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Vestax PMC 280

The PMC-280 is a very well built mixer, it's nice and heavy nothing looks like snapping off anytime soon. The only downside to the build quality is the external power supply –

by James Jude

Review for Vestax PMC-280 mixer

I've had this mixer for a few days now, so though I'd write some first impressions.

I've previously owned a Pioneer DJM300 and DJM600.

The PMC-280 is a very well built mixer, it's nice and heavy nothing looks like snapping off anytime soon. The only downside to the build quality is the external power supply – why have they done this? I'm used to seeing a nice thick power cable out of the back of a mixer straight to the wall, not a stringy wire with a large power adaptor on the end of it.

That's my beef over with – the rest of the build is superb. The cross fader is fast and slick with a very light but tangible resistance and a 2-way adjustable curve. One for scratching, one for slow mixing. The 4 faders have a heavier resistance for smoother mixing, but can be snapped up if needed.

The 3 band EQs are excellent, very rugged construction on the knobs and if you turn all 3 down – you get total silence, absolute kill. Nice. However, the Trim controls work less well – you cannot turn them to zero, that is, silence. Instead you get minimal amplification – this can cause issues if you've got a record that was mastered very loud. I might have to experiment further to see if this is really the case. There was something about this in the user manual, so perhaps I'm missing something.

Monitoring is nice and loud and easy to configure.

Now the bit you've all been waiting for: The Effects!

I have found so far that they are quite different to the Pioneer effects – perhaps they take more getting used to. There is a good deal of flexibility in them so lots of fun to be had. They are situated at the top of the mixer, which is a bit weird and not quite as user friendly as having it at the bottom.

You have the effect selector knob, the paramter/time knob for adjusting the effect and the wet/dry knob for mixing the effects with the specified channel as gently or harshly as you want.

There's also the effects/on off button for snapping them on/off and the tap tempo button altering the initial tempo the effects are set to. Then a row of five tempo buttons which go from 1 beat up to 8 beats (measured in bars – so a quarter bar, half bar, three quarter, full bar, two bars)

On some effects the transition from no effects to very slightly wet can be gentle, but on others it's quite noticable – however there are no clicks or pops when you turn the effects on.

Echo – Creates an echo surpsingly. With the parameter knob you can keep the sound going for a long as you want for easing down a record.

Reverb – Can create a nice wall of sound building up to a break.

Flanger – Very similar to the Pioneer one. You can extend the length of the effect by setting the tempo to 2 bars, then increasing the parameter to x2 for 4 bars or x4 for 8 bars.

Ring Mod – Passes the sound through a ring modulator, a bit annoying this one, especially when the parameter is high.

Pitch – Changes the pitch, haven't used it much.

Auto Pan – This can be quite fun if you set it to pan on every beat (1/4 bar), then reduce that even more with the parameter knob. If you go slowly from dry to wet it's a good fun noise.

Vocal Canel – A bit useless, just use the mid EQ!

Vocoder – Puts the mid range or vocal through a vocoder. Probably best left to vocal house or accapellas. It works well though in that it leaves the top and bottom ends fairly untouched.

Delay – Another for people who like to experiment – you can use this to jack your beats up or get them playing double time.

Phaser – I seem to remember this is a bit rough going from dry to wet, but produces a nice effect. Again, some interesting effects if you apply it with minimum parameter on every beat. Very vogue (swedish house mafia style) wall of noise stuff.

High Pass – One for the Allen and Heath users. A very smooth high pass, sounds fantastic. Can be applied with LFO to tie it to the BPM.

Band Pass – This one cuts out too much for me and sounds harsh going from dry to wet. Might be better applying wet first and fading in to a break, then punch out of it. Also can be applied with LFO.

Low Pass – Another great A&H style pass. Has a very nice wobble right at the start which sounds like the bass bulging out of the tune and sounds really good. Again, can be applied with LFO.

Overall, I've really enjoyed my first impressions of this mixer. It was a big tie-up between this and the Pioneer DJM-400, but to be honest I think this is more of a professional mixer, whereas the Pioneer is more for the bedroom. You only to look at the connects on the back of the mixers to realise that.

Rating: 5 of 5 Stars! [5 of 5 Stars!]