Sword & Sworcery, the iPad album-as-game, has gotten plenty of love from this site before, and recognition for friend-of-the-site composer Jim Guthrie. (See Jim open up about what happened behind the scenes.)

Now, it seems the Canadian songwriter and soundmaker will meet up with some of the biggest game composers from Japan in a unique remix album. In the lineup:

Michiru Yamane (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)
Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill)
Baiyon (PixelJunk 4am)
Mitsuto Suzuki (Final Fantasy XIII-2)
macotom3 (JP chip music artist)
Decasségui Hip

The release will be on iTunes and Bandcamp – the new havens for the indie artist (and certainly for game music).

It’s terrific to see this cross-cultural, international fusion. And the preview clips released, while brief, should whet the appetite of fans of musical invention in the game medium. Have a listen below.

Preview tracks:

00:00 Little Furnace (00:15 PostProduction Mitsuto Suzuki Mix) Mitsuto Suzuki
00:37 The Ballad of the Space Babies (00:52 Supernova Babies Mix) macotom3
01:14 Lone Star (01:30 Baiyon Just Walking Remix) Baiyon
01:54 The Maelstrom (02:09 Radiant Darkness Mix) デカセギ・ヒップ
02:32 The Prettiest Weed (02:48 *’s Ambition Remix) デカセギ・ヒップ
03:10 Unknowable Geometry (03:27 Symphony Mix) 山根ミチル
03:48 Bones McCoy (04:04 Akira Yamaoka Mix) 山岡晃

The remix project coincides with the Japan release for Sword & Sworcery. Remember, kids, localization is the future of everything. Teaser for that:

More:
http://sworcery.jp/remix/

If you’re looking to build your own instruments and effects and sequencers and play with patching, you really don’t want this software. No, seriously – while a fascinating, fun tech demo, something like the desktop Pd or Max is probably what you want. (As we saw earlier this week, Pd-extended just got much easier to use, and it’s free.) This makes sound, but it’s also buggy and in progress and likely more of interest to coders.

Okay, now having scared off some people, let’s talk nerd-to-nerd for a second. Patchosaur, an open-source, GitHub-hosted project by BADAMSON, is nonetheless seriously cool, demonstrating not only what’s possible in a browser but what Webby technologies can do for creative music-making. Powered by network-centric node.js, it does do a lot of things Pd and Max do. And it demonstrates why some of us in the Pd community are wondering if Web-style front-ends could be the future of user interfaces.

If none of that previous paragraph made any sense to you, let’s put it another way:

The stuff in your browser will continue to make all the software you use better. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.

You might be running software in a browser. You might not. You might get to the point where you don’t really care. But as what makes a computer a computer still remains more or less the same, your computer can continue to improve, free. And that’s pretty great.

If that sounds interesting, music nerdsters, then check out the guts of Patchosaur:
http://patchosaur.org/

Thanks to Brendan Adamson for sending in this project. I just hope I’ve inadvertently derailed – slash – inspired someone’s end-of-the-semester coding project. Let us know.

How do you visualize the invisible? How do expose a process with multiple parameters in a way that’s straightforward and musically intuitive? Can messing about with granular sound feel like touching that sound – something untouchable?

Music’s ephemeral, unseeable quality, and the ways we approach sound in computer music in similarly abstract ways, are part of the pleasure of making noise. But working out how to then design around that can be equally satisfying. That’s why it’s wonderful to see work like the upcoming Borderlands for iPad and desktop. It solves a problem familiar to computer users – designing an interface for a granular playback instrument – but does so in a way that’s uncommonly clear. And with free code and research sharing, it could help inspire other projects, too.

Its creator also reminds, us, though, that the impetus for all of this can be the quest for beautiful sound.

Creator Chris Carlson is publishing source code and a presentation for the NIME [New Interfaces for Musical Expression] conference. But this isn’t just an academic problem or a fun design exercise: he also uses this tool in performance, so the design is informed by those needs. (I’m especially attuned to this particular problem, as I was recently mucking about with a Pd patch of mine that did similar things, working out how to perform with it and what the interface should look like. I know I’m not alone, either.)

The basic function of the app: load up a selection of audio clips, and the software distributes them graphically in the interface. Next:

A “grain cloud” may be added to the screen under the current mouse position with the press of a key. This cloud has an internal timing system that triggers individual grain voices in sequence. The user has control over the number of grain voices in a cloud, the overlap of these grains, the duration, the pitch, the window/envelope, and the extent of random motion in the XY plane. By selecting a cloud and moving it over a rectangle, the sound contained in the rectangle will be sampled at the relative position of each grain voice as it is triggered. By moving the cloud in along the dimension of the rectangle that is orthogonal to the time dimension, the amplitude of the resulting grain bursts changes.

