About 3 months ago I had one of the first VCM-100’s to leave Japan. It was a parting gift Vestax gave me after my first visit to perform at the Vestax Extravaganza. After a long Trans-Atlantic flight I was fairly out of it and failed to pay ample attention to my luggage cart. While my back was turned some lucky bastard snatched it right out of my cart! On my return trip I made it a point to test the unit and now, finally, I have the much delayed review on the VCM-100.
Sound Card
There is not much to say, as the VCM-100 contains hardware from the Maya USB sound card which we already reviewed here. It has 2 pairs of inputs and 2 pairs of outputs. There are no problems monitoring the tracks individually from the master output and we were told the inputs can be routed to the master out so you should be able to run a CD player in case of a computer crash.
Pros
The input rotaries are really nice but I do come from an old school house back ground where the original Urei mixer was revered. If your wanting to do quick cuts with the line fader then they will suck but for smooth volume changes and electronic mixing the resistance is perfect.
Long tempo faders mean precise adjustments to tempo and the ability to use them to ride the pitch more effectively as you would on a techniques 1200.
Dual line inputs mean you could use this as a mixer interface for Deck A Dance and run two CD players of time code signal directly in through the VCM-100. I didn’t actually test this concept but in theory it should work just fine. Paired with an in-expensive set of CD players and some Serato scratch time code jacked from the net this could be a very inexpensive way to have a nice little digital dj setup.
Cons
The round scroll button in the middle is a 4 way button that scrolls up and down and loads tracks to the left and right. Often though (about 25% of the time) when I was scrolling down a slight shift to the left or right was picked up as a load command and Traktor tried to load a song into the deck. Fortunately, I had “no loading while playing” protection enabled in Traktor but its still a problem you might run into should you want to re-assign that control.
If you intend on buying it with the bundled Traktor LE there is a major over-site on the design. Underneath the tempo faders you will find 2 fine tempo adjustment buttons. These should have been assigned to pitch bends but instead are locked to tempo inside Traktor LE. Unless you rely on sync mode, where Traktor attempts to keep your beats locked, there is no way to bend the pitch or massage tracks into time. The only way to re-assign the buttons is by upgrading to Traktor 3. That is is not a problem however with the native mapping in deck a dance where the buttons have been assigned appropriately.
Conclusion
Overall its a good value and a well made little unit. For anyone that just wants to do basic mixing of tracks at home or on the road- this is a fun midi controller option. There are no bells and whistles but almost every control you need to perform effective basic mixing is present, accounted for and well laid out. With a sound card its a good value at $499 and if the price falls bellow $400 it would be a no-brainer with bundled software.
Nice review Ean. What’s the title of the track with the vocals in this video clip? Sounds hot!
thx for the review, but in my opinion 499$ is a bit expensive, ok - there is an audio interface included - but i would preferably spend about 100$ more to get the vci100 with an external soundcard….
cheers!
I agree, $300-$400 would have been a better price point. Its hard to say how these things end up getting priced though. Often the manufacturer has a hard time predicting that.
That track is “static” (martin buttrich remix) by Planet Funk
thanks 4 the review ean, cant watch the vid at work but will check it once im home. from what ive read from some owners of the vcm100 is that the soundcard is not up to par. this said im waiting patently for the vci 300 to arrive, hopefully shes what im looking for.
Too much money for that…
Does it have crossfader curve adjustment like the vci does?
It’s a pitty this thing does not have optional phono input switching and is not accepted for the use of Traktor Scratch timecode.
no cross fader adjustment sadly. Yes, getting Traktor scratch to work with a device like this would make perfect sense. If there some way we can hack devices to do that?
this looks great but i already have a x-session pro. :)
just wondering…. if i showed up to a club gig with a laptop and a small midi mixer like this, would they take me seriously? would i have less creditability?
I saw Steve Bug play last week and he uses Traktor Scratch + time encoded vinyl on a macbook with an external hdd :)
always good to see cutting head dj’s use digital equipment
to doubleyou…
>>>I was thinking the same question…I think that the gear isn’t the most important thing to be a good dj. It is better when you have good gear but at start anything is good. In early stage it means nothing to you. If you know how to mix you can mix with anything. I have pictures with pete tong in russia and there he plays with x session pro, trigger finger and ableton live. If he can even can you… :)
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/3046/20080209155002mp0.jpg
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/7536/20080209154920mx7.jpg
Pete Tong is not exactly known for his dj skills though ;-) look, I played clubs for years with just an oxygen 8 and a laptop. Sure, at first you get looks but if you get on stage and throw down the tunes then people quickly shut up. These days its also become much more acceptable. 3 years ago final scratch was taboo but now serato is standard for most djs.
in 2 years bringing your own midi gear will be standard too.
;) pete tong sucks…
Hey Ean,
I have just finished my first fully functional prototype of a midi controller inspired by your arcade button mods called the “midi-fighter”. Would you be interested in looking at it? If so give me an email @ mjm46@hotmail.com.
Cheers,
So, do the headphones double the monitor out, or the mains? I would hope you can use the headphones for cueing, yeah?
The price is a little on the steep side, I agree, but the fact that the hardware is this nice (had a fiddle at NAMM), the audio is there, the stand is built in… it is a pretty lovely piece of kit. I think it’s just overshadowed by the VCI, which does have crossfader adjustment.
Ean, is there a laptop stand available for the VCI?
Hey Peter, nice to see you around our corner of the web :-)
The headphones double the monitor output.
There is no official laptop stand for the VCI-100, but the Uber stand works relatively well for the purpose.
“run two CD players of time code signal directly in through the VCM-100. I didn?t actually test this concept but in theory it should work just fine”
is it able to do that or not? and can you run the cd player through without switching this in the software? or is there the switch on the vcm?
cause “in case of a computer crash” the option would be crashed too ;-)
and i guess u could only reassign the rotary faders as pitch and the pitch faders as line faders in a full traktor.
im assuming that if u use the usb power to run it, it will crash also?? using the power adaptor will allow you to play from an external cd player till the lappy boots up again?? is this possible??
The one thing that I wish it had was a jog wheel instead of the scroll button. I really want something small with built in audio to simplify the setup just a little bit.