If you’re lamenting the demise of the dedicated Lemur display and multi-touch controller – since reincarnated as an iPad app – you might be intrigued by the Emulator. Like the Lemur, the Emulator uses a modular array of touch controls, with more than a casual nod at JazzMutant’s original. Here, though, the touch display is embedded in display hardware. (The vendor provides basically custom software and systems integration; unlike JazzMutant, they’re using off-the-shelf display and touch hardware, though that could actually be a good thing in the long run.)

Most amusingly, you get wooden end caps on this. They’ve even appended “1974″ to the name. It’ll be perfect for the Enterprise bridge I’m building in my living room with shag carpeting and lava lamps.

Specs:
Glass (“chemically-strengthened” — possibly Gorilla Glass or similar), with projected capacitive touch
4 touch points
“Less than 4 ms latency” reported under Windows 8 and Mac OS X
1920 x 1080 display, 22″ (55.8 cm)
15-pin analog, Display Port inputs (via adapter – not sure if you get an actual digital in)
17.5 lbs (7.9 kg)

You can make your own control layouts, or use included ones built for use with Traktor DJ or Ableton Live.

No pricing info yet; shipping February. Updated: Preorder pricing is US$2495. (Thanks, Jeff!) Given the relatively low cost of multi-touch displays, that sounds to me a bit steep, if in line with former Lemur pricing.

Now, of course, because this uses commercially-available displays, you could roll your own similar solution. Linux and Windows 8 are adding multi-touch features that work with these kinds of displays. Basically, what SmithsonMartin sells is an integrated solution with their own software.

But that itself is a potentially-fruitful avenue. We’ll see if they can connect with a market on this, and if anyone else gets in the same game. (I can tell you, I’d be tempted to stick a computer underneath that display and build something all-in-one.

More information:
http://www.smithsonmartin.com/kontrol-surface-ks-1974/

And yes, the obligatory promo video:

German boutique controller maker Faderfox was one of the first to build custom controllers for Ableton Live and Traktor. But amidst bigger-name offerings, the Faderfox devices still hold up. While other, more sprawling controllers struggle to squeeze into a booth, the Faderfox devices are ultra-compact, though still with enough room for your fingers. They also offer uniquely high-end controls and case, and sophisticated control options.

The latest, designed for Traktor – though it could easily be adapted to other DJ and VJ tools – is the DJ-friendly DS3. It really assumes a digital DJing workflow, focusing on triggering samples, loops, hotcues, and effects. (And, nicely enough, could be well-suited to DJs who want to go beyond just pressing play and mixing. We know you’re out there.)

Creator Mathias shares some of the features:

• Controls up to four decks – easy switching between deck A-B-C-D on the fly
• Supports track deck & sample deck mode with easy switching between the modes
• 4 multifunctional encoders – access to all FX and important deck + loop parameters by 6 group buttons
• Dedicated FX assign buttons for quick switching to the 4 FX busses
• Detailed control of all sample slot parameters by 4 encoders
• Browser section with encoder, view and favorite buttons (with additional tree navigation)
• Loop recorder section with encoder and two buttons (with additional copy function to any sample slots)
• 12 extra large buttons for sample trigger and hotcue access
• All controls with double function by holding down the shift button
• 31 LED’s and a 2-digit display to show various informations by feedback data from computer
• About 750 commands – all free to reassign

The only disadvantage I can think of, really, is that you have to toggle between the four decks – a tradeoff of the compact design. Of course, you could always buy more than one.

Here’s a look at the front panel, close up:

The Faderfox runs €250, including VAT (210 without). Unlike early models’ MIDI DIN and 9V battery, the units now simply connect – and receive power – via USB.

DS3 Product Page @ faderfox.de

Gibson Guitar has announced in a press release they’re acquiring the Stanton Group, which includes, aside from the well-known Stanton DJ brand, KRK monitoring products and Cerwin-Vega loudspeakers.