You can see how Chris is imagining this conceptually in a sketch he shares on his site:

An extended demo shows in greater detail how this all works:

Chris is a second-year Master’s student at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics [CCRMA] in California. The iPad version is coming soon, but you can get started with the Linux and Mac versions right away, and even join a SoundCloud group to share what you’re making. You’ll find all the details, and links to source code, on the CCRMA site. (And if someone feels like building this on Windows, you can save Chris the trouble.)

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~carlsonc/256a/Borderlands/index.html

I also love this Max Mathews quote Chris shares as inspiration:

Max Mathews, in a lecture delivered at Stanford in the fall of 2010
“Any sound that the human ear can hear can be made by a sequence of digits. And that’s a true theorem. Most of the sounds that you make, shall we say randomly are either uninteresting, or horrible, or downright dangerous to your hearing. There’s an awful lot to be learned on how to make sounds that are beautiful.”

Beyond the technology, beyond this design I admire, anything that sends you on the path to making beautiful sound seems to be a worthy exercise. It’s a challenge you can face every day and never grow tired.

http://modulationindex.com/ [Chris' site, with more information]

Thanks to Ingmar Koch (Dr. Walker) for the tip!

FL Studio’s live performance functionality has been teased for some time online, attracting enraptured eyeballs and plenty of discussion online. Now, you can give it a try for yourself in the new FL Studio 10.5 beta. My prediction: it’s definitely huge for FL Studio die-hards, but it could also attract some “lapsed” FL users back to the fold, and it’s almost certainly a reason to fire up a copy of Windows. (That’s the sound of a bunch of Boot Camp installations.)

The best way to see what the performance mode is about is in the video above. It’s actually a bit more basic than some of the teasers we’ve seen – there isn’t quite as much fancy trigger-mode action – but it’s easier to follow how the software works.

I’m of the mind that music and music technology alike benefit from a range of ideas, even conflicting ideas. What I like about FL Studio’s approach to performance is that it isn’t exactly like what you get with Ableton Live. It’s not unrelated – we’re looking at several controllers designed for Ableton, and there are certainly noticeable similarities in the ability to trigger blocks of time, some owed to Ableton and some more generally attributable to loop and sample tools over the years. But you get some new angles, and there’s really no mistaking this for anything other than FL. A few highlights, evident in the video:

• Audio, automation, and pattern clips in any combination
• Move directly from a linear arrangement to live triggering – something unique to this tool.
• Combine a bunch of controllers – and use a range of stuff (Akai APC, Novation Launchpad, and Korg kontrolPAD make appearances)
• Slice clips horizontally into more clips (that’s definitely not possible directly in Ableton’s Session View)
• Novel triggering modes and arrangements – a bit like Follow Actions, as some Ableton users have noted, but with some unique twists, and again, all in a linear arrangement view.

More videos in Image-Line’s development series, or read the manual.

I love this slicing workflow, too, using Slicex and not just the Playlist:

It’s really that moment where you take your finished, linear arrangement and start remixing it in non-linear fashion – without having to switch software modes or resample the content – that I think is a big deal. (It’s especially nice when you slice up existing bits of that arrangement even further.) This is not only something you can’t do directly in Ableton Live, but it’s distinct from live performance workflows in a lot of other hardware and software.

Now, whether that’s actually musically useful is another question, and certainly the musical result in these videos is not distinguishable from what people are doing with Ableton – for better or for worse.

But, then, that’s really down to you, the users, as much as the tool.

FL Studio 10.5 is, according to developer Image-Line, a step on the way to the finished FL Studio 11.

This should also tantalize some users (and, I hope, attract some of our cleverer CDM readers and FL users):

We are looking for input from iOS (iPad/iPhone/iPod touch) and Android users to help with touch-based support/scripting/ideas for Performance Mode (see left).

More on that, in case you missed it in FL’s newsletter.

For working directly on mobile, FL Studio mobile has also gotten an update.

