Evermix is quite a nice wee bit of kit. Record straight to an iPhone or Android, so pretty handy if you play out. Can then be transferred and/or uploaded to mixcloud etc.
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Which Tascam? The cheapest one or is it worth upgrading to one with XLR inputs?
Been meaning to invest in one for a while.
Yeah, went for the DR40X for the XLR input out of the Omnitronic.
Easy to use and quite robust - much better than straight into my Mac.
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Thanks for the reply. That’s what I was thinking. Although I’ve got a good ear for music and rhythm, I have to admit that maybe I’m a bit tone deaf. I often find it hard to discern if sound quality is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ relatively speaking. However, when I went from standard RCA output to balanced XLRs, it seemed to make a massive difference (on my DJ set up).
I figured that recording via XLR might therefore be important too.
I bought a Radius 2 today on a whim. So far so good.
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I did the same thing about 3 months ago, best decision I’ve made in an age. So fun to use and that HPF is great (although incredibly easy to overuse…)
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Got mine off a guy who decided he didn’t like it anymore so was a straight swap for a DJM800 which I never use so pretty good business. Spent way too many hours last night doing my best Joey Bongos routine.
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My freind has one and he’s brought it along to gigs before. I’ve never got on well with it and I’m not sure why. Is there something counter intuitive about the layout or the way some of the pots turn? It sounds great but I didn’t find it user friendly. May be that i’m just not used to it.
I am finding the same issues you are but I think they go away with more time behind the wheel. I’ll be honest, I mix once in a blue moon so just having a nice piece of kit is quite nice. I do have a DJM400 perched just above it if it starts getting annoying but so far so good.
It is convincing me to start putting money away towards an E&S or that one that is from Australia.
Out of curiosity, what issues are you finding with it?
The only real niggle I have with mine is that some of the faceplate branding has worn down/scratched off, and I would argue that the channel volume dials are too weighted towards the right (as in, I find I have to turn the dial to 1/2 o’clock to even begin to hear the track I’m mixing in), but this is something that I’ve got used to.
I agree with these niggles.
There is not much volume going on before 12 o clock, and the difference between say 3pm and 5pm (or like, 8-10 on the scale) is negligible. This means that the smoothness of an encoder is kind of not paying off since you have such a shelvy volume stage.
Having a trim and a rotary encoder is also counterintuitive for me, the VU meters are quite hard to read too.
Personally I don’t feel like these mixers sum very well, the hi pass has no real character and the Q is quite wide - definitely makes it hard for me to mix ie. 80s house, synth stuff that was poorly recorded in the first place. Ibiza-ready modern produced/mastered deep house and stuff like that would benefit from this mixing style instead. The Isolator is hard to use physically and doesn’t have a huge amount of character so doesn’t really invite you to do so either.
I will say mine has had no obvious build/finish issues and sounds incredibly loud and and clear and ‘true’. It just doesnt add a great deal of character. This is really down to user preference, but I think something a little beefier would work for my love of bedroom/outsider produced music or just things that are a bit older and haven’t been remastered with brick-wall limiting.
I would say on the whole I preferred my Xone 23R considering it cost a quarter of the amount to put together. On the plus side, they have raised the Radius2 price back up to just below what I paid for mine, so I am a slightly less salty, hateful bitter old man on that topic!
I am curious about the Ecler warm, but part of me is tempted to just borrow a spare mixer to record with around the house for the next while and save up for a Bozak or DJM200.
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You perfectly described the issue I have with the volume - I can’t quite understand why it’s been configured this way. Nonetheless, I have just about got to grips with it and it doesn’t cause me much aggro.
I do agree with your point regarding physically using the Isolator. I can see why having the dials lined up horizontally rather than vertically like the Radius is preferred by most people. I don’t particularly use the Isolator much when I mix anyway so I’m not too bothered by this, normally only use it when the track itself needs it as opposed to using it as an effect of sorts.
