SECURE SHOPPING
Numark have made a name by providing practical audio equipment for DJs at an affordable price. Having given us the Mixtrack DJ controller, Numark up the ante and deliver the N4 four-deck controller and mixer.
The Micromodul DS3 controller provides hands-on control for your DJ software of choice. Shipping with the means to get you started straight away on Traktor, there are no drivers in sight as Faderfox have made it class compliant. It can be fired up simply by plugging in via USB to Mac or PC. The controller is slight, 180mm x 105mm x 70 mm in size and weighs in at a featherweight 350gs, meaning this small but tactile control unit will be flying with your hand luggage while providing you with the means to deliver your set efficiently and confidently.
With the success of their flagship Maschine beat production workstation, Native Instruments introduce us to its little brother, the Maschine Mikro.
The “Father Of MIDI” Dave Smith has been making synths since the 70s. He founded his own company, Sequential Circuits, and created the world’s first microprocessor-based musical instrument, the first programmable polyphonic synth in the form of the Prophet 5 and wrote the low-level optimized floating point synthesis code.
With Christmas drawing ever nearer, the Juno experts have selected out 2011’s key pieces of DJ and studio equipment for your festive perusal. As always, we’ve looked across the board, singling out the most essential items and catering for all kinds of DJs (software users, vinyl fetishists, CD loyalists), with everything from the latest software programs to mixers, decks, headphones, studio monitors and much more besides.
Having taken a detailed look at M Audio’s Venom earlier this year, we now get to grips with another heavyweight contender, the Novation Ultranova, in the second of our virtual analogue synthesis showcases.
This year’s BPM was held at Birmingham’s NEC arena, with three days of the freshest equipment demonstrations, networking, seminars, workshops, live performances and DJ sets.
Late last year we took a look at Native Instruments’ S4 controller, the one-stop solution for Traktor Pro users. Now our friends in Berlin follow up with a unit that looks to address the needs of the DJ who needs to travel light.
Any one who’s recently viewed the Steinberg Sequel Three promotional video will agree that the whole affair (incorporating a love story within a sequencer commercial) is a wee bit far fetched. However, we won’t let this cloud our judgment of a product that has been described as the Garage Band of Steinberg’s range.
Kicking into the market at a competitive £399, the Stanton CMP 800 multi-format player has the look of a contemporary CD deck with the added bonus of being MIDI compatible, meaning that Serrato and Traktor users can plug straight into an existing set-up without disrupting the DJ booth.
In a world where DJ controller technology is governed by the speed at which the software systems evolve, an inevitable stalemate is reached whereby the market floods with legions of perfectly plausible units which do essentially the same thing.
Until relatively recently, the DJ headphone market was largely sewn up by the dominance of the seemingly unmovable Japanese electronics superpower that is Sony. German company Sennheiser has been chipping away since 1945, and in that time has built a reputation based on sheer performance and reliability.
Roland’s Cakewalk strikes back with what looks to be the biggest overhaul the Z3ta+ (pronounced (zay-ta) synth since acquiring it from RGC:Audio back in 2002 with the Z3ta+2.
The DJ controller market is sufficiently crowded these days to question any manufacturer’s motives to join this features-against-price arms race. But credit where it’s due to French manufacturers Mixvibes, who have stepped up with a unit that still manages to feel relevant, not to mention singular, in the current climate.
German controller manufacturer Faderfox is one of the best examples of the new breed of boutique audio electronics manufacturers that, despite worldwide recognition, still manage to operate on a cottage industry basis.
Reloop return with another tidy little box of high precision German engineering. The two deck, Traktor optimized Mixage Interface Edition controller is essentially a streamlined version of the existing Digital Jockey series, although it is largely based on the same fundamental building blocks and aimed towards domestic or studio use.
German analogue synthesis manufacturer MFB is the brainchild of Manfred Fricke, who has successfully designed and realised an impressive array of small drum machines and synth modules. Now they update their existing analogue step sequencer with the Urzweg Pro.
Newcomers Icon step up with the iDJ, a snazzy little controller that injects some fun into compact digital DJing.
In the current musical climate, the terms ‘analogue modeling’ and ‘virtual analogue’ are commonplace within the synthesizer communities. Indeed the new generation of producers largely expect their hardware to have the same features and reliability when it comes to presets, saving, MIDI and effects capabilities as the software VST instruments on the market.
Earlier this year Serato fans were delighted by the news of the forthcoming SL4 unit which boasts the most significant interface overhaul since the software hit the shelves back in mid 2004.