Full details of what’s in 10.5 from Image-Line:

• Performance Mode – Trigger Clips using your mouse, touch screen, typing keyboard or MIDI controller.
• New controllers supported – APC20/40, Launchpad, Block, MASCHINE / MASCHINE MIKRO, padKONTROL
• Unique controller MIDI input port – Controllers can now be assigned unique input & output ports for feedback.
• Linking includes MIDI input port – Links now use MIDI input ports to avoid conflict between controllers
• New Content Library – The content library has received a complete overhaul based on user input.
  Options > Project general settings > Play truncated notes in clips – Restores notes overlapping slice points in Pattern Clips.
• Horizontal/Vertical movement locking – Shift (horizontal lock) & Ctrl (vertical lock) when moving items.
• Piano roll click & hold functions – Glue notes, Mouse wheel velocity change, Mouse wheel tool select.
• Piano roll – Brush tool: Monophonic step mode (hold shift for old behavior). Chop chords: Strum & Articulate tools.
• Improved Tap Tempo & Fine control – Updated algorithm + nudge control for Performance Mode.
• Instrument Channels – Ctrl+mouse wheel on Channel button to change the mixer track.
• Stay open sub-menus – Right click to check several menu items without closing them.
• Plugin Picker – Start typing plugin names to highlight entries.
• Right-click data enter – Most controls now allow a Right-click option to type in values.

10.5 Beta [Image-Line]

Imagine working with sound design by painting with spectra, then applying those spectra to instruments you can play in real-time, and you’ve got the basic notion of iZotope Iris. The dream of combining graphics tools, a la Photoshop, with sonic ones has been in the minds of creative computer users for some time. Iris is a major landmark, though: instead of just being an editing tool, it turns sonic selection into something you can use in a synth. It lets you do your creative sound editing, but then play those sounds live, transforming the technique into an instrument.

In fact, Iris looks like just what I dreamed of having back in the 90s when I first played with U&I Software’s graphic sound manipulation tool MetaSynth. (Developer Eric Wenger, alongside his former colleague Kai Krause, was an advocate of novel graphical interfaces in place of the run-of-the-mill, cut-and-paste UI. MetaSynth remains an amazing tool, and since Iris can import sounds, using the two together could be mind-blowing.) Since MetaSynth, we’ve seen other efforts, like selection tools in Adobe’s own Soundbooth. iZotope bested those efforts with the most powerful graphical editing tool I’ve seen yet, in their RX product. Now, at last, you can use those same tools to create new sounds, not just restore old ones, and then jam with the results.

Here’s what you get:

• Extra spectra from a graphical view of the sound, using familiar graphical selection tools (even a handy Magic Wand)
• Layer spectra together
• Play the sounds from a MIDI controller
• Use standard synth tools: tuning, amplitude envelope, LFO, modulation.
• Send effects: distortion (tube, clipping, scream, etc.), chorus, delay, reverb.
• Multimode filters.
• Import your own sounds, or use one from a 4 GB library of sounds – either as the basis of your own sound designs, or using an existing preset. (iZotope promises recordings of insects, animals, machines, vintage synthesizers, musical instruments and so on. Of course, nice as those are, some of the fun will be using this tool as an excuse to go out field recording.)
• Key mapping, so you can set up a performance multi with various presets – ideal for live performance and experimentation.

For more high-quality sound libraries with accompanying preset content that uses them, iZotope will sell you add-on libraries beyond the 4 GB already in the tool, entitled Glass and Wood, at US$49 and US$29, respectively. (I’ll let you figure out what sound content those cover.)

In fact, the only thing missing here, really, is the ability to manipulate the spectral stuff itself live. The selection is mainly still an editing process, but once you do have your spectra selected, everything else is playable in real-time.

Iris available now. It’ll eventually cost US$249, or $299 with the Glass and Wood libraries bundled, but for now, those are reduced to $149 and $199 until May 4.

This video provides the best explanation of how the interface works:

And here are some of the sounds you might make:

I’m excited to begin working with this one; it looks like something really unique, entirely distinct from the various work-alike instruments out there. You could almost make a whole album with this one tool … and a lot of (very enjoyable) time. More on working with Iris hands-on soon.

A demo is available – including ten days unlimited use, followed by a demo mode.

Iris runs standalone, or as a VST, AU (on Mac), or RTAS on Mac/Windows.

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/iris/

Figure, the iOS app that’s powered by Reason instruments and effects, is now available on the App Store for US$.99 cents. The sound is Reason on your phone – literally, with the Thor polysynth and Kong drum machine, plus the Master Bus Compressor and side-chaining from Reason in effects. But the user experience is quite different. Introduced as something you’d use on the bus, this is really more about playing drums and making melodic gestures with your fingers, then tweaking those sounds and musical elements via X/Y touchpads. It’s a little bit like Korg’s Kaossilator and Reason had a love child.