It’d be easy to see this as a guitar company buying a DJ company, but it’s more than that. KRK and Cerwin-Vega are speaker/monitoring brands. Stanton and Cerwin-Vega each have footholds in the larger consumer arena, not just the pro world, a detail Gibson is quick to emphasize. And Gibson themselves have quietly, steadily grown beyond just guitars. The new “Gibson Pro Audio” banner is added to a list of brands that Gibson reels off: “Epiphone, Dobro, Kramer, Steinberger, Tobias, Echoplex, Electar, Flatiron, Slingerland, Valley Arts, Maestro, Oberheim, Baldwin, Sunshine Piano, Take Anywhere Technology, J&C Fischer, Chickering, Hamilton, Wurlitzer.” But it would seem dropping the “Guitar” from the name would be realistic.

There are two interesting details to the way the press release is worded. First, the lead is that Gibson’s move is “part of its continued expansion as a lifestyle brand.” That’s perhaps going to send a chill down the spine of anyone who prefers to focus explicitly on “musicians.” Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz even says the move “allows us access to 20 in 20 consumers instead of the one in 20 we currently hit.” That contrasts with the emphasis of, say, organizations like NAMM who talk about the general market of “musicians,” not only “lifestyle,” whatever you take that to mean. On the other hand, this is really nomenclature we’re talking here; the question I have is how “lifestyle” actually translates into a strategy, and how well it works for Gibson.

The other detail is more interesting. Gibson and Stanton Group reps each stress the potential for overlapping R&D. Juszkiewicz has touted R&D projects in the past, though largely centered around new guitar tech. We’ll see if the two companies can deliver on that R&D promise and do something really innovative. I have no idea what that’d mean in this case, so if anyone cares to speculate, I’m all ears.

Anyone?

Gibson Guitar Acquires Market-Leading Pro Audio Companies KRK, Cerwin-Vega!, and Stanton [PR Newswire]

Online chatter has in past not been very kind to Gibson on its past acquisition record, so I expect some people will raise the spectre of at least one acquisition again. Let’s see… comments…

I don’t personally view this as flame-bait; Gibson’s a perfectly-respectable guitar maker and I imagine there could be some smart business opportunity here, especially with Stanton together with Gibson in Nashville. However, let’s consider: the names Gibson and Stanton, guitars and DJing. I imagine some flame-broiled comment thread on the Internet somewhere.

And yes, reasons to be skeptical:

Promises of this sort of R&D synergy could easily fail to materialize. And whether Gibson can manage these essentially unrelated businesses is an enormous question mark. There aren’t a whole lot of acquisition success stories in this business.

It had to happen — button triggering, as popularized by the monome, here meets a conventional two-channel DJ mixer. But the layout I must say is quite spare and lovely, the work of the Japanese-based PICnome project. Furthermore, it’s Open Source Hardware, covered as I have recommended by a ShareAlike Creative Commons license (with no commercial restrictions) and GPL v3. (The creator prefers the term “Free Hardware,” which I love theoretically but have avoided for fear of people demanding we mail them MeeBlips by sending us a self-addressed, stamped box.)

With clean, subtle markings and a nicely-composed layout, it’s hardware that doesn’t scream out its design with big decals or overblown features. It’s just a (colored) grid controller, similar to the monome, combined with controller setup laid out as a two-channel mixer, with the sorts of features you’d expect of each. I love the angled labels, at least aesthetically. (I should note that this is not related to the monome project; the monome is not open source hardware, though it works via open software and commercially-restricted availability to some schematics. It is, of course, deserving of credit for inspiring a whole generation of hardware.)

The controller works with both OSC (OpenSoundControl) and MIDI for maximum flexibility. And, incidentally, this could be an ideal live visual controller, too, especially with that native OSC support.

Good grief; I realize I filled this post with nothing but technical jargon. Hopefully, those of you who speak in such tongue-twisted terms have followed along, and everyone else just looked at the pretty pictures and video.

Carry on.

PICratchBOX – Sneak Preview [atelier.tkrworks]

http://made-in-yamamoto.com/

Japan, hope to come visit you some day soon. Thanks, Regend, for the tip!

Update: Read in comments about some lingering frustration that the original PICnome project was derived from the monome; since the monome doesn’t permit the sale of derivative designs, that could be viewed as an abuse of the available specifications for the monome. In this case, based on what I see, however, I’m hard pressed to see this product as being subject to the same criticism by virtue of having buttons, unless there’s some detail I’m missing. If I am missing something, please let me know.

