ECLER EVO5 REVIEW från DJ-FORUMS.COM

OUT OF THE BOX

The EVO5 comes wrapped in a pretty large box, with ample room for protection from shipping. It includes some large, fairly soft foam pieces that keep it in place, and is covered in a large poly-bag. The box contains the mixer, manual, sticker, warranty card, drivers and manual on a CD, as well as two power cords, one for North America, and one for Europe.

The mixer is built from some very high quality materials! The faceplate is made from brushed, black anodized aluminum, and the markings are actually part of the faceplate (etched into the aluminum), and not painted on or silk-screened like other ECLER mixers. This means it is impossible to wear out, and the mixer will look great forever…a nice touch! All of the knobs have a nice, smooth touch to them as well, and I really like the large size, although I find the four silver knobs below the screen feel a bit wobbly. The FX send and PFL buttons feel especially solid, and push in and out with a very satisfying feel. One thing I do like is when you press PFL, for instance, the knob will illuminate to indicate that it is “ON", but the button itself just bounces back to the original position, there is no “click", giving it more of an expensive feel.

The screen is really the main feature of the EVO. It is a full color, 3.5" TFT screen and it looks really nice! Since Guigaro (Italian industrial design house, responsible for the design of some Ferrari models!) had a big hand in the aesthetics of this mixer, it is really apparent that they did an excellent job not only on the physical design of the mixer itself, but also the software! The fonts are clear and easy to read, the menus are easy to use and the overall layout of the screens and pages are clear and concise. Certain functions are labelled on either the sides or the bottom of the screen, with clear indication of which button or knob is used per function.  After a few minutes playing around with the screens and menus, you can really see the logic put into the navigation of the software.

On the rear are your standard RCA inputs for LINE and PHONO, RCA connections for REC and BOOTH output, balanced XLR outputs, as well as the two FireWire ports and MIDI DIN in and out ports. The mixer has an internal switching power supply, which can be used anywhere in the world, and just needs a swap of the mains EIC cable.

STANDARD FEATURES

The EVO5 operated just as any normal DJ would. It has 5 audio channels, each with gain, 3-band EQ, FX send, PFL and fader. Channel 0 is strictly for the MIC, and channels 1 – 4 are PHONO/LINE/FireWire(FW). Because this is a fully digital mixer, this is where the similarity ends. The default EQ settings are set up with full kill EQ’s, and a +10db gain. By pressing SETTINGS (above the screen), you access the main settings menu, where you can change the settings of the EQ for frequency range, gain AND you can even change the type of EQ from full kill to Baxandall type. This can all be done on the fly, with a music source playing, so you can hear the changes you make to your EQ…cool! If you find the MID doesn’t sound to your liking, then change the settings! You can really tweak the EQ’s however you want them!

The faders are adjustable for curve, and again, this can be done via the screen, or a simple turn of the X-fader or fader curve knobs. When you turn the knobs, you will see their curve appear on the screen. You can set sharp or soft for the x-fader, as well as soft or sharp for the upfaders (with it cutting in at the bottom, the top, or a smooth, linear curve). Going further in depth, you can actually change the cut-in time on either side of the x-fader using the screen. The EVO5 can also accept the famed ECLER ETERNAL magnetic fader, the same found in their HAK battle mixers.

Other menus in the SETTINGS section include password protected limiters for the outputs, output gain settings, curve settings for the FX DRY/WET fader and firmware upgrades, FireWire gains, even BPM detecting methods and MIDI clock settings.

EFFECTS SECTION

The EVO5 has internal effects which are set up similarly to their NUO5 mixer. Each channels has their own FX SEND button, to send their signal to the FX processor. The FX section also has two PARAMETER knobs, which push and turn, as well as a DRY/WET x-fader, which is a full size 45mm fader used to go from DRY (unaffected signal) to WET (full affected signal). The EVO5 also has FX SEND knobs per channel, so the user can set the amount of signal sent to the FX processor. The EVO5 has 9 basic effects, DELAY/ECHO, FILTER, FLANGER, PHASER, TRANSFORMER, PANORAMIC, PITCH, REVERB and VOCODER. Each effect can be modified via the screen for further fine tuning, and can be saved for later use. The neat thing is that you can COMBINE any two effects and create your own custom effects! Up to 64 effects can be saved in the EVO. When creating an effect, you can tell the mixer which of the two PARAMATER knobs affect which parameters in the effect as well. And of course, when saving an effect, you can give it its own name. I can go into further detail about the effects, but its something you have to witness for yourself….its really amazing how far in-depth you can go with these effects! For your convenience, ECLER pre-loads around 40 effects (9 basic + 31 created by ECLER and members of their PRO TEAM). I really like messing with the filters, and some of the PING PONG ECHO effects…very cool!

