Unless you’ve got a pair of CD-decks that you’re already happy with, or complacent enough to plant your head in the sand of DJ technology Beach, you’ve probably noticed a myriad of DJ friendly CD-decks being launched over the last few months. Some of those CD-decks offering just a few features, and some with enough options to keep the guy that invented the Rubik cube (and me) happy for quite a while.
Given that many audiences don’t want scratching and other turntablist tricks anymore, its refreshing to see a dual CD-deck, which doesn’t spend any of its modest price tag, on features which might only get used off-air, but still incorporating “use-every-gig features”, such as seamless loop, instant start, and fine MP3 playback functionality.
Company X
Before I go into detail about the unit itself, I feel that a certain amount of “setting the record straight” is required. Around a decade ago, this manufacturer, lets call them “Company X” had a fairly basic range of products, at a fairly basic price, and sadly too, a fairly basic level of reliability…and a fairly obvious reputation because of that.
Company X left such issues behind them, several years ago, with a current product line-up which many other manufacturers would be proud to offer, and DJ’s happy to own. There are, however, many DJs (and retailers) with long memories, some of which seem happy to smear every product from a particular manufacturer, with the same 10-year-old brush.
Even more recently Company X has had one of its turntables (The PT-2410) reviewed as “better than a Technics SL1210” (Review source: Sept 2001: Music Mart) and since then has released the highly acclaimed CD-2000x dual CD-player, and more besides. Its time to forget the past, and read about Gemini’s (Company X) latest reward to open-minded DJ’s – The MP-3000x.
In short, the MP-3000x, is a dual CD-deck which will play ordinary “shop-bought” Audio CD’s as well as MP3 music data files up to 320 Kbps. The unit offers a seamless loop (one each drive) with real-time loop editing of the start and end points, a sensibly sized jog-wheel with sprung outer collar, for both fast, and frame-accurate manipulation of the CD. Also, Automatic Disc Calibration System for compatibility with an incredibly wide range of recordable and re-recordable CDs. But wait, there’s more…and it does it all with class, and all while looking as good, as it sounds.
On the rack
The MP-3000x comes in the now industry standard two-piece design. A 3 rack-unit high control panel, and a 2 rack-unit high drive unit. Both units are finished in an extremely luxurious satin/silver finish, and joined by a single control cable, which cannot be accidentally plugged in incorrectly, by virtue of its right angled plugs and U-shaped shroud covering three sides of the socket on the back of each unit. The same shrouds protect the plugs from accidental knocks, which can be all to common in the mobile environment, or darkened DJ booth.
Well Connected
The rear of the drive unit features a standard 3 pin IEC socket for powering the unit with the removable power lead supplied. A voltage selector switch (230v/110v) for when you hit the big time and need to haul your gear worldwide, the previously mentioned control cable. Also (of course) are two pairs of colour coded RCA/Phono sockets, for the audio outputs from each side of the twin CD deck to your mixer. A little curio here. The RCA sockets are clearly labelled “L” and “R”, and are coloured White and Red, respectively (“Red for right”). However, when you look at the unit from the rear, the sockets are mounted “R” then “L” (looking from left to right). This initially seemed strange and a possible catalyst for transposed audio channels. However, it you’re wiring up the unit whilst leaning over from the front, thereby unable to read the labelling, or see the colour coding on the RCA sockets, you would see the “L” (left) socket to the left of the “R” socket. A simple application of logic perhaps?
Forward-thinking, technology hungry DJ’s will also appreciate the BNC plugs for digital out, featured on the rear of the unit, which will allow the unit to play lossless digital output of music to audio devices with digital in sockets, such as some mixers with digital inputs, or the surround sound system in the lounge…when no-one’s looking.
Lookin’ Good
The luxurious satin/silver front of the drive unit is functionally simplistic, with the two black fronted drawers boasting logos for the ADCS (Automatic Disc Calibration System), which is described later. An Open/Close button for each of the two drawers are placed centrally, above a red “Power” LED, and a push on/off power switch, which is nudge-protected on three sides (why not four?) by a squared arch, standing proud around the button. Not only do the drawers automatically close by themselves if left open for 3 minutes to prevent smoke and dust ingress, but also the drawers will sensibly close – getting out of your way - if you accidentally nudge into the front of an open drawer.
The front also boasts a logo indicating that the unit has an Anti-shock buffer, essential for all those rickety wooden stages in village halls, river boats, and DJ booths foolishly located directly on-top of the clubs bass bins etc…
Easy on the eyes…
Time to power both units up, which is achieved by way of the nudge-protected power switch on the drive unit. The next luxurious difference hits you. The LCD displays light up with a glorious deep blue background, with all information displayed in a creamy white text. There are several “labels” which switch on or off in their own unique places on the display, including “Total Tracks”, “Elapsed”, “Remain” etc. The white of blue makes a very sharp, precise colour scheme, which is overall very easy on the eyes. The only extra, which I could have wished for on the display, was for all the letters to be available in both upper AND lower case. To explain this…the LCD segment display can display some letters only in UPPER case, and some only in lower case. For example: “no dISC” or “rEAd” this is simply down to the text being displayed from LCD only horizontal and vertical (but no diagonal) lines. A minor issue, and one that certainly doesn’t affect performance.