By the way, if you want to revisit the PICnome project and decide for yourself, that thread is still on the monome community. It’s not accurate to say as some commenters do that the PICnome was a “bootleg” or simple clone of the monome, as it was re-implemented on a PIC chip. The issue is that the product was then made available for sale, because it was built on monome schematics; while those are readily available, they are not licensed for this kind of use. The firmware is free for use; it’s covered under a GPL license, which is non-revocable. However, to my knowledge, those same concerns may not necessarily apply to this project.

To recap: the PICnome project indeed is technically incompatible with the intentions and licensing of the monome project, but the new PICratchBox should be fine. So, here’s to the PICratchBox, which is more interesting precisely because it’s something new.

It is my view that the original PICnome project violated the terms of the licensing of the schematics; whether because of a misunderstanding or not, that’s not something to condone. But the new project does not do so, in my view. I contacted monome’s Brian Crabtree and while we didn’t have an on-the-record conversation, he took no issue with that statement.

DJ Magazine’s Top 100 list of DJs is irrelevant and broken, based on a flawed methodology, prone to manipulation, and out of touch with what actually makes someone a top DJ.

That’s the conclusion you’d probably reach after reading the latest critique of the poll, and the conclusion is that the list needs to get out of its print past and embrace new tech. It hardly seems like a surprising opinion. But here’s where this becomes news: the analysis comes from London-based Terry Church, formerly a News & Web Editor at DJ Magazine as well as a PR guru and former Beatportal editor.

Terry doesn’t just rant about the top 100. Insetad, he offers a detailed history of how the list came to be, and how at its inception in 1997 no one really saw the potential problems (or had today’s more intelligent survey tech). He also goes, step by step, through the gradual downfall of the survey among artists and listeners. Some good signs: intelligent bookers and audiences are simply well-educated enough that a top list isn’t as necessary. But the bottom line for the top 100 just isn’t good; as Terry writes:

So DJ Magazine’s Top 100 will A) never be secure, and B) will always be plagued by unscrupulous marketing practices. As such, the poll’s popularity has fallen in recent years, even amongst trance fans, who traditionally were the most ardent supporters of the poll’s results due to the large numbers of high ranking DJs from their scene.

However, even among the aspiring candidates themselves there seems to be a general feeling of apathy.

Terry also has some suggestions for how technology might make the list more interesting. Google Trends doesn’t come up with much that’d be too surprising — though, really, a top five probably shouldn’t be surprising in the first place, or it wouldn’t be “top.”

Well worth a full read, particularly to see how an idea in journalism can evolve (or devolve) over time:
Opinion: Should technology replace DJ Magazine’s Top 100 DJs Poll? [terrychurch pr; not sure why that headline ends as a question mark given his thesis]

But for me, this all raises an interesting question. Google Trends is a fairly primitive metric. How might we get some more compelling data visualization and analytics on musical practice? Maybe the next top list will come out of a Music Hack Day, not a suspect print magazine survey. And that sounds very interesting, indeed.

Polling ends tonight. For their part:
http://www.djmag.com/top100

Walk into a club, and it seems far too often you’ll find a DJ operating Serato or Traktor with their laptop touchpad. At best, you might get a digital vinyl system that’s mostly spinning around and looking pretty. (Some people do amazing things with scratching; some love the feel of cueing on vinyl. Some don’t do much at all.) But at least digital DJs can’t say they don’t have options. Native Instruments’ Kontrol S2 is the latest entry, a two-deck version of their S4 we saw earlier. That hardware is impressive-looking, with unique electromagnetic technology that builds up greater resistance as you make bigger moves.

If that appealed to you, but you wanted a two-deck, two-channel mixer rather than four and four, the S2 should appeal. Native has also released a video with DJ and controllerist advocate Ean Golden showing off what it can do.

