
As someone who learned how to mix entirely on CDs, making the switch to digital has always felt somewhat like a step backward since most modern DJ software goes out of its way to emulate turntable scrubbing, yet support for stutter-cueing is effectively nonexistent.
In fact, there's countless feature requests on the VirtualDJ forums asking when stutter-cueing will be added. It's unfortunate that there's so little effort to accommodate DJs that came out of the CD-era. Some of us are just more familiar working with that technology, rather than turntables.
So, I took on the challenge myself and put together a custom mapper for the Numark NDX500 that closely mimics the functionality of classic dual deck CD players (i.e. Denon, Numark, and Stanton), in particular frame-seeking and stutter-cueing within VirtualDJ.
If you have any questions or discover any bugs, please contact me at projects@bitwax.org
Source Code License: MIT License Software Requirements: VirtualDJ 8.2+
Simply copy the mapper definition into your Documents/VirtualDJ/Mappers directory. Then open VirtualDJ and select the mapper in your controller settings.
- Press
Play to pause or resume playback. Unlike most other mappers, simply pausing the track, will NOT reset the cuepoint.
- Press
Cue to jump back to the cuepoint and pause playback, or hold Cue to briefly preview the track from the cuepoint.
- Press
Tap to set the cupoint and simultaneously pause the track during playback. Press Reloop or Play to resume playback.
- Hold
Tap to enable frame-cueing, which will pause and stutter the track to aid in moving the cuepoint to the desired frame.
- During frame-cueing, either the jog wheel or the track-selection knob can be used to seek through the track frame-by-frame.
- Turntable braking is possible by pressing
Play while holding Brake . Use the track-selection knob to adjust the braking speed.
- Engage any one of the three effects banks by pressing
Loop In , Loop Out , or Reloop (for banks 1 through 3) accordingly.
- Adjust the primary effect parameter by rotating the jogwheel. The LCD display will show the parameter value (in percent).
- In Program Mode, use the pitch-bend buttons to scan through the track during playback (
+ for fast-forward or - for rewind).
- In Program Mode, setup a loop by pressing
Loop In for the start and Loop Out for the end. Exit the loop by pressing Loop Out .
- In Program Mode, press
Loop In to set the cuepoint on-the-fly. Press Reloop to bop back to the cuepoint (similar to hot cues).
The only buttons that reset the cuepoint are Tap , Loop In , and the hotcues. All other functions such as scratching, braking, reversing, scanning, pausing, etc. preserve the cupoint.
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