Adam Dworak aka DJ Destruction writes to let us know he’s finished a video review of the ZERO8:

Via the DJ Destruction blog.

About halfway through, he gets to some hands-on demos with the internal effects and controllers, which demonstrates some of what makes the ZERO8 unique. Thanks for sharing this one, Adam!

Adam’s rig — the mixer, a DJ app (Virtual DJ), and use of the internal mixer and effects — qualify him as what is likely the target audience for the ZERO8. And you can see he’s pretty happy using it in that way.

We have heard some dissent, though, from people who wanted to use the ZERO8 for live laptop performance with Ableton Live, or with DJ sets that push the envelope a bit into the live performance area. In fairness, that may not have been the ZERO’s target audience, but as it is a target audience for CDM, I’ll be interested to see what gear can fit the bill.

Also, I don’t like to bring up anecdotal evidence, but do any ZERO owners out there know if Korg was able to resolve the “hiss problem” we heard readers complaining about?

What about the alternatives?

For various reasons I remain interested in the Ecler line. I don’t think it’s immediately comparable to the ZERO, but its focus on combining MIDI control and mixing features make it very interesting to the Ableton crowd. That’s nothing against the Korg kit, but in this emerging category, it may be closer to what this niche wants. I hope to look more at that soon. See our previous story (which also includes commentary on the Korg, so I’m not the only one making the comparison):

MIDI + Mixing: Ecler EVO4 DJ Mixer Specs, EVO5 Update

There’s been quite some interest — and discussion of the relative merits of high-end mixers — in the boutique DJ mixer Ecler EVO4. It’s a more svelte rendition of the EVO5, and also doubles as a hybrid MIDI control surface. There’s still no word on pricing, but if it comes anywhere close to a US$1000 street, I think it could be serious competition for the cheaper but apparently flakier Korg ZERO range.

At least now we know what the thing looks like:

I like the design — it’s not hard to imagine digital musicians and laptopists/electronicistas having good fun with this as much as traditional DJs. The MIDI controls look a little disappointing, though.

Previously (with lots of comments):

MIDI + Mixing: Ecler EVO4 DJ Mixer Specs, EVO5 UpdateMIDI + Mixing: Ecler EVO4 DJ Mixer Specs, EVO5 Update

So, you’ve got a mixer, which is a box covered in faders and knobs that processes audio signal. And you’ve got a MIDI control surface, which is often a box covered in faders and knobs that looks a mixer, but doesn’t process audio signal. Why not combine them into one device?

That’s the approach taken by DJ-focused mixer maker Ecler. Their EVO5 (shown at right) does all of this, but at a hefty price premium — about U$1900 street. (That price could be more worth it, however, with updated firmware capabilities — more on that in a moment.) A rumored EVO4 at a lower price (expected at a non-cheap, but possibly mortal-compatible US$1000-1500) has been making the rounds on the Web. Today, Ecler confirmed those details and promised the final unveiling at Musikmesse next month in Germany and here Stateside for Remix Hotel Miami later in March.

No photo or official pricing yet (meaning if you’ve seen a photo, it’s an unauthorized leak or fake), but here’s what Ecler has to say:

The convergence of visuals and sound on virtual vinyl has been a long time coming, but it’s awaited the perfect tool for controlling both. Serato’s VIDEO-SL promised to be that tool. We’ve gotten the crossfader in the capable hands of dj rndm and Robotkid to find out for Create Digital Motion. Here’s what the results look like, mixing:

… and scratching:

The review isn’t without the odd caveat: for one, you’ll need to pluck down a couple grand to get the complete setup because the Rane mixer employed is required, though rndm ultimately says that’s worth it for the integration payoff. And available transitions and effects are limited in range and prefer to run on dedicated GPUs (think MacBook Pro, or a PC laptop with a dedicated NVIDIA or ATI card). But as you can see, the results are incredibly slick, and there’s no question video on vinyl now has a tool to beat. Check out the complete review and technical details on our visualist sister site:

Hands-on Review: Serato’s VIDEO-SL for Visual Vinyl Turntablism

Imagine every single piece of gear you have on your wish list. Then imagine a baby grand piano, lacquered in white. Then imagine — you know, for the sake of practicality — you want to use the piano as a projection surface. And sound system. And then imagine you just mash all those ideas into one gear-packed baby grand piano, and you’ve got the beautifully freakish BabyGrandMaster:

Baby Grand Master

It’s not just a gimmicky DJ piano. It’s a “video instrument”, blending visuals and audio. The last time we saw something somewhat like this was the keyboard with PC Miko, though since that’s just a Windows PC packed in a keyboard, only the marketing concept in principle made it a “VJ/DJ” product versus, well, a PC in a keyboard. And, of course, the Baby Grand Master starts to make the Miko look oddly affordable and practical.

This isn’t just some random tinkerer, either. It’s the creation of a veteran of the Emergency Broadcast Network group, as seen on Create Digital Motion today, meaning if you want to add missiles, it’s probably possible.

The specs:

For many living in the age of the computer, a performance mixer has gotten more useful, not less. It’s a no-brainer for DJs mixing records with digital, but it can be useful for other electronic musicians, as well. (For some of the readers of this site, that might mean mixing in hardware synths, multiple laptops, circuit-bent toys, Game Boys, and … well, you tell me.) What’s interesting is that, along with this change, the mixer itself is starting to evolve, integrating audio interfaces, control functionality for use with software, and other features. Gimmicks — or features that transform what a mixer does?

