DJ Equipment Reviews

The PMC 500 DJ mixer looks to set new standards of quality of multi-inputs, multi-outputs mixers

Vestax is a DJ product brand that needs no presentation, as they have come up with a range of valuable DJ products over the years, that have spurred not only great DJ equipment reviews, but also the hearts, minds, and most of all gigs of DJs worldwide. Vestax products reviews are always bound to have some novelty in them, as these guys never keep their products on the market for too long. They pretty soon come up with newer DJ equipment that makes the old ones, although magnificent in their own right, get to the discontinued section and besides, they fill the net with another half of dozen DJ products reviews or so, meant for DJs to figure their compatiblity out with the new Vestax DJ products. The PMC 500 is just a trend setter from Vestax, deserving much more than a fair review and the hands of the most versatile DJ mixing.

The PMC 500 DJ mixer is designed from scratch with one thing in mind by Vestax: to be as versatile as possible, to cover all genres, to satisfy all DJs, no matter their style, to offer the great Vestax quality, and finally, to trigger DJ equipment reviews just like this one. Long story short, I have yet to see a DJ mixer as complete as the PMC 500, able to work on so many different levels.

For all purposes, the PMC 500 is a 5 channel DJ mixer, filled to the brim with bells and whistles, and while DJ products reviews will try to get them all, only the manual of the PMC 500 can possibly enumerate them in their entirety. The 5 channels on the PMC 500 are so complex and versatile that they each come with a designated 3 band isolator (for highs, mids and lows independently) for DJ mixing in clubs, 7 segment level indicators for easy visual cues, huge input options woth almost universal compatibility and great effect controls, not to mention the super smooth 60 mm, tight torque rail slide fader. These are joined on the PMC 500 by 2 separate microphone channels, which make this DJ mixer worthy to be reviewed also as a mic preamp and mixer, if needed. With one XLR input and one 1/4" jack, both mic channels have effect loop inputs and 2 band EQ on them, and they can also switch to line channels (indicated by LEDs).

As DJs would expect from Vestax products reviews, I have to mention the availability and versatility of the all important crossfader on the PMC 500, which in this case is a high quality PCV crossfader that’s not only easily changeable by the DJ himself, but also has 4 selectable curve setting (from long to short mixing) to accomodate virtually any type of DJ from club mixing to scratching DJs, so no matter what your expertise is as a DJ, the PMC 500 (link to PDF outline drawing) has the tools for you at the quality you’ve come to expect from them.

Let’s take a short overview now at other features of the uniquely versatile PMC 500 to complete this DJ equipment review:

• auxiliary send and receive controls are very flexible, to suit the PMC 500, with level controls
• the aux send has preselectable to pre, off or post and features its own cue switch, while aux receive has a 7 segment LED level for active metering
• master and booth outputs of the PMC 500 are fully adjustable and are preselectable to either -10 dB or 0 dB
• booth level comes complete with 2 band EQ and a mute switch for extremely accurate monitoring
• monitoring is also possible through the headphone output with dedicated 2 band EQ, which is selectable to stereo cue or split cue
• for reducing noise, which affects all areas of mixing, the PMC 500 has a newly constructed AC power adapter  

Any DJ equipment review can only get to one conclusion about the PMC 500 DJ mixer, and that’s that there is basically no other mixer out there that can suit quite so many styles of mixing or areas of the audio DJ setup. The PMC 500 becomes truly impressive because it’s well fitted for any and all of those areas, so if you need a mixer that can take everything from club mixing to scratching and active mixing in professional audio systems and has top quality for any of those, I not only recommend the Vestax PMC 500 in virtue of this review, but also dare you to find a better DJ mixer out there.

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