First of all, I wanted to say that i'm heavily invested in the Pioneer ecosystem. I enjoy using CDJs when out as well as my controller for mobile gigs. I've been using RekordboxDJ since the day it was publically released, and have purchased the DDJ-SX, DDJ-RZ and a DDJ-1000.
I decided to give the Rekordbox lighting a try and while it is a good proof of concept, there is mch to be desired. Pulse, I'm sure you share some of the same sentiment and hope you can pass this on to the team. It's a little crazy that Pioneer is charging $300+ USD for the RB-DMX1 when it is really a limited "beta" in its current form. Here are some of the issues, off the top of my head:
- Phrase analysis still remains poor. Misses a big "drop" by a few bars!
- Difficult to quickly modify/edit phrases. The interface is buggy, and hard to use. There are many ways they can redesign the phrase editor to allow us to quickly set up phrases to our liking. I can add 4-8 hot cues and audition a track in less than 60 seconds. Should be the same for phrase editing.
- Lack of gobo support. Even table based DMX utilities like "Lightkey" can do this well, changing gobos every 4-8 bars.
- If gobo support isn't added, at least let us manually change the gobos so we dont have big beams of light the entire time
- Support for a master dimmer. Often times, my lighting rig overpowers the room
- Ability to work with FX lighting fixtures such as Derbys, lasers, or multi effects units such as the GigBar, which is a MobileDJ stable!
- Ability flash/strobe/pulse on the beat, similar to SoundSwitch.
- Ability to flash/strobe/pulse the lights based on EQ, similar to SoundSwitch. For example tagged Pars flash to the snare drum during a buildup.
- Ability to quickly and easily set a color and "Slow scan" for things like slow dances, etc. Or ability to set up a simple lighting scene without a song playing.
- Ability to control or assign fog/haze.
- In macro editor, the play button is so tiny, please map it to the keyboard. It also doesn't respond half the time!
- Also in Macro editor, it is impossible to change the phrases. So when you are developing a show for a song and realize there is a change in lighting in the middle of a verse, it's a tidious process to change it. Even in regular mode it is difficult to move the phrases.
In the current form, the lighting mode is unusable and really just a proof of concept. Seeing that it's been many months since it was released (5.2) I hope there is some usability and functionality tweaks coming. The competition (SoundSwitch) is light years ahead and hopefully Pioneer can borrow some ideas from the competition and make this a better product! Thanks for listening.
Harry