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Here is a quick run down of my experience with the Xone 3D. There's a lot of hype around the forums for this mixer, and I figured I'd share my experience.
Background:
I came from mixing with Technics 1200's, CDJ-1000's, and a Xone 92 rotary mixer. I really loved the Xone 92, but was interested in really diving deep into Ableton (while keeping decks, I still love playing on decks).
Since I had such a great experience with my Xone 92, I was at first looking at the Xone 2D and 1D as an addition to my 92. These aren't shipping until November, however, and I was impatient so I decided to really look into the 3D.
I had read all the reviews, I knew the limitations going into it and such, and decided to pull the trigger. If it's good enough for PVD and all those other big name DJ's, little old me should be happy as a clam, right?
First impressions:
Out of the box, the 3D looks and feels like an A+H product. It's actually smaller in person than it looks in the pictures. It's also relatively lightweight, actually weighing less than the Xone 92.
The main faders feel nice and smooth, loose like on the 92 fader version. The MIDI sliders feel comparable to the AUX sliders on the 92 (not quite as nice, but adequate).
I did notice some of the pots like the eq's are plastic stemmed, whereas on the 92 they were metal. Shouldn't be a problem though unless you really beat on it.
The Mixer:
The mixer portion of the 3D is of course based on the 92. It's a bit slimmed down, however. Obviously 3-band EQ instead of 4, no split cue (though the master/cue blend remains), and less options for the FX returns (essentially a volume knob, instead of the fader/eq section the 92 provides).
Overall the mixer portion sounds fantastic. I would say even better than the 92, it just really sings. The filters also sound a bit better... there is much more resonance available, and the sweeps have more of that "weeeee" sound (to be technical).
There is only one LFO, and it's assignable to filter 1, 2 or both.
The Midi Portion:
Looking at a picture of the 3D, the MIDI controls available are pretty obvious. The controls all have a very nice feel to them similar to the rest of the mixer.
The jog wheels feel a little cheap, like the plastic on them is very thin. It's also very difficult to use the 4 way click points on the jog wheel without also turning it, sending mixed MIDI messages.
All of the MIDI controls are fixed to CC messages. You cannot modify them.
The BPM detection isn't very good, but you can tap and such. It jumps around a lot more than on the CDJ's.
The nudge feature and midi clock is pretty cool for mixing from decks to software. It's a little rough (not quite like using pitch bend buttons on a cdj), but it can be done!
The soundcard:
The 3D is of course only USB 1.1, which means the sound card has a little more latency than you would like. I had numerous USB issues with my macbook and audio interfaces, so I really would have preffered Firewire.
You can configure the sound card (using a software utility) to be either 1 stereo-in, 3 stereo-out, or 2 stereo-in, 2 stereo-out.
From there you can also configure "what" the inputs connect to: The main mix out (for recording your mixes), or the FX1 send (for using the sound card as an EFX loop).
The sound card outputs route directly to the mixer channels. Next to the phono/line button on each channel is a button to override that and take input from one of the sound card inputs:
Channel 1 - SC 1/2
Channel 2 - SC 3/4
Channel 3 - SC 5/6
Channel 4 - SC 1/2
Note that channel 4 shares a sound card output with channel 1, due to the limited number of outputs of the sound card. If you have the sound card set to 2 in/2 out, channel 3's 5/6 switch no longer works.
Use with my Mac:
The 3D was plug and play with my Mac, just plugged it in and everything worked (MIDI and Audio), as the 3D is class-compliant. I did not try the unit with windows.
Mapping MIDI in software applications works perfectly, as well as routing audio to the various sound card channels. No surprises there.
Supplied templates:
One nice feature that attracted me to the 3D was the plastic overlays you can use for your applications. The default Ableton template, however, is useless. Anyone with Ableton experience will take one look at it and realize why. It's really just an "example" of some things you can do, but isn't workable at all.
One annoyance is that there is no way to print your own template... they do not provide any "blank template" file, and the size requires paper A3 size or larger. If you were to print one, you would also have to cut out all of the control holes. Would have been nice if they included card stock with the holes punched, and a template file for custom templates.