MIDI SECTION

Now we get into the most fun (and complex!) part of the EVO, the MIDI section! The entire mixer is a MIDI controller….all the EQ’s, gains, faders, buttons and knobs around the screen…there are 69 physical MIDI controls on the mixer itself, which already is more than enough to satisfy almost any DJ. Whereas other MIDI mixers are stuck with non-customizable MIDI commands, the EVO5 offers the MOST extensive customization possible on the market today! You can custom program up to 64 different layouts with the EVO5, accounting for up to 4416 unique MIDI commands! In a nutshell, you can first choose a channel on the mixer, and set it to AUDIO mode (where it acts as a normal mixer), MIDI mode (where audio is not processed by that channel, but all the controls are now MIDI controls) or TS or Traktor Scratch mode (more on that later).

To edit the MIDI controls, you would press MIDI and SETTINGS at the same time. This will bring up a screen asking you to move any control to edit. You can move any button/knob/fader on the mixer, and it will show you the MIDI note and MIDI channel, which you can change. Certain knobs will ask you for different modes, such as RELATIVE, ABSOLUTE or UP & DOWN. Also, the 6 buttons and 4 knobs around the screen will ask you for a label, so you can custom label the controls around the screen, such as PLAY, LOOP, LAUNCH etc…. It is similar to a Logitech Harmony remote! After you create a layout, you can save it with a custom name. Again, you can save up to 64 layouts. What’s neat about this is that you can save custom layouts for any software, and just flip through them when you need them. Selecting a layout can change any channels from AUDIO to MIDI to TS mode (or any combination), all on the fly! So you can have one layout saved for TRAKTOR (using the internal FireWire card), and then choose another layout for Ableton on the fly, which will enable all 5 channels into MIDI mode. ECLER preloads preset layouts for Traktor, Traktor Scratch and Ableton LIVE6.

USING THE EVO5

I first tried the EVO5 with my laptop and TRAKTOR 3.3. Setting up the EVO was a snap. I installed the ASIO drivers, plugged in the FireWire and voila! Traktor recognized the EVO as an ASIO soundcard, as well as a MIDI device. I loaded up the included .tks Traktor layout file, and loaded the preset “TRAKTOR 3 DECK" layout on the EVO5. In Traktors settings, I chose INPUTS 3,4 for DECK A (channel 2 on the EVO) and INPUTS 5,6 for DECK B (channel 3 on the EVO). This layout on the EVO has the main deck controls labelled around the screen, such as PLAY, CUE, FOCUS and LOAD. Immediately, I was able to load tracks, switch between decks, play and cue! Everything worked perfectly, and the sound came directly into the individual channels on the EVO as selected. Because I am using a FireWire mixer, I opted to use the EXTERNAL mixer layout, using the EVO’s EQ’s and faders, as opposed to using the EQ’s and faders as MIDI controllers.

I then tried the EVO with Ableton LIVE!6. I am not an expert with Ableton, but I did manage to switch the EVO to its “ABLETON LIVE 6" layout, and assign 4 channels in MIDI mode to 4 channels in Ableton. All of the CLIP LAUNCH functions are located around the screen. With Ableton, the FireWire setup is a bit different than Traktor. Because Ableton is set up as more of an internal mixer, and I would be using the mixer as a MIDI controller, I assigned the PFL and main OUTPUT of Ableton to the PFL and MIX FireWire inputs on the EVO. This means than the PFL and OUTPUT audio from Ableton goes directly to the PFL and MAIN input of the EVO, and you do not need to waste an entire channel just for audio in Ableton! This frees up all the 5 channels of the EVO to use as MIDI controllers, and using the layouts, I can assign as many MIDI channels as I want, all keeping the audio in PFL and MIX on the EVO! Amazing!

And now on to my favourite, Traktor Scratch! The EVO5 is a TS Certified mixer, meaning that because the EVO5 contains a FW audio interface, you do not need the full version of TS (with the AUDIO8 soundcard), you only require the TS Upgrade package, which consists of the software itself, and the TS timecode vinyls. This is a huge benefit because I do not have to mess with all the extra wiring of the external audio interface, as well as the cost and the extra space to mount the card, or carry it. Setting up the EVO with TS was easy. I opted to use Traktor 3.3, which now works in conjunction with TS. I prefer Traktor 3.3, because it offers up to 4 decks of timecode, and has a few more options when it comes to setting up the audio. The EVO includes a layout for TS, which will switch your selected channels to TS mode. This mode means the timecode from your decks/cd players will be transmitted thru the EVO5 to the software, and then back again as a music signal to the EVO5. In Traktor 3.3, I simply had to turn on the timecode calibration screen, and in minutes, I had Traktor 3.3 running perfectly with my 1200’s and timecoded vinyl…YES! For me, this is the ultimate setup! I was spinning my digital files like regular vinyl, and I could use my EVO5 to choose the tracks I wanted in Traktor, as well as control the looping and other functions, all without touching my laptop! The sound quality was excellent, and there was no latency in using the EVO5 and the timecode vinyl!

The EVO5 has even more possibilities with other software, such as TORQ and SERATO SCRATCH (their audio interfaces must still be connected via USB, as a dongle to use the software, but the EVO5’s interface can be used), as well as MIXVIBES and VIRTUAL DJ, which only require the use of ASIO soundcard. The possibilities are ally endless!

More info at:

www.eclerusa.com

www.evobyecler.com

written by: Jonny Thrice