Touch Vinyl, Play Digital With Numark's CDX Vinyl And the DJ !

The feel of working with 12½ vinyl is an essential part of the DJ experience. From pulling the record back to a cue point to speeding up the vinyl with your hand or squeezing the spindle to match beats, there is nothing else like working with a record on a turntable. It provides a direct connection between DJ and music. Needless to say, the entire art of scratching was developed using records. All scratching techniques involve the DJ touching vinyl to create musical expression—playing the turntable like an instrument. Although CDs offer advantages of sound quality and convenience, there has not been a CD player that has come close to providing that genuine feel of working with vinyl—until now.

Only CDX gives you a full 12½ of real vinyl feel

CDX feels like using a turntable because it really is. Modeled after Numark’s flagship TTX turntable, CDX includes an ultra-high torque direct drive motor, 12½ aluminum platter, slipmat and actual vinyl record. In fact, you can even substitute your own slipmats and records to get the exact feel you want. When you touch the vinyl for scratching, cueing or beat matching, hundreds of sensors faithfully and instantaneously translate the motion of the vinyl to the playback of the digital audio. If you hold the vinyl while the platter spins beneath, the music stops. Just like working with a turntable, the motion of the vinyl directly controls audio playback.

Scratch digital like never before

Since CDX responds exactly like a turntable (minus the needle skipping) you can scratch CDs and MP3s with authentic vinyl feel. DJs using CDX often describe forgetting they are using a CD player. No rough simulation, no latency, just a direct connection between hand and music. CDX also offers multiple scratch modes. One mode mutes the audio during a backspin, so that muting with a mixer is not necessary. Another mode jumps to the last cue point when you backspin, so that you always hit the desired music element when scratching. CDX allows you to easily create, store and recall up to 3,000 cue points.

Loops and effects that lock to the beat

Numark’s Beatkeeper™ technology accurately tracks the beat of the music, allowing effortless beat-synched effects, as well as “smart loop” for the quick creation of seamless loops. With smart loop activated, the in and out points you tap to define a loop automatically align to the closest beat. You can then lengthen or shorten the loop in realtime—including rapid subdivisions—all in time with the beat. Thanks to Beatkeeper, effects like “echo” and “chop” sync to the beat automatically and can be tweaked faster or slower in pulses that match the music. Other effects include auto-pan, sonar, filter, and slide. A jog wheel allows both realtime effect control and fast music searching.

So much more

Numark designers and engineers are DJs themselves and they created CDX with a wish list of advanced features to satisfy even the most adventurous DJ. A fast, slot-load CD transport is CDR and MP3 compatible. Pitch control is selectable up to ±100% and a key lock feature holds the key of the music steady at any tempo. A two directional lever lets you reverse or bleep the music. The default platter speed can be set to 33 or 45 rpm for normal play and a button also toggles between the two speeds for creating pitch effects. There is even a “motor off” button to isolate the music from the hands of inquisitive onlookers. Like Numark’s TTX turntable, CDX offers dual start/stop buttons and adjustable start and brake times. CDX includes both analog and S/PDIF digital outputs, as well as MIDI I/O, which enables synchronization with drum machines and other MIDI devices.

Once your hand touches it, you’ll know

CDX is as close as it gets to working with vinyl while playing CDs. As recently reported in DJ Times: “I was able to do all the basic scratches with amazing results. The table was very responsive to each movement and felt like I was cutting up my favorite battle vinyl. Another extremely impressive part of this exercise was the actual sound quality of the emulated scratch. Unlike so many other units in this category, the implementation was spot on.” [June 2004] When you get your hands on CDX, feel its full vinyl interface and hear its perfect response, you too will believe.