Numark has been listening to complaints of the community about the massive size and weight of the NS7. Traditional turntablists criticize it, because clubs still offer mostly very limited space in the booth and not every DJ has an Arnold Schwarzenegger-like stature which allows easily carrying around the NS7.

ReviewsSo Numark divided the NS7 into three parts which can also be used seperately. The deck is called V7, the mixer called X5. Since I don’t have the mixer at hand (yet) I’ll concentrate solely on the V7.

Although I’m 6 weeks late with my review (damn studies…) and Gizmo did very well with his I’m going to throw in my two cents worth.

Starting with the good message: one V7 can be used to control two decks using a deck switch.

whew…my mobile-phone cam makes it look like its already 100 years old

Two V7’s can be linked via a RJ45 Ethernet-cable (the standard one). Using this you can’t control four decks in Itch.

The V7 is very similar to the NS7 in terms of tank-like built-quality, looks and functions. The NS7 has been covered a lot so I’m going to concentrate on the differences in this review.

The ins and outs

They moved the motor torque strength switch to the backside. The remote connection is necessary to use the auto-start feature (if your mixer supports it).

Deck location lets you specify if you have two V7’s attached which physical deck matches to which Itch deck.

Track navigation

The track navigation enthroned on the mixer-section of the NS7. They put it one-to-one on the V7. This is good thing since navigating with the large rotary is very straightforward. I even catched myself  trying to grasp it while on the VCI-300. To save some space they could’ve combined the crates, prepare and file button. The forward-button next to the rotary could’ve been left out also, as pressing the rotary has the same result and is a lot faster.

How to squeeze the loop-section in?

That must’ve been the question the Numark-engineer had to answer and in my opinion they failed. Although all buttons known from the NS7 are still present I find this layout to be a lot less intuitive because of the arrangement than the old one. The mode-buttons position in the bottom left was a lot better in my opinion. I made a picture for a direct comparison:

You can use either autoloop-mode allowing instantly setting a 1,2,4 or 8 bar loop or using manual mode where you have to manually select the start and end-point of the loop. Both loop-types can be shifted forwards and backwards, halfed and doubled in size.

Built-in NSFX…almost

Every V7 now comes with a built-in effects section. It doesn’t let you chain effects as the NSFX does but its good for a start.
You browse the effects with the first rotary encoder. If you found one that fits your needs you have to press the button. I found that extra step pretty unnecessary and it still feels awkward since there is also a FX on/off button at the bottom. The 2nd rotary lets you specify certain parameters like length of the delay etc. It is endless but red LEDs around it indicate what the parameter is set to. Finally there is the FX mix fader which controls the effects’ intensity.  Although Itchs’ effects can’t keep up with Traktors they are still a very nice addition.

Using only one V7 – is it worth the trouble?

Although I’m pretty late with the review it also has it’s upside. I had quite some time to practice with only one V7 using the deck switch intensively. It left me with the impression that all basic tasks can be done this way (cue-point mashing, looping, scratching). The first time you’ll curse yourself for being cheap could be the following scenario:

when one deck is running, your getting the track ready on the second deck for a nice transition….taking your time….then you suddenly notice that the playing deck is running out shortly. You switch the deck, automatically set an eight-bar loop, switch back to the other deck. That one is totally off, because Itch is too dumb to calculate BPM, so you need to readjust tempo ….etc…
To cut a long-story short, the deck switching will go on your nerves…certainly a lot. A lot of advanced techniques require having at least two physical decks. I’m however interested how it will work out with another controller like the VCI-100.

That one provides all necessaray controls for 2 or more decks while the V7 provides the awesome platter. That would be a dream and probably will remain one while Native Instruments doesn’t gets its arse in gear.

Issue of the non-motorized pitch fader – well done Numark

If you’re only using one V7 and you switch decks all LED’s and the motor changes accordingly. However as the pitch fader doesn’t have a motor to adjust to its old position it stays where it is. So as soon as you move it slightly the pitch would change by a huge amount. Numark kept that in mind and added two LEDs to the pitch fader. One showing up and one down.

In the picture on the left I slowed down a track and switched to the other deck which I made faster. Therefore the down-arrow is illuminated. If you move the pitch-fader the track won’t be pitched until you brought the pitch-fader down to its last position. The arrow will turn off and you can use the pitch-fader as you’d normally do.

Numark made you their human-powered pitch fader In practice this feels very intuitive and doesn’t mess up the work flow. If you forget in a hectical moment to pull back the pitch fader it simply won’t affect the sound and you’ll shortly notice.

Numark V7 and Traktor Pro

Native Instruments seems to have 20 people doing the marketing in the DJ division and one programming it actually. As there is still no native support for the NS7, the situation for the V7 isn’t any better.

At least DJ Quartz’ mapping works nearly as good as with the NS7. That’s because both controllers are sendin out exactly the same messages. If you are using only one V7 and have selected deck A it sends all midi-messages for deck A etc. The tricky part is the deck switch. If the motor for deck A is running and you switch to deck B it will stop playing as the motor is turned off. You’d need to map it so the playback is deteached from the running motor whenever you switch. This problem can’t be circumvented for some reasons as of yet. If you happen to have two V7’s it should work equally good as with a NS7. Just join our Project NS7 on Facebook and ask Mr. Quartz or me for details.

Pro and contra

+ (tank-like) built-quality

+ enough space

+ included effect-section

+ one V7 can be used to control two decks

+ well solved pitch-fader problem

+ high-torque motor driven 7″ platter

- two V7’s can’t be used to control 4 decks

- no Traktor Pro support (although this is clearly NI-related)

- unintuitive loop-section

- strange effect-activation

- hot-cues aren’t good for fast cue-point-juggling

Conclusion

The NS7 was mainly interesting for DJs spinning at house-parties, working as mobile-DJ or bedroomers. The new approach to sell all parts of it seperately was well received among the DJ communities. I gladly accept the still high weight of the V7, because I’m carrying a high-quality device which could outlast me. It fits even into a small bag, which is good enough to carry it with me everywhere I go. If you are going for advanced techniques you’ll need a second V7. The cue-point-buttons should be bigger and easier to press. They are not suited for fast cue-point-juggling.

Besides the aforementioned issues I can recommend the V7 to DJs of all kinds, who like to have fun while spinning but don’t want to deal with weak timecode etc,  without reservations.

Bonus: Useless video {You can have this.}

If you want me to post a short video showing how bad the VCI-300 works together with the V7 (in Itch) or the V7 with the NS7 then leave a comment! I already collected some footage, but there are no cool tricks you can learn from it, so in my opionion it’s not worth the trouble to cut a video.

Important note: The V7 used in the test was provided freely from Numark. However not for reviewing purposes. So what you are reading reflects my own unaffected opinion.