Cortex Dmix-300 iPod DJ mixer
The Cortex Dmix-300 is one of the turning points in DJing technology, and the first real iPod DJing dual deck platform, whilst previous iPod Djing platforms needed you to have two iPods and wouldnt allow you to beatmatch with the Cortex Dmix-300 all these iPod DJing problems such as pitch bending, beat matching and using just one iPod are resolved, whilst the Cortex Dmix-300 allows you to do all these great things working just off a single iPod, it does come at a price, first, the Cortex Dmix-300 is expesive though with the release of the Numark ID2 the price has come down a great deal, second the Cortex Dmix-300 weighs a ton, literally, its not exactly portable, so whilst your iPod is tiny and fits in your pocket, with the Cortex Dmix-300 you are going to struggle fitting it into a bag, and its a gas guzzler too, you’ll need access to a power supply, so definately for the indoors only.
The Cortex Dmix-300 comes well packaged with all the usual padding so its well protected when you pick it up, you’ll find the usual manuals and how to guides and really you’ll want to read these, the user interface on the Cortex Dmix-300 does take some getting used to and if you use an iPod with a Mac, you’ll need to do all sorts of things in iTunes to get it to work properly.
Looking at the Cortex Dmix-300 its super sturdy, with a cool black casing its well build and oozes quality and durability. The first thing you’ll notice is the two circular ‘turntables’, these are totally free rotating and make scratching, cueing up and ultimately mixing possible, the surface attempts to mimic the vinyl feel, but as you’d expect this is only a passing similarity, although the gooves on these turntables does allow a certain degree of grip. the edge of the turn table platter is rubberised and help with certain turntablist tricks as well as savingg you from cutting your hand up on any sharp edges. Bearing in mind that the Cortex Dmix-300 is meant to be an all-in-one iPod DJing platform, between the two turntables sits the built in mixer, this is basic with your usual volume fader for each channel, Gain, high, mid and low knobs, master and booth output volume, fader curve switch, its also in the mmixer section that you find the Cortex Dmix-300’s iPod Dock, the Cortex Dmix-300 is made for iPod approved so the majority of iPods work with the dock and if not they are also supported by inputs at the back that allow you to rig up USB sticks and any other digital media, not just other iPods. The action on the cross fader is easy and fast, being very responsive to control, whilst the volume controls are a little more sticky, as to be expected. by each volume fader is a gradiating light that allows you to get a feel for the volume level of each channel, under normal light this isn’t all that useful, but in darker conditions this is useful as a guide but not exactly critical to being a good DJ. The Knobs for each of the various variables are cased in plasting and stiffer to rotate, however they are very sensitive and allow for a fairly decent creativity when your DJing, but they are a tad bit close to each other. The iPod Dock itself is well built and comes with various size adopters which you put in place to match the type and size of the iPod you are Djing with. For those of you with iPod Shuffles, you’ll have to plug the iPod in at the back. The iPod adopters however are a bit of a pain, being totally free of the Cortex Dmix-300 unit it’s clear they are really easy to loose, something that puts the Numark IDJ2 in another class (god is in the detail after all)
Back to the turntables, we now turn to the iPod controls,along the top edge of the entire Cortex Dmix-300 unit are a stack of controls that essentially allow you to control your music between the iPod and each turntable channel. first thing you notice here is a blue screen you’ll probably be able to tell its not exactly plasma TV here, essentially this screen that its above each turntable channel serves as view of your playlist, your track length and your control view, all that is abstract on only primative, its like looking at ms-dos, back in the early days, again something the IDJ2 beats the Cortex Dmix-300 on. to the side of this screen are three plastic buttons, and beneath the screen is a directional input, buy using these buttons the idea is that you can control the music for each channel on each turntable without having to touch the iPod, works great in theory, in pratice it takes a bit of time to get used to and you’ll have to be a bit fiddly. On the right you can see the pitch fader, which is the real life saver for any iPod DJ or for anyone looking to pitch control with an iPod, the pitch control is fantatic and performs as you would expect and at the top of each pitch fade are two buttons, essentially allowing you to sharply bend the pitch of the track. Above the turntable platter you’ll notice a small button, this button allows you to select the control of the platter, as a fas forward tool, pitch control or scratch platter, the idea behind each of the two turntable channels is that they work independently of each other, but off the same iPod allowing you the typical range of flexibility that any conventional DJ would have, including, volume control, pitch control, fast forward and rewind, and cue, loop and track menipulation.
At the back of the Cortex Dmix-300 you find all the useful connections, you can find 2 sets of booth outputs and one master output, a firewire connector, usb input, and 2 phono inputs. And at the front you get a mic input with master high and low EQ the on and off switch and a monitor output, with channel fader and volume, really useful for when you’re trying to beat match.
All in all the Cortex Dmix-300 is darn good, there are a few snags, as to be expected but a second generation iPod DJing platform, and a first generation single iPod DJing platform. if you’re looking for a reasonably priced and marginally portable iPod DJing setup, you really can’t go wrong with the Cortex Dmix-300, certainly if you want to be beatmatching and altering pitch of each track using only one iPod the Cortex Dmix-300 would be your iPod mixer of choice, and whilst the Numark IDJ2 is good, the drop in price of the Cortex Dmix-300 should, in theory make it a more attractive choice.