For beginning users, this could mean a friendly environment to play with your fingers. But for more advanced users, there’s still enough open-ended room to work so that actual music talent might yield a very different result.

A number of our readers pointed to other apps like Intua’s Beatmaker, one of the first iOS production tools on the iPhone, as more fully-featured micro workstations. (Going back to the days of the Palm handheld, you might see something similar.) But there are already good options for those; Figure appears to be something different.

Features:

• Drums, bass, lead synth
• X/Y pad controls melodic figures, constrained by key
• Adjustable controls for key, rhythm, tempo
• Tweak as the songs play

What’s remarkable about Figure is as much what it doesn’t do as what it does. There’s no MIDI control. No AudioCopy/Paste. No SoundCloud export. No … export. Actually, absolutely no saving. All of this is in itself rather interesting, if only for the reason that it swims upstream, and if you make something you like, you have to sample it with another piece of gear. (Cue various people upset about this, others who defend its purity. Go.) Me? I’m not, uh, super thrilled not to be able to save, but I’m going to run with it in my test – plug it into my KAOSS Pad, record without a click, $*&# with the result… okay, yes, in a weird way, it could wind up being more fun without it.

More information: propellerheads.se/figure

iPhone-optimized user manual (readable from your computer, too, though, if you’re curious)

And you can find Figure in our Apps section, then grab it from the iTunes App Store (or add your own review):
http://apps.createdigitalmusic.com/apps/figure

(We’re working on expanding functionality in that store with our partners; expect a full look at what we’re doing for this multi-platform collection of apps this month.)

Like a World’s Fair of all the invention in music technology, the big trade shows still gather many of the latest creations from around the globe. And while the NAMM show in California is big, Musikmesse is bigger: spanning some 11 halls (together with a live lighting and event show called Pro Light+Sound), it’s the biggest on Earth. Having covered NAMM for German publication DE:BUG, I’m thrilled to get to do the reverse and highlight the best of Messe for California-based Keyboard Magazine.

Musikmesse 2012 Gear Report [Keyboard Magazine]

Instead of trying to cover absolutely everything, this is the stuff I found especially significant – and I got the luxury of giving into my personal bias toward things with keys on them. Some of the highlights:

• RME getting 36 channels, 24-bit, 192 kHz audio … on a computer and on your iPad. (Also, thanks to RME for the delicious beer.)
• Mode Machines’ wonderful German x0xb0x, SID drum machine, and other treats.
• More accurate modeled pianos, including the epic ALPHA with its full-sized hammer action inside. (No, not what keyboard makers usually call hammer action – like, the whole hammer.)
• Roland’s clever mechanism for using your iPhone to record and jam along with their instruments, wirelessly. (See my hands-on video, below).

And, of course, there’s lots of gear to look at. It wasn’t new to Messe, but if my ethics circuitry were to short-circuit and I decided to hide something under a coat, I sure do love that Buchla modular and touch plate, for all its quirky strangeness. In fact, apologies to the folks at Moog, but I have to recount this story. Evidently a couple of Moog reps went over to the Buchla display to try out the new modular, and came back frustrated about the touchplate and the lack of a conventional keyboard. (Believe me, they’re not wrong: these can keep you from making useful sound if you don’t have a lot of time.) Now, I cut my teeth in analog on two modulars side by side, an original Buchla and Moog setup. I was charmed by the reenactment of the controversy over Buchla – its unconventional input, its creatively-worded labels, and its different approach to patching. I talked to others with the same split reaction, not just Moog. It’s all the more topical after my passing mention of a giant sphere triggered a minor flame war in comments. (And don’t get me wrong: as I said before, I love keyboards, and still favor them over other means of input.)

I always loved both the Buchla and Moog for their differences, and the fact that these philosophical difference survive decades later gives some hope for the longevity of what we do – sometimes even the longevity of our peculiarities.

Let me know what your favorite finds were from Messe, even if you were watching online. (In all honesty, your odds may be better than if you get lost on the giant show floors!)

Endeavour’s Evo Series One, which we looked at in the fall, does something different with the conventional keyboard: it adds a touch-sensitive surface to the top of the keys, allowing you to run your fingers up and down the keys for added expression. I got a chance to try the Evo today, and I’m impressed. The first feeling is strange: the keys have an action more like an electric keyboard (Rhodes, etc.), and the keys are atypically tall. But as you begin to play, it makes sense: this isn’t a piano for playing Liszt; it’s a unique, hybrid interface. The added length gives you more touch surface to play, and it is possible to get used to a slightly-adjusted playing style without too much effort. In exchange, you get this new dimension of expression – without awkward wiggling motions on the keys or the imprecision of aftertouch.