The S2 and S4 also sheds some bulk and weight – a marginal, not a radical amount, but enough to make a difference to those traveling. Compare the S4 to the S2 (S4 in parentheses):
Depth: 4.4cm (vs 5.2cm)
Height: 29.2cm (vs 32.2cm)
Width: 43.8cm (vs 50cm)
Weight: 2.7 kg (vs 3.4kg)

Of course, as I look at the amount of space Ean has on that table, it occurs to me that this remains the principle problem. We’ve seen some compact controllers, but they often don’t provide this kind of control. For cramped live situations, DJing can be tough. So that may mean either making tinier controllers or having DJs find a way to fight for more space and new performance venues.

What strikes me is that, in the time since the S4 came out, we’ve seen loads of other options – even one from Ean himself. And that’s a good thing: today’s Traktor user can choose from almost any imaginable hardware, and a few DIY options, for making a custom performance. I hope to see more DJs taking advantage of that. Some of our recent coverage:

Scratch This: A DIY Project Repurposes DJ Controllers as Scratch Inputs; Recycling DJ Gear

Not a Turntable, Not a Knob: A New Inertial Sensor Music Controller, as Artists Explore

New Performance Controllers: Midi-Fighter Pro will Face Grid+Fader Rivals

Novation + Serato Touchstrip Twitch; Pics + Inside Details on the DJ ‘Controllerist’ Collaboration

Closest to the S4/S2:
Virtual DJ Controllers: New Hardware for Serato, Traktor from Pioneer, Numark”

Faderfox 4midiloop: True, Four-deck, Four-effect Traktor Control [lacks jog wheels, but you do get Faderfox's unparalleled quality and more mixing and fx controls - ideal if you want to use your own decks or jogs, too]

And we should note, while it’s a mixer rather than a controller, our friend Minus was all over A&H’s DB4 DJ mixer:
Allen & Heath Xone:DB4 DJ Mixer: Hands-on Preview with Ambivalent (Minus)

All of this means it’s a very good time to be doing creative, performance-oriented (“controllerist”) DJ sets. And frankly, if there’s not enough room at the club where you’re a patron or a player or both, maybe it’s time to go find some space and stretch out those controllerist arms of yours.

On that note, let’s look at some pretty photos of the S2, since NI obliged. (Hint to manufacturers: if you’re jealous of this kind of coverage, just send us some good pictures and videos, already. All tech journalists are biased by product makers actually sending stuff that’s easy for us to post! Mmmm… pictures.)

Traktor Kontrol S2 Product Page

dj sniff, aka Takuro Mizuta Lippit, has been a leading figure in experimental turntablism and experimental music in general. Following studies in New York and Tokyo, he’s been a key artist and curator in the scene, as well as a top practitioner of turntable technique that pushes the envelope of what the record player can do. I got to spend some time with him in the basement of STEIM, the cutting-edge “electro-instrumental” research center in Amsterdam, as he jammed on his rig.

Combining a computer running Max/MSP with interactive physical control and conventional scratching and mixing, Taku’s rig is a kind of hybrid meta-instrument, a one-man ensemble of sound. In our video, he first gives us an extended improvisation. It was literally just him messing around when I happened to flip on the camera; this flows out of him both as a soloist and with other musicians (including acoustic instrumentalists). Then, he walks us through that gear.

Some of what you’ll see, apart from the obvious turntables and a one-of-a-kind custom device of sniff’s own creation:
Mac mini
Cycling ’74 Max/MSP (you can’t see it, but via his custom patches, it’s doing the sampling)
Stanton SCS.3m Controller
Novation Dicer DJ Controller (the little, triangular device propped on the edge of the turntable)
Foot pad

The “Crossfader Trigger Sampler” is the heart of the rig, what Taku says he had to learn to play. It’s powered by a PIC18F microcontroller, though these days you might well choose a different option. (The device was designed in the pre-Arduino days.)

Take a look:

I’m listening now to dj sniff’s album, titled simply ep. It’s actually nearly a full hour of music, perhaps best described as experimental turntable jazz. I love Taku’s inscription on the back, from the liner notes, as it says a lot to me about the relationship of performance and recording media:

“With every scratch, our memory of a past is suspended and we hear and here the now.”

dj sniff is curating and playing STEIM’s PATTERNS + PLEASURE festival next month. We’ll be in Amsterdam, and will be doing a Handmade Music call; more on that shortly. I just hope I can fight through jetlag and make some music down in STEIM’s bowels.