Use with ableton:
I did try the 3D with Torq (with external control), and of course it worked fine. Other applications should be fine as well. The real reason I bought it, of course, is for Ableton use.
Using the 3D soley for other applications is really a bit of overkill, there's just too much MIDI there. The Traktor templates looked interesting, but I didn't try them.
Back to Ableton...
You really have two methods which you can configure Ableton and how you route audio:
1. Assign the MIDI controls of the 3D to control the faders in Ableton, and add EQ-8's to those channels and assign knobs for those, etc. Essentially using the MIDI portion of the 3D as a DJ mixer. Route the master out of ableton to one channel on the 3D, and the cue/preview out to a second.
2. Route individual audio channels from Ableton directly to the 3D's mixer channels, and mix using the regular audio faders and EQ's. This bypasses mixing in the software.
I first went with trying method 2. I like the ability to see the channel LED's on the mixer, use the gains, I like the main mixer faders better, etc. I also wanted to be able to use the 3D's filters on the Ableton channels.
The problem with method 2 is that due to the limitation of the 3D's sound card, you only have 3 channels to work with. If you dedicate one of those channels to cue/preview, you are left with 2 channels to mix with. That's VERY limiting with Ableton, and really I'd rather just mix with decks in that case. With a 4th channel, you would have "3 deck" capability, which is much more liberating.
I tried to create an aggregate audio device with my Torq Conectiv interface to get an extra channel (you have to do this to use multiple sound cards as a single device in an audio application). It worked, but it was very flaky (audio dropouts, distortion over time) and OS 10.4.10 broke something in aggregate devices so I could not use this anymore.
So I decided to give method 1 a try. Well, the results are less than satisfying. The first issue is fader curves. Using the MIDI faders of the 3D, audio isn't heard very much from the channel until you get near the top 1" of the fader (they are mapped linearly).
So when you are mixing, even a teeny tiny movement of the MIDI fader causes a big jump in sound level. WAY too sensitive. Ableton Live 6 currently provides a way to set the fader curve for the crossfader, but not for the upfaders. There are some third party applications that let you shim in another midi layer to do custom CC mappings (emulating a new fader curve), but that program was Windows only and seemed too fraught with problems.
Another issue was found when mapping the knobs for EQ'ing to EQ-8. On something like the 92, the EQ's are -inf to +6db. Well in Ableton, you can change the range of any MIDI control, but if you set it to -inf to +6, the detent in the MIDI knob (the middle click) is no longer at 0. The +/- values have to be the same for that to work. So that leads to the possibility of way overdriving your signal. I also found these controls to be VERY sensitive.
I also noticed substantial MIDI lag when using this method (MIDI lag, not audio lag). Cut an EQ really fast and it's very apparent.
Mixing in the software provides greater control over how you route the sound, using the return channels, etc. But it also requires you to stare at your laptop to see levels and such.
Mapping mixer controls to the 3D also reveals the poor layout of the controls. There aren't 3 detent knobs above each channel, so I was forced to put my mid EQ control on the right. Also, 8 sliders? I ended up using a template that others are using at abletonlivedj.com, which uses 4 Ableton channels, with controls for those 4 channels mapped all over both side of the 3D. Not impossible to use, but not ideal.
Conclusion
So in the end, I've determined that I, as well as MANY other DJ's who are using Ableton, prefer to mix using a real DJ mixer. In that case, you need a sound card which has lots of channels (which the 3D doesn't provide), connected to your mixer channels.
You then need only enough MIDI control for navigating scenes, triggering clips, and controlling the effects. This also means you can really use ANY DJ mixer you like with Ableton. Something like the DJM-800 looks nice on paper, but in practice the MIDI control is useless.
I COULD buy a better sound card, and not use the 3D's, but that seems ridiculous considering the amount I spent, and I don't have enough inputs available on the mixer for that.
Now I'm thinking of going to something classic, like a Rane 2016, with lots of inputs and just buy a decent sound card and a cheap controller. Still not sure what I'll do at this point.
In the end, this is just another example of an all-in-one device having a number of compromises for it's functions.
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Uhh...well, I'll be touring around with it across north america for the next few months. Should be hitting up Chicago, LA, Toronto, Vancouver.....
