Should you not want to match track tempos automatically, you can use the Sync button.

Each deck also has a Key Lock button, which keeps a track’s pitch the same, no matter how much you speed it up or slow it down. This stops a singer sounding like Alvin the chipmunk when you speed up a track, for example.

HOT-CUES, LOOPS AND EFFECTS

The MC-2000’s hot-cue, loop and effects sections are very well implemented, and conform to our preferred flow. You have hot-cues right next to the jog, exactly where you need them, with the loop controls above them, followed by the effects controls.

These sections use plastic buttons that are a good size and have enough travel to let you know you’ve pressed them. The effects pots are high, apart from the pot marked “Beats”, which is half the height of the others. Three of the effects pots have a button underneath them, except the Beats pot, which you can push.

In Serato DJ Intro, each effects pot controls the amount of the effect applied to a track, and the button underneath it activates the effect. All that is, except the Beats button, which controls the timing of the effects in beat fractions from 1/8th of a beat to eight beats. The MC-2000 lets you control up to three effects simultaneously on each deck in Serato DJ Intro.

We’ve seen better implemented effects sections for Traktor Pro 2, but the MC-2000’s effects section complements Serato DJ Intro’s onscreen effects section brilliantly.

Traktor LE 2 looks similar to the full version of Traktor Pro 2 shown here, but doesn’t have Traktor Pro 2’s advanced features

The loop controls consist of In and Out buttons for manual loop creation and plus and minus buttons for setting auto loops of a specific size. The controls are well spaced and work as expected in both Serato DJ Intro and Traktor, although it’s worth noting that DJ Intro only lets you create loops between one beat and eight beats in size.

In Traktor Pro 2, the effects controls work well in Chained or Single effects modes. You can even select effects (using the Shift button). Sadly, there are no buttons for assigning FX units to specific channels, which means you have to use your mouse to do this.

You get four hot-cues, which is plenty for rearranging a track’s flow on the fly, and you can easily delete the hot-cues you’ve created by pressing the Shift button and the hot-cue you want to delete simultaneously.