Crossfader FX on the Denon X1850

Questions
1

I would appreciate some advice from anyone familiar with the Denon X1850.

I’m planning to use the DENON X1850 installed at the venue and 2 turntables with my own Phase in HID mode.
And I also want to use Tempo Blend every now and then.
Are the following settings correct?

X1850

  • Connect the Mac and X1850 in External Mode.
  • Turn Active MIDI ON
  • Select USB mode for each channel
  • Set CF assignment to THROUGH for each channel to turn OFF the physical crossfader

djay

  • MIDI maping the physical crossfader

(As a bonus, I also want to MIDI ASSIGN the SWEEPFX dials to 2-channel Neural Mix for Drum/Vocal)

With this, the crossfader will function properly under djay’s MIDI control, right?
If it’s just this much, it looks like something I could set up quickly within 5 minutes before the DJ changeover, so I’m thinking of just giving it a shot.

My main concern is: will the crossfader be able to control the audio from Deck 1 (let’s say Channels 1-2) and Deck 2 (let’s say Channels 7-8)?

4

Hi @megamema, you’re almost right, but don’t set CF Assign to THRU. On the X1850, THRU bypasses the crossfader and sends the channel straight to the program mix, and in External Mixer Mode djay isn’t doing the volume fade either — each deck has already left djay on its own USB channel. With THRU on both channels you’d get no crossfade at all.

Set CF Assign to A on your deck 1 channel and B on your deck 2 channel. The X1850’s crossfader does the audio fade, and djay reads the crossfader position over MIDI through the built-in X1850 Prime mapping — that’s what drives Crossfader FX and Tempo Blend. So yes, the fade works on whichever channels your decks land on, as long as those channels are assigned A/B.

You also don’t need to MIDI map the crossfader. The X1850 Prime is pre-mapped and configures automatically on connection. The rest of your list is correct: Settings > Devices > Audio > External, Active MIDI ON, channels set to USB.

One thing to check before the gig: Tempo Blend in external mixer mode arrived in djay Pro 5.5.2, so make sure the Mac is on a current build (5.6.6 as of now).

I’d test the Sweep FX → Neural Mix idea at home or after your gig rather than in the changeover window. The Sweep FX knobs also process the audio inside the mixer, so you may end up with the hardware filter stacked on top of the Neural Mix control. I don’t have access to an X1850 to confirm this though, but I’m pretty sure this will be the case.

I hope that helps!

1 Like
5

Thank you for the detailed explanation.

It seems the actual hardware can only be checked in-store, so I plan to visit a shop soon to take a look at it. It is really helpful that djay supports such a wide range of hardware configurations.

1 Like
6

You’re welcome @megamema. Please let me know how everything goes and if you have any further questions.