The Series One has been on sale for a couple of months, but there were a couple of significant revelations today.

First, Endeavour is building their own software. There’s a bridge tool (currently for Mac, with Windows next) that lets you pipe both OSC and MIDI to other programs. That software is free and open source, if you want to do more with it, and you can also get native OSC right out of the keyboard. Endeavour is also building their own, custom synthesizer to take advantage of the added dimension of playability in the input; I saw a Reaktor patch, but it’ll ship as standalone software.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, they’re working on a much more affordable version. The hand-built, unique Series One is a whopping 2700 €, but by the end of the year, we should see something smaller and in a lower price range. (I heard a number I can’t repeat, but that I liked.)

Check out the sound demos at top for a feel of what this can do – and you can see a glimpse of some of the possibilities, as well as the scale of the hardware, in the images below of the device and its editing software.

Previously:
Tactile Touch: Evo Keyboard to Marry Touch Expression, Conventional Keys

Note: my hands aren’t the best way to get scale, as I have relatively small hands. Liszt was always a bit of a stretch.

Updated: Hands-on video from Messe

I shot a quick video for Keyboard Magazine as part of their Musikmesse coverage:

Keyboard Magazine Video

More editing functionality in their videos:
https://vimeo.com/endeavourgmbh/videos

Who says every music production tool has to be either a traditional DAW or Ableton Live?

Not Renoise, for one. I’m running out of things to call it. Modernized tracker? Tracker on steroids? Music production tool from an alternate history in which conventional DAWs were ignored and everybody just kept on using trackers? How about this: a gem that a tiny development team somehow keeps making more awesome with regular updates with misleading names like “point 8.”

So, what does “2.8″ give you? A couple of OS compatibility fixes and one new delay effect? Wrong. New in this release is a massive set of improvements. 64-bit is in there, but in terms of day-to-day use, the workflow improvements may be what really matters. (Okay, I usually cringe when I see “workflow improvements” in a press release, and here I’ve gone and used the same phrase. Let’s just say it’s “more awesome to use.”)

The new Renoise Pattern Matrix aliasing means powerful arrangement and compositional tools.

Highlights, condensed:

• 64-bit for everybody (Mac and Windows in addition to existing Linux support), so you can access more than 4 GB RAM. A bridge plug-in lets you use 32-bit instruments and effects, and there’s 64-bit ReWire support.
• Pattern Matrix now lets you alias and clone pattern slots. It’s a powerful arrangement feature that’s a bit different than similar block arrangement or clip launching features in other tools (both because of Renoise’s approach to patterns and clips, and this ability to use those aliases to create structure). Expect some follow-up.
• Collapse tracks and groups (see image below), giving Renoise some of the screen economy that made trackers famous. Route those grouped tracks, and use pattern effects across grouped tracks (also something relatively technique).
• DSP multitap delay. (Yes, there’s that, but also…)
• DSP repeater (“stutter”) effect.
• DSP Exciter.
• New pattern effects: Tremolo, Auto Pan, Set Envelope Position. (That last one sounds like it could be pushed into some insane places.)
• Meta Mixer lets you combine modulation signals. (It’s really a meta device – imagine combining what Ableton does with Devices and Reason does with Combinator and CV devices.) Improvements to other modules, as well, both aesthetically and in parameters.
• Improved editing in Sample Editor, including destructively rendering slices to individual samples, and editing features typically associated with waveform editors rather than tools like this. My favorite: cross-fading loop creation, which previously required jumping out to another tool (Peak, SoundForge, etc.)
• More performance: Hyper-threading on new Intel chips.
• More spectral views and editing, more envelope editing views, Favorites for devices.

And there’s a lot more, as well.

http://www.renoise.com/new

You've got to love the ultra-compact track collapse feature - ideal for 11" MacBook Airs or Linux netbooks.

You also get features like this: “up to 34 DSP devices can be addressed via pattern commands 1xyy-Yxyy.” Power users know instantly what that means musically. The rest of you – well, don’t worry, other parts of Renoise will gradually level you up to that kind of ninja insanity. And Renoise is humanizing things, as well: “Logical mnemonics for pattern effects from A to Z instead of cryptic numbers.”

Will everyone drop everything and use Renoise? Odds are, no: this tool remains an acquired taste (though don’t dismiss until you’ve given its unique workflow a try). But, then, that’s part of the joy of this: it’s not an “industry standard.” It’s just an incredibly terrific music making tool that proves that not all music making tools need to look identical.