Since this is a double CD-deck, we only need to discuss either the left, or right hand side of the control panel. Since the twenty one buttons, jog wheel and pitch slider on the left hand side, are identically laid out to those on the right.
…and clever with it
The two sets of controls are separated by a respectable 2 inch gap, which is home only to the “Robo-Start” button. Robostart being a clever feature which allows you to load 2 CD’s and have the unit play both CD’s alternately, either all the way through, or a track at a time from each disc. This means that if you’re set to play background music through the meal part of a Dinner Dance, you can load a Robbie CD in one drive, A Whitney CD in the other, leave both faders up on your mixer, and hear (from the bar) a Robbie track, then a Whitney track, then a Robbie track, then a Whitney track etc…until your munching audience is demolishing the after dinner mints. If it’s a really long meal, the MP3000x will repeat its magic from the beginning of the two CDs. A perfect solution too, for the Christmas dinner dance audiences who don’t want 40 Christmas tracks in a row, but are happy to dine with 20 christmas tracks alternating between 20 non-Christmas ones.
So, lets load a CD into the left hand drive, and see what happens. The open/close buttons for the drawer, is top left, and can be used instead of the open/close button located on the main drawer unit. There is a brief pause and the drawer ejects smoothly and almost silently. The drawer features the usual inlay for mini-CD’s should you need to use them. Press the open/close button again, and the display shows “LOAd” as the drawer retracts into the unit, and then “rEAd” for 2 ~ 3 seconds before displaying the CD information, number of tracks etc. I’ve known some CD-decks, especially the older flatbed/desktop models from other manufacturers, taking almost 20 seconds longer to read this initial information from a recordable CD, than from a shop-bought disc. The quick loading/recognising time on the MP3000x may well be attributable to its ADCS system (Automatic Disc Calibration System) debuting on this unit.
With a CD loaded, now is a great time to select a couple of the easy to use options on the MP-3000x. To prevent you being “caught short”, you can choose to display either the Elapsed Time of a playing track, or the Remaining Time. One counts up, the other down. The Gemini MP3000x goes one better; A graphic display of 10 linear blocks, which (in “Remain” time mode, disappear at regular intervals as the track plays. The less blocks you’ve got left showing, the less time you’ve got to find the next track that you want to play. In the 15 seconds of the track, the whole line of blocks start flashing slowly…in the last 5 seconds, the blocks flash even more rapidly to warn you of the approaching end of the track.
The end of the track is however, something that Gemini have given you a little control over, together with the beginning of the next track. The “Single/Continue/Autocue” button allows you to set the MP3000x to respectively pause between each track, continue straight onto the next track, or Autocue. This last feature is a boon to all of you that have noticed that the first audible part of a track is rarely found at 00minutes:00seconds: 00frames. (more about frames later). Autocue will simply place the CD in pause/cued mode at the point where the music begins for any chosen track. A real time saver for those simpler cues. Autocue also works perfectly well when used in conjunction with Robo-start, allowing for fewer silent gaps in-between the background music songs.
Cueing the track manually is quick, simple, and precise. Modern professional CD-decks, like the MP3000x, offer Frame-precision cueing, which is one 75th of a second. The cueing is controlled by the 7cm jog-wheel, which has moves the cueing point forward or backward by 10 frames per complete turn. The outer collar of the jog wheel can also be rotated approximately 70 degrees in either direction, offering a faster search to the approximate location within a track, such as an instrumental break, at which point the hi-precision jog wheel would then be used to home in on the exact frame you want. The outer collar offers proportionate control of the fast searching; the more degrees that you rotate the collar, the faster you move through the track.
During track playback the jog wheel can be used to pitch bend the track that’s playing, eg: momentarily speed up or slow down the track, just like nudging a vinyl record forward to speed it up, or dabbing a record to slow it down. A pair of “Pitch bend” + & - buttons are provided directly above the pitch slider for those who prefer buttons to wheels; neither method is notably better or worse than the other, Gemini simply offer both to cater for personal preference – A highly emotive catalyst amongst some DJ’s. Pitch bending a track, by either method is acknowledged by the illuminated “pitch” button blinking as pitch bend is brought into play. This same “Pitch” button may be pressed to disable the pitch slider altogether bringing the playing pitch back to Zero almost instantly. Handy for some limited special effects or for those DJ’s who may be used to synchronising beats in this way.
The Pitch slider has no dip/click at zero, this will annoy some seasoned DJ’s, and mildly please others. The person who invents a slider with a “Dip/Click on/off” control could make a packet. Three pitch ranges are available for the pitch slider, 4%, 8% and 16%, all in steps of 0.1%. A bright internally lit button selects each pitch range. Regrettably, there is no Key Adjust/Master Tempo function, to prevent vocals from sounding like Chipmunks or Darth Vader, and also serves to make pitch bending inaudible. Possibly this was a difficult feature to add to MP3 on such a competitively priced unit, especially since other Gemini products offer good Key Adjust functionality.