Today, Korg formally unveils its KM-202 and KM-402 mixers, each of which integrates a KAOSS touchpad. The KAOSS Pad becomes most powerful, of course, as an effects unit. Added to a mixer, that gets really interesting. (That’s one two-channel mixer with crossfader, one four-channel, in case you haven’t already guessed.) The new KM series boasts a number of nice KAOSS Pad features:

Rather than launch into technical jargon, let me summarize. It’s giant. It has lots of faders and knobs and color screens and such. Not only can you not afford it, you can’t lift it, either. It has an insanely stupid name. But it’s quite beautiful, like a 1979 vision of the future dreamt up by defense contractors.

It’s a 12 x 12 FireWire audio interface. It’s a customizable mixer, with curves, filter styles, and ranges editable via a color LCD screen. It’s a MIDI controller. It’s an Italian sports car, molded by design house Giugiaro Italdesign. And it has password-protected audio output limiting, so those sleazeball DJs don’t blow your club’s speakers. (No, seriously. They need a password to defeat the limiter.) Hell, like you’re going to let anyone but you get their grimy hands on this. We’ve been watching the Ecler hardware, and its needlessly-overblown pre-launch hype. Now we can enjoy the hardware itself. And it is awful purty, even if you actually don’t need / can’t afford it. -PK

Ecler has officially launched the EVO5 DJ mixer + audio interface + effects unit at Messe, though you’ll have to wait until October to get your hands on one. Its yet-to-be-determined price will be in the range of $1500-$2000. Full details on this 5-channel digital DJ mixer can be found at Ecler’s new EVO product mini-site.

Here’s the quick rundown on the specs, if you’re not still distracted by the looks:

It’s got 24/96 converters and a 2-port FireWire sound card that supports 6 stereo inputs and 6 stereo outputs. Route any of these channels to your computer and back for effects processing, mixing tracks from your DAW of choice, or recording to computer, etc.

Eight editable effects can sync to MIDI or the built-in beat counter (which can output MIDI Clock): Delay/Echo, Filter, Flanger, Phaser, Transformer, Panoramic, Pitch and Reverb. You can chain two effects together and also save presets to your computer via FireWire with the included EVO5 software. There are also two editable effects just for microphone: a Noise Gate and Compressor.

10 push switches and 4 rotary encoders can be mapped to MIDI. 64 layouts include ones for Native Insturments Traktor and Ableton Live. As expected in a digital mixer, you can customize settings for EQ and fader curves. There is also an output limiter to help save speakers from impassioned DJs.

The user interface, designed by Giugiaro, features a 320 x 240 TFT color screen with 262,144 colors. Thanks to an anodized technique, the lettering and markings on the black aluminum faceplate will not fade before Ecler delivers another revolutionary DJ mixer.

When purchasing an audio mixer, DJs are quite literally spoilt for choice. Visualists are a little constrained though, with only a handful of companies making a couple of vision mixer models each. This situation is improving rapidly though, with companies such as Vixid getting in on the act with their upcoming VJX16-4, and DJ company Numark with their AVM01 and recently updated AVM02.

I purchased an AVM02 when it was released in Feb, and have been testing it out in preparation for 2 months touring Australia with a rock star.

While I’m very excited about my AVM02, there seems to be some definite resistance from the VJ community as it doesn’t include some features we’ve come to rely on (MIDI, easily accessible effects parameters). However, for DJs wanting to expand their performance to include visuals this may be just the right mix of audio and video.

Unfortunately the lack of MIDI will probably turn off live musicians who are too busy actually playing their instruments to mess with manually selecting video channels and crossfading. Let’s hope Numark release a MIDI capable AVM03 soon.

In the next couple of years I see this product lineup in the video market expanding similarly to DJ mixers, with different layouts, effects and options available for “turntablist” style highly-technical VJing, live looping with onboard sampling and effects, battle-style VJ mixers allowing you to mount your DVD player sideways and tag over your DVD labels like the hiphop kids do… In the meantime the AVM02 is really the only A/V mixer available at anywhere near this price point, and it does a superb job too. If you’re a visualist branching out into the frightening world of audio, a DJ looking to add video to your set, or just someone looking for a solid, competitively priced vision mixer, you should definitely give the AVM02 a try.

Read the full article on CreateDigitalMotion.

Imagine a mixer interface applied to a real instrument, and you’ve got the Vestax Faderboard, a “keyboard-like sampling / modular instrument that operates exclusively on faders.” shing02 (Shingo Annen), the designer of the Faderboard, writes in to talk about his creation and let us know videos of this unusual instrument are now available on YouTube. Here’s the first of the series:

Vestax Faderboard Demo [YouTube playlist, via shing02]
Faderboard Overview [e22.com, shing02's site]
Vestax Faderboard Technical Specs [Vestax Product Page]
e22.com
shing02 on MySpace

Some additional details from Shingo:

there are internal sound banks (tones and drums kits) that I selected from a chip that’s the same as KORG EM-1. (it was co-developed by Vestax and Korg)

mostly, like in the video, I play long sampled tones in C that I mic’ed from analog synths and organs.

Shingo says he’s largely a producer/MC, but does play “more free jazz style in a trio called Kosmic Renaissance.” (Sounds and video of the band at MySpace.)

Old news (2003), but interesting nonetheless; I’d somehow never come across this instrument. Other examples of playing via faders? Send them in!