Hercules DJ Console Product Review
Author: Mark Burton
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Let's face it in this day and age the fastest-growing form of music sales is MP3 downloads. At first the industry was at odds with the concept, but now it's realising just how good a medium online download stores are. Being down in Australia, the postal costs of buying the latest releases on vinyl and even CD can be a pricey business so now you can buy your downloads from a whole range of sites. During a recent interview John OO Fleming was mentioning that he sees downloadable tunes as the way ahead, and his own JooF recordings was one of the first to have an online presence (now done in association with www.recordstore.co.uk) where releases are available for download at the same time as the vinyl and CD formats become available.
Also getting set up with a set of decks, whether it turntables or CDs, a mixer & all the other extras needed to get yourself going can be an expensive business, you'll be lucky to get it for $1,500 on eBay and that's second hand! I've been a big fan of dance music for just shy of a decade now and I've always wanted to get myself some decks but I never thought I could justify the cost. Well so long as you've got a pc or laptop at home, with at least a Pentium 2 400 Mhz processor, then with the Hercules DJ console hooked up you've pretty much got it all for less than $500. Mac users don't despair there's also a console specially developed for you!
The kit itself:
The Hercules DJ console is a smallish plastic box, (9.5" by 7.5" by 2" to be precise!) with a metallic silver finish. On the top face of the unit there are 20 soft glow-in-the dark buttons (for Pitch Bend, skipping tracks etc), 16 LEDS, 4 encoders ( 2 rotary and 2 optical), 6 potentiometers, a crossfader, 2 sliders and a ministick which all combined give the impression that you've got a small mixing desk hooked up to your pc. Inside the console (not that I've opened it up, that wouldn't be recommended at all!) are two soundcards, which give you the opportunity to mix properly. On the front of the unit there's line in, microphone and headphones jacks, which require ¼" jacks. (I'd urge caution here as this isn't where you want to plug your headphones if you're cueing up a track. Instead the socket for that is the analog audio out 3-4 socket on the back but follow read the accompanying instruction booklet first and there'll be no such worries!). At the rear of the unit is the USB socket, 6 outputs offering up to 5.1 surround sound, which is great as I just bought a couple of RCA cables and I've got the unit playing through my stereo (which isn't the newest one in the world). There's also digital outputs meaning you could record direct to a Minidisc/DAT player, and there's MIDI input and output sockets, so you could hook up a keyboard if you've got one and ever felt inclined.
It also comes with a USB connection cable from the console to the USB socket of your pc. This not only provides the MP3 data stream from your pc to the console but also powers the console directly from the pc, which is pretty cool as it reduces unnecessary cabling. There's of course a disc containing the software that you need to install in order to configure the DJ Console and several mixing programmes that run on the pc, as well as a pretty fool-proof manual (well it served me well and I can be a bit of a technology retard!). The final two bits and pieces are the console case, again in the silver finish, which slots on top of the console when you want to transport it and serves as a base for the unit when it's in use. There's also a removable shoulder strap to facilitate the unit's transportation.
Installation:
First off it's very important to load up the installation disc in your pc before hooking the console up with the USB cable. Just follow the prompts and the drivers are installed. Then you can install the pdf copies of both the DJ console manual & virtual DJ manual, before installing the mixing software. Ther Tags