Jog ‘round the Pitch
A single “Jog mode” button located to the 2 o’clock position of the Jog wheel, allows you to switch the jog wheel over to searching through the track numbers on a CD, rather than the audio parts of a song. A pair of LED’s next to the Jog mode button clearly show whether the jog wheel is in “Music” or “Track” mode.
If you prefer not to use the Jog Wheel in “track” mode, selecting tracks on a CD is accomplished by use of the Track Search Forward and Track Search Back buttons. Thankfully, Gemini have remembered that scrolling through potentially 255 MP3 tracks on one CD could be a chore. So, both track search buttons feature a smoothly increasing momentum – the longer you hold the button down for, the faster the tracks whiz past. You can even press “Track Search Back” when one track 1, and go straight to the last track on the CD. In practice, I found that I was able to select any track on a CD of 220 tracks, in no more than 8 seconds.
As with many CD-decks, you’ll be pleased to know that the MP-3000x wont let you eject a CD whilst its playing (we’ve all done it haven’t we!). A stop button is present on the unit, and it too is shielded on 3 sides from accidental depression (both the buttons depression and yours!)
Flying loop
As with any modern, professional CD-deck, the MP-3000x offers a Fly Cue (known as Hot Start/Hot Cue on other units) and a seamless loop. The Fly Cue button allows you to choose a specific point on the track, even while its playing, which you can jump back to instantly, at any time simply by hitting the small “Return” button again. This feature makes creative remixing of tracks really easy, for example, stut, stut, stut, stuttering vocals or particular instrumental highlights of a track. A similar effect can also be achieved using the main CUE button, the difference being that the Cue button only plays the sound whilst you’re holding it down, whereas Fly Cue, begins playback from your cuepoint even after just a momentary press of the “return” button..
With the Fly Cue point set, you can also choose to set a “B point”, again while the track is playing live, or in the comfort of your own headphones. Setting the “B point” now brings the unit into seamless loop mode. The MP3000x will now repeat all music between the Fly Cue point and the B point, until you press the “B / Exit” button, at which point the remainder of your track plays seamlessly on, as if no loop had ever been invoked. If you want to return to your loop, later on in the track this can be done simply by pressing the “Return” button.
The B-Edit button allows live editing of the B end of the loop, handy if your timing is a bit off. Seamless loops should not be confused, or dismissed as mere looping samplers, which have two distinct disadvantages when compared to Seamless loops. A seamless loop has no time limit, whereas a sampler will only store so many seconds of music. Also, with a seamless loop, when you exit the loop, the track plays on as normal – with a sampler loop, when you stop the sampler, theres nothing left for it to play.
Conclusion
I had to spend a lot of time finding any negative points about this unit, but that’s Gemini for you nowadays. There are no glaring problems, or bad features. There are some minor details which, whilst not being ideal for me, might be a God-send for others. For example: The internal illumination of some of the smaller keys is (I believe) using the same brightness of bulbs/LED’s as the larger buttons. Result? Some of the smaller buttons glow so brightly, they are a little dazzling – A little like trying to read the wattage markings of a light bulb that’s still switched on? On future units, a dimmer switch wouldn’t go amiss. Still, I guess that this unit can be called dazzling for two reasons now then.
The unit, or perhaps the CD drives, seem to have a “sleep mode”, which they drop into after 25~30 minutes of non-usage. There is no on-screen warning of this mode, however and it means that the unit may pause for a couple of seconds after you wake it up by pressing any button. This isn’t a big issue, since, if this unit were your only music source at your gig, you would be playing with buttons on both sides of the unit every 3 or 4 minutes, as part of the art that is DJ’ing. I’m not against the sleep feature itself, which I’m sure helps to increase the service life of the unit, however, some kind of visual indication on that lovely deep blue LCD display, would be just the kind of prompt you need, to awaken the unit with some insignificant button press, so its instantly read for action again when you hit Play.
Finally, I would have liked the “Return” button to be a little bigger, given its usefulness in enabling a DJ to creative with both MP3 and audio CD’s. But, the button that’s there is perfectly functional, and has a good, positive, tactile feel to it.
Overall, an excellent, mid-priced and functional unit with looks to match – never underestimate the “wow!” factor that punters get when come up for a request and see the equipment. Robust, and well made, the MP-3000x is a great addition, upholding the new, improved flag of Gemini, as a reliable and dependable name in DJ Technology.
. The robo start would be very useful to have, for the reason you mention.
I know that there are different DVD formats which probably makes a difference and of course it also depends on what bit rate the tracks are ripped at.
. I know that there are some very good deals and a yet to be confirmed price of £389 mentioned elsewhere on the forum!!, but £399 is around £190 below Gemini's RRP!!!.
