Our feelings about Engine Prime are well known around here, and especially inside Denon DJ HQ too. The last release went a long way to fixing the any issues we had, and with the new v1.2.1 release a few more of them have been fixed too. And the Sc5000 Prime players also get a matching firmware update too.
I’ll forego the pleasure of copying and pasting the press release, if only to shamelessly make you go and read it in the previous MCX8000 firmware v2 story in a bid for more clicks. But here’s the detail on the Engine Prime and SC5000 Prime updates:
SC5000 PRIME / SC5000M Prime Firmware 1.2.1:
New Features:
- Increased the scratchable/playable empty space before the start of the tracks.
Bug Fixes:
- Releasing momentary hot cues now reset to proper position.
- Fixed an issue where searching could end up only searching within the previous search results.
- Fixed an issue where downgrading to an earlier firmware version could break network connectivity.
- Fixed an issue where continuing to scratch forward/backwards could result in small pops with some audio content.
- On Air mode now resets properly when disconnecting players from the Denon X1800 mixer.
- Fixed an issue where the player could reset when attempting to read a corrupted database.
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Engine Prime Software Update 1.2.1:
New Features:
- MCX8000 DB export support. Engine Prime now supports one directional database conversions to legacy MCX8000 format.
- Playlists are now re-arrangeable.
- iTunes, Traktor and Serato parent crates/folders are now draggable to the Collection.
- Serato playlists now show up in their original Serato order.
- iTunes and Serato library import speed is now faster.
- Importing tracks that have artwork is now faster.
- Album art now takes up less space in the database. All new tracks added to the database will take advantage of this. To apply this improvement to all tracks, select all track in the main collection and then right click and select “Re-import track information.”
- Loop controls now default to Auto / Jump for quicker navigation through tracks.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed an issue where searching could end up only searching within the previous search results.
- Fixed an issue where packed track information could not be resynced to main collection.
- Improved stability of importing files.
- Fixed an issue where importing a Serato library that contains files on external drives would create a useless Engine Prime library on the root of the system drive (Win only).
- Misc improvements and fixes.
SMALL STEPS
Engine Prime is the conduit from the outside world (and indeed outside worlds) into Engineland. It’s a very long way from perfect yet, but each release sees a few more of the issues we’ve raised with them getting ironed out. A significant number of the performance issues in particular that made me want to defenestrate my laptop appear to have been resolved, and my own experiences seem to show that the front end is considerably better than before.
I’ll be updating the SC5000M review unit I have here, and once again taking Engine Prime for a ride all over again. I’ll report back.