DJ Controllers, DJ Software, General PCDJ News, Uncategorized
The upcoming release of DEX 4 is set to redefine your DJ experience with a host of powerful new features designed to elevate both your creativity and performance.
The free update from DEX 3 brings unparalleled audio quality and stability with the integration of zplane’s Elastique technology for time-stretching and pitch-shifting, allowing for more precise and high-quality sound manipulation. Whether you’re exploring the new SLIP and QUANTIZE modes for innovative beat juggling or crafting your own loops with fully manual controls, DEX 4 provides the tools you need to push your mix to new heights.
Additionally, the introduction of PADs with versatile modes like Loop Rolls, Slicer, and Pitch Play offers endless possibilities for live remixing and performance. And for those seeking the ultimate in hardware integration, DEX 4 now fully supports the RANE Four controller, including its 11 displays, ensuring you have all the information you need right at your fingertips.
DEX 4 Feature Highlights:
- SLIP mode for loops, hot cues, scratching, reverse, pause
- loops – all loops now act as loop rolls
- hot cue points – these act as momentary cue points (eg. only while the button/pad is being pressed)
- scratch – after scratching is complete the track will resume as if there was no scratch
- reverse – same as with scratch
- pause (with turntable stop effect)
- QUANTIZE / Snap-to-beat mode for Cues, Loops, searching through the track
- this affects: loop auto/manual mode (snap-to-beat and size quantizing), cue set quantizing, seek (while playing) quantizing
- from compatible controllers the Quantize function can be controlled per deck or globally (all decks)
- brand-new time-stretching and pitch-shifting (courtesy of zplane’s Elastique Pro)
- Loop rolls
- Slicer and Loop Slicer (fully quantized, including rolls)
- Pitch Play
- Markers: cue points and loops are now unified (merged) into ‘markers’ (that do both). Think of them as bookmarks or points of interest basically.
- markers can have custom colors and names (right click to edit them) – these are also displayed on compatbile controllers (eg. the RANE FOUR shows both the color and the name/text of a marker)
- right click no longer clears cue points (markers); you can still do it using the dedicated X (delete cue) button or by a long-press (a couple of seconds; this is disabled when in SLIP mode)
- PADs section with 8 pads mode selection (Markers, Loop Roll, Slicer, Slicer Loop, Sampler, Beat Jump, Pitch Play, Stems)
- instant loops (with pre-selected value)
- fully manual loops – disable quantize and manually control the start and end/size of a loop (set the in and out points without snap-to-beat or quantize)
- manual loop adjustment – when a loop is active you can adjust its left/in point, right/out point or move it left or right using the jog-wheel of a compatible controller or the user interface
If a controller doesn’t have dedicated loop adjustment buttons you can use Shift + Cue point 1,2,3 on a controller – NOTE: when NOT inside a loop this will delete the cue point being pressed (normal functionality)
Shift + Cue 1 enables the left point (loop in) editing mode
Shift + Cue 2 enables the right point (loop out) editing mode
Shift + Cue 3 enables the position (moving) editing mode (eg. both left and right points (loop in + out) are moved thus moving the whole loop)
Use jog-wheel search/move mode to adjust the loop – keep Shift pressed and move the jog-wheel to the direction needed (and the amount needed) – when NOT inside a loop this will search/move through the track itself (normal functionality)
While it is a lot more cumbersome than using a controller, on the user interface itself you can also right-click on the loop -/+ (half/double loop) buttons to enable editing mode and then right-click on the loop (move loop) buttons to adjust the point - turntable slow start/stop motor effect (0.0 – 5.0 seconds)
- fuzzy key matching / key mixing – it will achieve key sync with minimal key/pitch shifting (none, +/-1 or +/-2 semitones max)
this allows key mixing with just a +/- 1 (or max +/- 2) semitones key shift; see https://www.digitaldjtips.com/fuzzy-keymixing-the-new-way-to-dj/ - new controller: RANE Four
Other features:
- added new Audio Routing options for Booth (output) and Record (input)
- added software send/return FX useful for external mixers (or controlleres with hardware DSP mixers) that allow for software processed FX (the external hardware sends us a signal to apply FX to, we process it and then we send it back)
- we no longer apply EQ for external mixer mode (so we don’t double-EQ)
- cross-fading when looping or changing the current position (seek/search through the track) – this sounds a LOT smoother
- added support for .webm video files
- added prevent the screen and system to enter sleep mode
- always-in-sync option (“Use sync-lock when possible”) for SYNC button is now disabled by default (for new installs)
- removed brake feature (use turntable slow pause/stop effect instead)
- removed setting: “Use Slip mode for looping” (use true Slip mode now)
- modified setting: “Time-stretch quality” is now more granular and you choose between: Standard quality (fast), Better quality, Best quality (slow)
- new setting: “Show audio peak load instead of average CPU load”. You can use this in diagnosing audio disruptions/overloads such as glitches, stutters, pops and clicks resulting from an excessively low latency setting, an overly high time-stretch quality setting, or simply an underperforming/slow computer.
- removed setting: “Cutoff Filter Mode” – the filter is now always set to LowPass & HighPass
- WASAPI improvements when resampling is needed (eg. the audio card is set at 48000 Hz and we need to resample from 44100 Hz)
- searching/seeking through the track is now quantized to one bar (when playing)
- Beatsource/Beatport: changed name from “Offline Locker” to “Offline Library”
- TIDAL: Offline Mode
- reimplemented slow pitch/tempo reset, pitch/tempo bend
- improved stability
Stay tuned, we expect to drop DEX 4 very soon!