More:
http://www.steim.org/
http://www.djsniff.com/

More dj sniff:

At STEIM in Tokyo, 2008:

Scratching, meet recycling. Rather than allow MIDI DJ controllers to consign themselves to landfills, a new open source project promises to retrofit these gadgets with scratch capabilities.

Scratch Decoder is a collaborative, open source effort to add or extend obsolete controllers, CDJs, and turntables with digital vinyl control – before they get tossed. Inspired by a 2009 thesis by Swiss student Ramon Mathis, advised by the folks who first developed the Ms. Pinky vinyl control system for Max/MSP, and rooted in years of work, the system is now publicly documented.

The ingredients:
An Arduino hardware board
The encoder sensor and board on a Numark CDX – which this project actually hacks into
MIDI, and Ms. Pinky’s software library

Upshot: add a computer, and you can translate scratch movements to MIDI messages for use with your DJ software of choice.

The video is in Spanish, so Mudo, who’s on the team, explains:

In the video, Norbert shows, as proof-of-concept, hijacking the encoder signal and connecting it to the digital inputs at Arduino. Then he sets up the software involved (serial-to-MIDI translator and Traktor controller panel) and starts the platter of the Numark CDX (the CDX is a CDJ without the ability to send MIDI from the platter) — all without a timecode CD, of course. It is not perfect right now, but it works at last.

I actually kind of like that it isn’t perfect.

This deserves further explanation for those for whom this isn’t obvious (mainly, most normal people). Typically, digital vinyl works by including a disc (vinyl or CD) encoded with timecode. That way, by looking at the audio playback from the device, as someone moves the record, the audio stream can be decoded in order to tell that, say, they’re scratching the disc.

In this case, a device that lacks that timecode disc and has sensors that refuse to see MIDI can be retrofitted to provide signal to software.

The team in this case is inspired by other experimental turntablists, artists who explore the potential of modifying technology for use in turntable performance technique. The project says it draws from the artistic ideas of these inventors as well as their technological research, looking to the likes of DJ Sniff, Jason Sadural and the Rastieri Project, Aaron Faulstitch, Jesse Kriss, and Scott Wardle.

I’m finishing editing a video interview with DJ Sniff showing of his current rig, but I asked Sniff, aka Takuro Mizuta Lippit, about this project. He points CDM to a range of “hackable gems,” devices for DJing that failed in the consumer market but are now available for creative use in used form.

Examples:

The Tascam TT-M1 is, says Taku “essentially just an optical encoder that rides that spinning platter.” It’s the sensor you can add to something like the CDX – a non-open equivalent of the project above, meant to rescue your CDX from the trash heap.

The Stanton SCS.3M brought to bear a fascinating array of interactive touch strips, a compact, all-touch controller for DJing. It’s a device we covered on CDM when it came out, particularly due to its similarity to [warning: getting obscure] the never-released M-Audio [then Midiman] Surface One controller prototype. The SCS got further than the M-Audio piece in that it was manufactured, but apparently has since been discontinued and didn’t quite take the market by storm. [Fair warning: I don't see confirmation from Stanton that it's discontinued, so its status may simply be, "not the biggest controller ever to hit the market" until we hear otherwise.]

Taku uses that gadget in his work, which you’ll see in the video soon.

In the meantime, to follow these community projects, there are some interesting discussions and sites coming together.

En Español and in English:
Proyecto 1: Scratch Decoder. Convierte tu viejo equipo en un controlador midi para scratch!

Discussion on the DJ TechTools forum of this project:
Which controllers with motorized platter does Traktor support? [a slight misnomer in the subject header - eventually, you wind up with the project here!]

See Ramón Mathis’ dream of an open community for sharing scratch skills, styles, and “tricks” via an interactive e-learning system and community:
http://www.skrat.ch/

What should DJing with a computer look like? We’ve seen over a decade of products that can emulate the vinyl turntable experience, of course. But a native hardware interface for the computer – with all its internal looping, slicing, and effects capabilities – by definition must be different.

