Techincal - Gemini or Numark CD players for theatre use?

Archived from groups: uk.music.makers.dj,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Does anyone have any views on either of the following?

Numark CDN 88
Gemini CFX 40/50
any others in the £350 price range

in terms of features and reliability?

I'm looking for something for use in theatre, both for running shows
and for rehearsal. The Gemini has the nice user interface. The Numark
looks like it has a good feature set (assuming they work well), but the
user interface looks like something from a blind UNIX programmer! (I am
a UNIX programmer, but not blind ;-)

Most important to me for running a show is the ability to play a track
at a time:

It waits at the start of track 1.
I press PLAY. It plays track 1.
Then it waits at the start of track 2 for me to press PLAY
continue until run out of tracks.

When I press PLAY it must start instantly and reliably.
A big visible PLAY button would be nice for hitting in low light.

Ideally also it should wait at the start of the track when I press
NEXT, and be able to find that track quickly. For example I may have an
ambient effect which will be over-long and would want to skip to the
next at the end of the scene ready for an effect in the next scene.

Having researched DJ CD players I've found other features of interest
(especially for rehearsals):

Ability to change speed without changing the musical key
for practising dance routines. Both do this

Ability to change the key without changing the speed to help
out singers.
On the night the band will play in the right key.
I have an effects processor that can do this fairly well.
Gemini players can't do this? Numark can but is it any good?

Loops and hot starts - cue points - for more interesting effects
on the night.
Gemini has more cue points but I think it's two keypresses to
activate them from pause. Could this replace a sampling
keyboard?

Some way to quickly get to a bit of music for when they say "Can we
have the second verse again". Good searching on the jog wheel.
Gemini's direct track access helps here, and on the night.

Thanks

- Richard

Archived from groups: uk.music.makers.dj,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

A rep theatre I used to work at had a very expensive Tascam MD player
which was excellent, but we could only afford one of them. "Tape 2"
remained just that - an old reel to reel tape deck. The only problem
we had with it was that after a while it would start saying "Edit not
possible" which would mean having to copy the data off and back on
again.

MDs seem to be less common a format nowadays though. I don't see units
in the shops any more.

I'll do some research though, so thanks for that.

Archived from groups: uk.music.makers.dj,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Yes, your unit was not defective, there is a limitation to the number
and type of edits you can make before you have to "start over"

Mark

Archived from groups: uk.music.makers.dj,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

this:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs [...] id/801247/

or this:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs [...] id/800490/

the second one has anti-skip technology. very important to a mobile
dj. may not be as important to you.

Archived from groups: uk.music.makers.dj,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Richard Corfield" <richard.corfield@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Most important to me for running a show is the ability to play a
> track at a time:
>
> It waits at the start of track 1.
> I press PLAY. It plays track 1.
> Then it waits at the start of track 2 for me to press PLAY
> continue until run out of tracks.
>
> When I press PLAY it must start instantly and reliably.
> A big visible PLAY button would be nice for hitting in low light.


Would it be more practical to do this with iTunes rather than CD
players?

--
"It CAN'T be too loud... some of the red lights aren't even on yet!"
- Lorin David Schultz
in the control room
making even bad news sound good

(Remove spamblock to reply)

Archived from groups: uk.music.makers.dj,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Now I have it, I can give an initial review:

First impression - very solidly made. It weighs a lot (10kg according
to the packaging). Disk trays are plastic, but aren't they all
nowadays. A lot of weight is in the controller which surprised me. I
expected that to be a dumb display device with buttons.

It does the cue-ing as required. If skipping to the next track best hit
pause first otherwise it will play straight away, but that's better
that way and more flexible.

Control layout is quite simple and works. On the night I'd put some
tape over the play LED to dim it a bit though. It's a very bright
blue/white one with quite a narrow beam so don't be looking into it
when you press play. The other LEDs are fine, ordinary diffuse
green/yellow ones.

It read disks well - even the "copy protected" BMG one I tried it on so
no need to make a copy of it to play. I don't think I've agreed with
the BeatKeeper yet, but perhaps I listen to the wrong type of music for
it. 3/4 time is definately out. Will have to try it on something more
disco-ey to see if it works. It doesn't try to beat-keep if there's no
beat, so shouldn't get in the way for effects.

Key changing works, a little mickey mousey but I expect formant aware
key shifting is still a very new and very expensive technology and this
is an older player. For small changes it's quite usable. Similarly key
lock is very usable up to +/-25% degrading as you get beyond that. For
rehearsal it will do the job. On the night - we just regulate the
caffiene intake of the drummer.

- Richard