DJ Equipment Reviews

The EFX 500 gives high quality effects in a simple easy package

Pioneer DJ equipment reviews tend to go just one way, and that’s how Pioneer managed to surprise yet again, providing supreme quality and immensely featured DJ products to the market. Pioneer DJ product reviews also tend to mention the price of this DJ equipment, which is hardly easy on the pocket and it will probably leave you hanging for a couple of gigs. Well, this review about the EFX 500 effector from Pioneer will moderately surprise on both those accounts, as this DJ product in neither immensely featured (well, at least when compared to its bigger brother, the EFX 1000) and also, not insanely high priced (although to some extent it’s still going to be a major expense). That’s just how life is with Pioneer and the EFX 500 DJ effector (link to PDF user manual).

Although hardly an intro to this post, interested DJs can go on and read about the big brother of the EFX 500, the EFX 1000 professional DJ effector, that’s really going to leave you mouth opened and pocket dried. I chose the EFX 500 today because no matter what the DJ equipment reviews say, sometimes starter DJs or mobile DJs on a budget will need a little something to bump up their mix, and that’s where the EFX 500 comes in handy. First, sizewise, because the EFX 500 is really mobile DJ friendly. While I wouldn’t suggest carrying this out in the open (I don’t vouch for its self protection) because even tough that aluminum enclosure is metal, it looks a lot cheaper than on the EFX 1000, you could definitely carry 2.5 kgs, or 5 lbs worth of DJ effects in a backpack somewhere, no matter how comfortable of a mobile DJ you are. The dimensions of 276 x 64 x 220 mm aren’t going to give no DJ headaches about "where, oh where should I stick my EFX 500?"

The basic part of any DJ effector, as DJ product reviews will tell you, is the EQ, and the EFX 500 has a 3 band high quality equalizer, which admittedly isn’t much, but this little EQ turns at the switch of a lever into an isolator which allows DJs to basically silence the sound of any band.  But all DJ effectors should be about effects more than anything else, and the EFX 500 was pretty packed for its age, when Pioneer first released it. I’m sure DJs, even novices are familiar with what each of these effects does so I’ll just go quickly through them: delay, echo, auto pan, auto flanger and auto transformer work in any of the three bands of the EFX 500’s EQ because of the really good band separation this effector produces, so you can set any of these just into a specific band (highs, mids or lows). A depth rotary knob is then available for DJs to control the strength of the soundwaves in the effect and tune it up to their specific mix.

Then there are jet, zip, wah, ring modulation and fuzz, which are more functions of the jog wheel on the EFX 500 rather than full fledged effects, but they work just as well, and the same jog wheel allows for complete control for the DJ over how they sound an interact with the track playing. These function are also responsive to the depth knob on the EFX 500 for further adjusting. The best part about all these effects is that they’re no headache, and even a tired mobile DJ mixing right from the trip could set an effect and then let the EFX 500’s auto BPM counter do the job of aligning it with the mix. This BPM counter works naturaly on all effects and functions of the EFX 500, but what DJ products reviews might not tell you is that DJs can also turn it off and put in effects independently of the track’s BPM, which sometimes can mean a whole different sound (and not always for the worse).

Ok, so let’s break the EFX 500 down into bitesized pieces and features, like all good reviews should:

• starting with the technical stuff, the EFX 500 has a regular frequency response or 20 Hz to 20 kHz
• and a signal to noise ratio of 80 dB or more, which is reasonably well for an effector, consider it’s not a central part of the DJ setup
• MIDI I/O compatibility, which lets EFX 500 control the clock of external DJ equipment
• and also auto BPM works on MIDI inputs and outputs, aligning them perfectly for seamless sound
• output level switch between 4 dBu and -10 dBu
• input and output are both 1/4" and RCA stereo
• and a nice effect monitoring option for DJs, which works on any of three channels, either beat effects alone, master out or digital jog wheel functions

So if you don’t have almost 1000$ to spend on the more featured EFX 1000, the EFX 500 might be the next best thing, as it’s a respectably featured DJ effector, and don’t let any Pioneer DJ product reviews tell you otherwise, it’s still Pioneer quality and will serve DJs and mobile DJs faithfully.

Press Ctrl+D to Bookmark Your Favorite Posts - review, zip, jog wheel

Related Posts

• Numark Made for iPod iDJ2 (0)
• Pioneer EFX 1000 DJ Equipment Review (0)