DJ TechTools, led by DJ Ean Golden, has mixed writing about technology with designing custom solutions to that problem, interacting with the community on the DJ-centric blog. Ean has released mapping templates for existing hardware, and collaborated on a hardware special edition (Vestax VCI-100) and even a from-the-ground-up product (Novation’s Dicer). I never much liked the term “controllerist,” because the use of MIDI control in computer music is almost as old as real-time music. But what these efforts do is to imagine tangible, touchable interfaces for what the software is doing with the sound.

The custom designs and collaborations culminated in an original boutique controller product, the MIDI-Fighter, a 4×4 grid of mashable arcade buttons. The Midi-Fighter this month gets its first big upgrade: it graduates from being a simple 4×4 set of buttons to adding faders, encoders, and buttons in one of four variations available in the “Pro” series.

Introducing the Midi-Fighter Pro Controllers [DJ TechTools]

The Midi-Fighter Pro will go up against a number of rivals with similar configurations – at their heart, faders + controls + buttons. The Midi-Fighter approach remains unique because of its layer of mapping, but it’s worth considering both the new Pro line and its (friendly) competitors. Together, they’re making what might be considered a new genre of boutique controllers.

Midi-Fighter Pro

Ean Golden announced not one but four variant models in the “Pro” line, replacing what had been a simple 4×4 model. I’m a little partial to the original in some ways – there was a charm to the minimalism of the controller. But these have nice new cases, and of course those additional controllers will come in handy.

The specs:

• US$349 – trade in an existing model to upgrade for $249
• 3 pounds
• MIDI over USB, class-compliant drivers

There are four configurations. They’re pretty similar, differing in fader/knob attributes and mappings.

Beat Masher: Two crossfaders at right angles, one knob (mapped to filter), four preset buttons. Targets Traktor Pro.

XX Fader: Two cross-faders side-by-side, two knobs, four buttons. Targets turntablists.

Cue Master: Looks quite a lot like the XX Fader, but expression faders have multiple parameters in the mappings, and the knobs are dedicated to filter and echo.

Super Knob: Four preset buttons, four knobs, targets Serato cue + effect + sampler controlers or either four-deck or two-deck configurations in Traktor.

The Midi-Fighter line differentiates itself from other grid control rivals in two ways: first, it uses arcade buttons, which have long been loved by DIYers but haven’t seen much (any?) use in commercial music products. Second, the included mappings are heavily DJ-centric and performance-oriented. Other controllers have tended to be more software-agnostic, or, at the opposite extreme, control a range of software functions rather than being configured specifically for performance (as I’d argue is true of the Akai APC and Novation Launchpad for Ableton Live).

To put it more simply, DJ TechTools are the first hardware vendor – big or small – I’ve seen embrace gaming combos as a metaphor for music control. (It makes some sense.) Aside from the aesthetic choice of using game-style arcade buttons, they literally have combos in the fashion of a fighting game – hence the name.

Here’s what that looks like with the “Classic”:

Super Combos – Controllerism meets Street Fighter

And here’s how Ean uses it in his own set, playing with the Pro model with Q-Bert:

Now, a bit on some of the rivals:

Livid’s Block

The Midi-Fighter looks very nice, indeed, but at US$349, it’s getting close to the $399 price of the Livid Block. The two are a study in contrasts. First, the similarities: the Block also combines a grid with continuous (fader/encoder) control, it comes with software for custom mappings, there are custom housing options, and it has plug-and-play USB MIDI that’ll work on any Mac, Windows, or Linux system. (Or iOS, for that matter!) They’re also both boutique controllers produced by independent vendors and made in the US, in collaboration with a community of interested customers. That’s a trend that I think is healthy for this industry as a whole.

Now, some of the differences. The Block has significantly more controls and I/O for your extra $50. You get a light up 8×8 array of pads in place of the 4×4 buttons, additional triggers, and lots of knobs. In fact, I think the Block has the most flexible controller and I/O arrangement of any of its rivals. Add to that MIDI jacks for connecting hardware and expansion jacks, and the Block is powerful.

The Block is still a valid choice for DJs, with Ableton Live and Traktor Pro control templates available (and plenty of customization possible, beyond that).