I do however really like the HPF but I appreciate that’s probably down to my individual taste more than anything. It’s nice and subtle but maybe not as dramatic as some people like?
I think the HPF is useful for certain styles of music and not for others. As a rule, I am playing a fair bit of music with low, mids, upper mids and there isnt always an obvious way of separating them with a very wide, sterile HPF as your only tool.
On eg. DJR400 which I have used in a bar before, the summing was so natural and intuitive on the volume encoders, or more or less just by EQing you could mix out the outgoing track. With the Radius2 I kind of feel the opposite is true, both channels are so clear and loud that having 2 tracks in the mix is exhausting on the ears, they simply do not naturally blend. If anything, every nuance that sounds out of place is highlighted. My initial way around this was just to be extremely selective with what I mixed as it sounded better than trying to make things work where there was more swing on one track, or a solitary element in one track that wasn’t quite so musical or in key with the other. I have often had 2 things ‘in the mix’ which to my ears should have sounded pretty good but didn’t, I usually have to dip the volume of one, or scoop the HPF a bit just to make things sit nicer. Not really why you buy a rotary mixer, is it? Even on a DJM it is possible usually to get around this, maybe by dipping the mid EQ on the subordinate track.
I just watched a guy mixing very smoothly and well on a Radius 4 in an example given on some reddit thread of how to use it. He had the outgoing track at full volume on the encoder, but was HPFing at 100% before he started to mix out, that is just weird to me. I would never mix disco, house, italo, funk/boogie etc like that on an A&H or Pioneer mixer with the bass cut out to the max and the volume up fully. If anything on a mixer that this i am usually trying to emulate a rotary style mix, dipping /summing and using smooth EQ cuts as I fade out to be more musical and less jarring.
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My brother has acquired an Ecler Warm & was telling me how good it was, rich & deep (for context he is mainly a house & techno guy)
You explained that far more clearly than i ever could, thank you. 
If any of you are wondering, my experience with the Mastersounds 4V was very similar to what Donald described. I wanted so much to like them but the Mastersounds character seems to be a very “shy” curve, both on isolators and on filters/eq’s. I much prefer the summing on the ARS or E&S mixers I’ve used, not to mention Isonoe and Urei’s I’ve had the privilege of using. I know price points are different, but it was disappointing to me nonetheless.
that’s interesting, cos I had assumed the Vs would be more ‘warm’, what with those warm, rich analogue valves. i had actually thought of trading up to a V at some point blindly, but from what i’m reading now I don’t think it would be for me either.
the modern Bozaks look quite fun, has anyone used one?
Is a 3-Band EQ necessary? Mastersounds Radius 4 Rotary DJ Mixer | Soulful, Lounge, House Session - YouTube this is the video btw.
They are warmer, but the characteristics remain, by design.
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From Ryan at MasterSounds regarding the fader curve:
“Regarding the fader law, we spent a lot of time fine tuning the faders to maximise the benefit of using rotaries. To help explain this, have a look at this simple diagram:
The Red line shows the rotational angle over which the channel signal will become audible in the mix, from -30dB to unity.
The Blue line from -30dB to -10dB is what you could call the “new track introduction area” (for want of a better phrase); i.e. I am about to mix in a new track so I slowly bring the fader up to about the 10 o’clock position, at which point it should just be audible in the mix (depending on your mixing environment), but probably only to the DJ as it will be at low level and should subtly blend with the track already playing. By the time the fader is at the 1 o’clock position the new track should be heard in the mix, but not certainly obtrusive.
The Green line is the “Mix/Transition” area – note how much less sensitive the fader becomes as it nears full rotation, so even quite large movements will only make a few dB difference to the level, resulting in an exceptionally smooth mix.
Conventional fader laws are quite different as they will come into the mix earlier, have a mild mid-range and an aggressive top end, so even small movements away from maximum travel can result in a big signal level drop; sometimes by as much as 10dB which can sound very clumsy.”
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