Now that I share the same home city as the developers, I think I owe you more information from the inside. Stay tuned.

Renoise 2.8 is a free update for current users, and an insanely-low 58 € new.

http://www.renoise.com/

Pioneer, that best-known brand of DJ hardware, wants you to use hardware alongside software. And they’re uttering the word “remix” rather than “DJ.” And they have something that really doesn’t look like a CDJ, so much as a remote control for a spaceship carrying CDJs.

It seems to be something of a trend. We saw earlier this week Native Instruments emphasize the word “remix” in their DJ product line, as in live-remixing music. And NI, along with offerings from almost every other DJ vendor and quite a few impressive homebrewed solutions, work with hardware/software combinations to build more elaborate live performances.

Now, Pioneer has a new horse in the race. The hardware looks completely different from what we’ve seen elsewhere – and it doubles as standalone hardware for effects and sampling, too. It might lead some to a kneejerk “toy” reaction, just because of this novel design and its preset push-buttons, but Pioneer has some very loyal DJs in their … stable. (Okay, obviously the appearance of sun and spring has me thinking about the Kentucky Derby or something. Moving on…)

Pioneer is taking hardware effects and packing them in a package you can use with software or on its own. Their RMX-1000, they say, is three devices in one. This product has so many ideas going on at once, I lost count as to what those three were, but I would count them as effects, sampling, and dedicated DJ controller.

Here’s where the whole thing gets rather fun. Because the RMX is a stand-alone hardware unit, you can use it as an effects unit and sampler, only returning to software when you’re back in the studio. Pioneer has offered impressive effects before, but the only way to get at them was in high-end mixers. Now, you can buy this unit for a price that starts to make this look like high-end competition for things like a KAOSS Pad. And that could put it on the radar of producers and not just DJs.

Europe: The product is due in May for 599 GBP/699 EUR, including VAT.
USA: June, US$999. (Actually, for once I think Europe gets the more favorable price.)

Okay, fine. But where's the drop? Images courtesy Pioneer Europe.

The whole thing is customizable, says Pioneer, so much so that they’ll also provide for download presets by DJs Chuckie, Kissy Sell Out, Kutski, James Zabiela, Doorly, and Laidback Luke, in a play to some name recognition for DJ youngsters. They emphasize “macro” controls that give you push-button access to more complex effects. On the other hand, it appears for fans of those effects, you could go in and do some customization of your own.

Now, those names aren’t going to make everyone happy, but where the box looks impressive is in the effects macro department. Specs:

• SD card storage for presets.
• Scene FX: macros for up to ten effect types. Set a type (Noise, Echo, Spiral Up, Crush Echo, Spiral Down, Reverb Down, or something customized), and use that big knob for wet/dry.
• Time and Resonance parameters.
• Isolator FX (think EQ, in the terminology of Pioneer’s DJM-1000 mixer).
• Cut/Add, Trans/Roll, Gate/Drive dynamic effects.
• X-Pad sampling with pitch controls, from the DJM-900nexus mixer. Sample right into a drum slot (kick, snare, clap, hat), then roll the samples. Overdub, roll, mute.
• Quantized sampling.
• Release FX – basically, you use “spin back,” echo, or break effects to cut out effects temporarily or for good.

And it’s a USB MIDI controller.

And it’s a controller for Pioneer’s own DJ software (VST and AU).

All of this could be a good thing. Or you can subscribe to the thinking of an anonymous commenter (under the alias Massive Double Facepalm) on the NI post from earlier this week, and instead declare:

awesome more tools for tools to totally fuck over a mix by thinking theyre actually creative producers n shit – theres so much good music out there that speaks for itself and only needs a monkey to layer and blend. Seriously, fuck this shit and the never ending legion of DJs. LOL – DJ’s – LOL

Tech specs:

Inputs RCA x 1　
6.3 mm jack x 1
Outputs RCA x 1　
6.3 mm jack x 1
Other ports USB B port x 1
Sampling rate 48 kHz
A/D and D/A converter 24 bit
Frequency response 20 Hz – 20 kHz
Total harmonic distortion Max. 0.005%
S/N ratio 102 dB
Head room 20 dB
Software remixboxTM, RMX-1000 Plug-in
External dimensions
(W x D x H) 334 x 157 x 57 mm
Mass 1.3 kg

“Spiral up.” I’m telling you: spaceship controls.

http://pioneerdj.com/