That’s not to say it’s better than the Midi-Fighter Pro for everyone – some will appreciate the simplicity of the DJ TechTools offering. It’s nice to have different choices.

I covered the addition of expansion on the Block earlier this month:
Control with Room to Grow: Livid Adds Expansion Jacks

(I should also mention the monome, the design of which clearly inspired the grid on the Block. There’s certainly nothing saying you couldn’t combine a monome with other controllers for continuous controls, as many have. Ditto the Novation Launchpad. But I’ll stick to the direct rivals here.)

Electrix Tweaker

Because of its DJ-centric design and marketing, the Tweaker may be of more interest to would-be Midi-Fighter Pro buyers. Like the Block and Midi-Fighter, it combines pads and faders. But it adds a significant twist: velocity-sensitive drum pads.

At the heart of Tweaker lies a grid of 32 rubber pads backlit by RGB LEDs, and 8 velocity sensitive drum pads. There is a channel strip on each side of the grid, and a crossfader centered underneath. Each channel trips is comprised of a fader, three backlit rubber pads, an analog knob, and three push encoders with red LED rings. The navigation section at the top of the unit has a large browsing encoder and a four-way selection push grid (left, right, up, down).

Tweaker is fully USB bus powered and also has MIDI In and Out ports. More info and release date coming soon.

The excellent DJ site Scratchworx has the only shot I’ve seen of a prototype, along with analysis that’s, frankly, better-informed than mine as far as this model — so go check it out!

Electrix are back. The Tweaker cometh…

Other than that, we don’t know much about this beast; stay tuned. My guess is, with the extra controllers, it’ll be significantly more expensive than the other options here.
http://www.electrixpro.com/tweaker.html

Which Controller for You?

These are just a few options. DJ readers, I’d love to hear from you. (And live PA folk, too, for that matter.)

More analysis of the DJTT announcement, also from Scratchworx:
Fighting MIDI and winning – Midi Fighter Pro

(Okay, you’re not really fighting MIDI because it’s a MIDI controller, but … still, it’s a great article!)

The question of how to build controls to fly today’s live laptop music sets – whether “DJ,” “live PA,” or something else – remains open. We’ve got an inside look at the newest entry, the most recent device to explore just what should be mapped and tactile, and what should be left behind. Amidst various look-alike mixer-and-deck controllers, it fits in with those pushing to make computer control a hybrid of traditional DJ metaphors and new computer ones.

Meet the Twitch. The result of a collaboration between New Zealand DJ software developer Serato and UK hardware maker Novation, Twitch deviates from a number of norms.

First, while made with Serato, it’s explicitly designed to support Ableton Live and rival NI Traktor via upcoming updates. That’s something we’ve seen among general-purpose controllers, but usually the main selling point of DJ-specific gear is some sort of tight integration. (That said, you will see in the specs that they promise ITCH support for Serato will be “one-to-one.”)

Second, the developers tell us they’re heavily influenced by the monome and controller hacking communities.

What you get is a do-everything controller and audio interface, all in one box. There are beat slicing features, mixing and effects, a replaceable crossfader, and touchstrips that can be used for various purposes, which promises to be flexible enough to suit a range of applications. And unlike some rivals, the inclusion of an audio interface and USB bus power could make this more practical in the typical plug-and-play gig situation. More on how the applications work in the video:

The resulting tool even carries the “controllerist” moniker promoted in the past by artist/technologists Moldover and Ean Golden.

The Twitch has touchstrips, faders, knobs, and buttons, a strange hybrid of a lot of different ideas. I’m still wrapping my head around it – and whether this will feel like a genius cockpit for music or a Frankenstein combo of other controllers. But the Twitch at the very least looks less like the result of a product planning meeting and more like exactly the sort of thing digital musicians, DJs, and readers of this site might design for their own purposes.

It also promises to be more compact. (Akai’s APC made one misstep there – unfortunately, DJ booths are too often measured in handfuls of square inches, and even those atop the flimsy plastic cases that cover the turntables.) Straight from the source:
Weight – 1.8kg (just under 4 pounds)
Dimensions – 350mm W x 275mm D x 65mm height (13.8″ x 10.8″ x 2.6″)
– not bad.

