Numark brand was founded by Harry and Robert Kotovsky in 1971. At that time the brothers were into development of mixers, turntables, and speakers. In 1989 the company released the first mixer with a built-in sampler called DM1775 which met the basic DJs’ requirements and at the same time excelled at recording function. It had 4 channels, a crossfader, and allowed you to record and play back samples up to 4 seconds. The release of a CD-player followed later - CD-5020. Now the rarity device was intended to fit a rack, and sported two CD drives.
The first products weren’t so popular, and the future CEO Jack O'Donnell (who took office in 1991) changed the approach to creating instruments by replacing the analog source with a digital one. He continued to develop mixers/controllers, and soon a DJ controller called DMC-1 was released. It included 2 drives and an interface with a main scroll knob, a play/record button, and a tempo fader. In the 2000s Numark developed the innovative idea of controllers interacting directly with iPod. Thus iDJ2, which had 2 knobs and an iPod dock, was more of an amateur unit than the device for professional DJing.
Numark has been a lucky player in a DJ controller segment, and the beginning of prosperity came in 2012 when the company released 4Trak DJ Controller. The tricky name of 4Trak implies integration with NI Traktor. The controller has a 4-channel mixer and 2 turntables surrounded by loads of different knobs, buttons and faders controlled via MIDI. A built-in mixer operating in a standalone mode (with no need to be connected to a computer) is the highlight feature of 4Trak. The housing is made of metal which looks very sturdy while the upper corner of the FX control panel is removable. The panel offers filter knobs for each channel. "Strip Search" is a horizontal sensor scroll bar which allows you to navigate the track (as in CDJ-2000).
In 2012 the company released iDJ Pro which turned to be more sophisticated than its predecessor iDJ2. iDJ Pro has no USB port since it’s designed exclusively for iPad. Its turntables are as sensitive as any other controller, besides it has XLR outputs. It also has an impressive settings selection from a 3-band equalizer to loop and effect manipulation. The application is perfectly compatible with the controller since all the actions can be performed with your iPad, but it features some additions including: X/Y interface and a sampler that can download sounds from iTunes. It isn’t meant for club DJing but it’ll do great as a unit to practice your skills.
The flagship DJ controller Numark NS7III (2015) was to attract the attention of Serato DJ users and didn’t fail to do that. It’s a 4-deck controller and a built-in 4-channel mixer with 3 color displays. Two side ones display the same values: waveforms, BPM, effects, while the central one displays the library of tracks. In addition, this screen can show waveforms in parallel thereby allowing you to fine-tune track BPM. Each of the left and right sides has a turntable and 8 pads laid out in MPC style.
Like many other manufacturers Numark has gone through a lot of changes eventually becoming one of the leading giants on the music market, offering quality controllers, mixers and players for DJs.