Numark Scratch Serato DJ Mixer Review

I’m here to give you guys a really quick run down review of the brand new Numark Scratch Serato DJ 2 channel mixer. So it’s been a while since Numark came out with a new DJ mixer.

Today used to make cool scratch mixers back in the day the DXM Pro and the SMX and they had a whole lot of other cool-to-channel scratch mixers.

But this new one that they have comes at an excellent price point of only $499 and it comes bundled and is compatible with Serato DJ pro. So all you have to do to set this up is just simply plug in a USB.

It will work with most of your computers without using any other drivers but sometimes you have to go to the website and download your windows drivers if you need them.

Go to Serrano’s DJ’s website and download the latest Surround DJ Pro and it’ll just instantly work with it you don’t have to enter any licenses or anything like that.

It will just start working right away. you do however need to supply your own time code vinyl as they do not come with any Serato time code vinyl. Or you’re using this with your turntable decks or with your CD decks using timecode CDs you’ll have to get those on your own.

So that’s one of my minor gripes with the unit I wish they would have kind of bundled it in there but at the $499 price point, it’s kind of hard to argue with that choice.

Overall you have a really nice design it’s nice and compact it is however very sturdy it has a nice metal design all the way around and it just feels like it’s definitely built to last.

INPUTS/OUTPUTS

On the back, you have all of your inputs and outputs except for your two headphone jacks that are on the front. You have the quarter-inch and the mini. And on the back you have your master XLR, you also have your USB port then you have your master and Booth RCA.

You do have a separate master and booth gain knob on the top face panel of the mixer. And you also have your channel 1 and channel 2 RCA paired with a ground post and you can switch either one of those between line and phono mode you also have a microphone as well.

SCRATCH FADER

On the front, you have your innovator scratch fader. Very good fader everybody’s used these before and by now you know that they’re very buttery smooth.

And you can also open this thing up and change the cutting distance but the factory cut in the distance is so so small that I think it’s going to be perfect for most DJ users right out of the box.

SLOPE CONTROLS

You have in between these slope controls. It is a quick press so you can either go to a fade or all the way to a sharp cut really quickly. You also have a cross-fader reverse.

You do not have a crossfader reverse that I can find for the line faders. the line faders are not enough faders but they do feel nice and smooth as well and they’re very very fast and they don’t have much resistance to them.

About the same resistance as an innovator but not quite as smooth as an innovator but really good faders nonetheless. you can adjust the curve of them but I couldn’t find anywhere to actually hamster them in any way.

SHIFT BUTTON

Next up from that you have a shift button in the middle so you can change the different parameters that you need to on the mixer. You also have your cue buttons that are above the faders.

And those cue buttons are used so you can listen to different things in your headphones that the master output is not outputting currently.

PAD BUTTONS

Next up from the top of that you have a pad mode button. On this pad mode button, you can use queues and samples, and rolls. You have four pads on each side they are not RGB backlit pads, unfortunately.

But that’s okay here because the price point is so cheap. You also have buttons that you can click. They have like a clicky noise to them when you do click them but they’re very very responsive and you can do dual finger drumming and still get all of your hits as soon as you press these pads.

The different pad modes again are hot cue sample and roll so you can grab your 4 hot cues per deck.

You also have the 4 samples per side and then you can roll using the loop roll and change your loop length by corresponding to what pad of the length of the loop you’re trying to achieve.

KOTOR KNOBS

Next up are the loop control and KOTOR knobs. That way you can press these in order to enact your loop. And you can move it to the left or to the right to grow or shrink your loop.

And when you actually press shift and rotate these loop controls you’re actually changing the different tracks or different folders that you’re in within Serato. So that way you can easily go in here and select your tracks and browse using the loop control.

EFFECTS CONTROLS

Next, you have your effects controls in the middle. Your effects select its echo, delay, flanger, reverb, v.echo, and phaser by default. And you had these cool paddles that everybody loves.

When you press them down monetarily you get that really cool effect when you hold it upwards that will keep the effect continuously acted upon the track for as long as you have it in that position.

You have an echo, delay, flanger, reverb, vite echo, and phaser by default. but I assume you can probably go into cerrado DJ and you probably can mini-map that on your own to be something else.

It really only enacts the first effect per side when you’re using the two different pedals. but that’s okay because usually, that’s all you need when you’re doing scratch-type performances.

3-BAND EQ

Above the effects select you also have effects wet and dry knob so you can adjust the effect. Then you have here 3-band EQ. Your gain at the top you have a tone and mic control for the microphone.

All the way in the top left you also have filter knobs for each one of your different channels. Then you also have your master and booth volume knobs in the middle along with the LED strips in the middle. So you can see exactly where you are in the volume of your mix.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the Numark Scratch DJ mixer is an excellent purchase for anyone who’s in the Serato DJ market that doesn’t want to spend an arm and a leg on a mixer that already has the Serato DJ interface built-in.

It comes in at only $499. It has a really solid construction all around. It comes with the innovator mini. You also have your pads with your pad mode so that means you have MIDI capability in the mixer.

You also are allowed to browse through all your tracks using the supplied knobs for looping controls when you press the shift button. And you also have really cool effects paddles that only come in at upper-range Serato DJ mixers.

You also have a booth output on the back which can be controlled by a separate volume knob.

DOWNSIDES

On the downside, you do not have any Serato control vinyl in the box. I really wish they threw that in there. that would have made the package a little more enticing but still, at that price point, you can’t really complain too much about it.

And my other gripe is that it doesn’t have any other auxiliary inputs or any other inputs besides the two only inputs that you’ll be using for either your CDJs or your turntables when you’re using this with timecode.

Other than that again excellent job by Numark because they have a really quality mixer here. It really feels like it’s built to last it’s really well-made.

It has the pads, it has Serato DJ built-in, it’s not too much more you can ask for for the price. So an excellent mixer by the Numark Scratch.