Product Manager Dylan Wood of Serato writes us from Auckland to explain how the design came about, and how it came to fruition. It’s a great glimpse both of their design thinking and how you translate a product like this to the market. Dylan says:

The collaborative design process kicked off a couple of years ago when we first started to talk to Novation. We didn’t have to have too many conversations before we realized we had quite similar ideas about where live performance and controller technology was heading. The very first time we exchanged concept drawings at a Messe show they turned out to be really similar in terms of form factor and control set, which is always a good sign. On my way back to New Zealand after the show I visited the Novation HQ in the UK and spent time with Lars and Matt from the their team to progress the idea of a new style of DJ controller forward. We had this common idea to combine the realtime live feel of Serato DJ software with the Controllerist elements that Novation are known for.

A tip of the hat has to be given to MLR and the Monome community at this point. We’d all be using community apps on the lemur (I was going through a Monome obsession at the time and was mid Arduinome 128 build). After watching endless youtube videos of performers doing amazing things with buttons we came up with the concept of the Slicer. The Slicer is like a rolling window of cue points that moves through a song in time with the music. It does MLR style loop chopping and mashing but over a whole track instead of just short loops. It gives a DJ or performer a way to cut up and re-perform their music without having to edit or sample it manually and was something that no other software is doing in the DJ context. After we’d struck on this as being a core feature for the product, we exchanged a few updated concept drawings and I headed back to New Zealand.

Being at literally opposite ends of the world made for an interesting challenge. As Lars and I worked further on the concept, someone always had to stay up to the middle of the night so we could talk on the phone and keep developing the ideas. We got Lars down to New Zealand and spent a week or so locked in an office around a table listening to tunes and bashing the design into shape.

With the software and hardware engineering talent that we’ve got at both ends we were able to dig deep into some of the new features we were adding, like the Touchstrip, ensuring that we were implementing a solid method of control. The firmware and software interaction our engineers have come up with makes the strips feel really responsive in all the different modes.

Several rounds of hardware prototypes and lots of testing with our in house DJ’s means we’ve ended up with something that feels great, even to someone used to more traditional control like turntables or CDJs. The most arduous of the real world tests devised during this process was to ensure that the Touchstrips would work really well in sweaty, live club conditions. It involved a bare touch strip PCB with a live USB connection, and a jar full of marmalade. A thoroughly English test for the robustness of the product!

The beta process has been a passionate one – as there are a lot of keen musicians and DJs at both companies there have been some fairly epic conversations around exactly how a feature should or shouldn’t work. As well as in house DJ’s we’ve also got a crack team of external beta testers that work with us on various different projects. We heavily utilize private areas of our forum for beta communication and it makes working on projects a little more community based in a lot of ways, as it’s all about conversations with real people that are actually using our products. This kind of iterative user lead feature development process can sometimes take a long time, especially when you’re working on something that is a bit adventurous feature wise, but the results are worth it as you end up with something that feels really good to use, which has been thoroughly sanity checked by real end users.

So lots of software development and plenty of hardware prototypes later, here we are. We’re really excited for Twitch to see the light of day. I for one can’t wait to see the kind of crazy button smashing videos that users are going to post up on youtube of themselves using this thing. It’ll have come full circle at that point.

Thanks, Dylan.

Dylan also sends CDM exclusive video of a stress test of the touch strip … combined with marmalade.

Full specs:

Availability: Early July 2011
Pricing: US$599.99 MSRP / $499.99 street (UK GBP 399.99 including VAT est. street)

Bundled Serato Professional – so not a limited version of the software
Tactile multi-function touch strip
“Slicer mode” for chopping up beats
Compact and portable (they do claim it’ll fit in your bag and the DJ booth – we’ll test that!)
“One-to-one” ITCH control for Serato
Aluminum top plate
2-in, 4-out audio interface
“High-quality” replaceable cross-fader
Software effect control
USB bus-powered
Mic/aux input
Switchable booth outputs (master + cue feeds)
MIDI compatible

Full details: Novation Twitch