The evolution of what we now call “DJing” is inseparable from the turntables and mixer. So, what happens when you enter the digital domain and you really don’t need to refer to either device? Many digital DJ controllers have simply mimicked those previous inventions, with virtual tables and a mixer-style layout. To some extent, they must, not only for familiarity but to even make it possible to perform the kind of tasks DJs expect.

Then again, the computer, endless shapeshifter that it is, can do whatever you like. And so we’re beginning to see mass-market controllers marketed at DJs – not just the laptop performer, but DJs and DJ software – that goes in new directions.

Novation Twitch is one such effort. New Yorker Abe Duque takes up the Road Test series for Dubspot. I rather enjoy the lo-fi video as he flies New York to Munich; I could almost imagine the entire video being shot that way. (There you go, CDMers: I now have no excuse not to shoot some video tests for y’all on my smartphone.) And, uh, yeah, been there. Maybe the most ringing endorsement for the Twitch is how snugly it fits into the carry-on bag. I’m pretty sure that’s one of the superb UDG Gear line carrying both his laptop and Twitch.

Getting down to the actual review, Abe Duque – whatever impatient YouTubers may say in comments – does a fine job of coherently covering all of the features fairly and in detail.

Highlights:

• The Twitch is clearly set up to integrate with Serato, though there’s also a Traktor overlay. I’ll be eager to see how it works with Ableton Live, though, as the layout would seem to apply nicely to that.
• Having faders double as effects wet/dry controls is a clever twist, and reveals the intention of the Twitch to focus a DJ performance on mucking around with individual songs and not just queuing, beat matching, and mixing.
• The highlight is probably the slicing control, which uniquely couples the touch strip with pads.

You begin to see how a Twitch performance would come together, with two-deck slicing and dicing and effects controls. Of course, that could be accomplished with other means, but the Twitch embodies a lot of what we’ve seen in the DIY scene and homebrewed controllers, assembling a layout that conceptually reflects all of this track-mangling in the hardware’s physical form. In fact, it’s hard not to think that that scene influenced the Twitch.

This kind of track manipulation was common both with the Akai MPC and Ableton Live. Curiously, the design of the Akai APC40 for Live really doesn’t make that sort of performance very easy, focusing instead on clip launching and mixing.

In practice, Twitch looks promising. It does face a lot of competition. For Serato alone, there are various controller options, and Serato loyalists can expect this and other control surfaces to cater to their needs. The big entry we know is on the horizon is Native Instruments’ upcoming controller and software – something the company has already revealed in some detail prior to its official release. In fact, it’ll be tough to judge Twitch without having seen in person whatever NI has cooked up, as it appears their offering could focus even more closely on the sample triggering / looping notion, again within a DJ paradigm (Traktor).

DIYers, many carrying the banner of “controllerist,” have been pushing DJing in this direction for some time, and back to its original roots, DJing has embraced more inventive ways of really transforming tracks and not just playing them. Now, as those ideas seep into the mainstream, we’ll see if the line between DJing in the sense of playing tracks – and live performance, more as you’d expect in the instrumental vein – continues to blur.
Dubspot Lab Report: Novation TWITCH DJ Controller – Road Test w/ Abe Duque

Oh, yeah, and for something completely different DJ controller-wise, see Dubspot’s take on the compact Allen & Heath Xone: K2.

With laidback, exotic grooves and richly-coordinated interlaced cello, saxophone, turntable, and electronics, Archie Pelago’s music relies on some serious technological savvy. To be sure, all you really need to play instruments and computers and turntables together is to get into a room and start jamming. But to realize their specific musical vision, the trio of Hirshi, Cosmo D and Kroba have turned to an advanced Ableton Live rig, centered around The Bridge to couple Serato and Live. Here’s a look at their music – and all the gory details that combine to make their setup tick.

Grab the free EP for some music:

END004: Shrinin EP by Archie Pelago by end fence

To be honest, after a lot of launch hype, it hasn’t always been easy anecdotally speaking to find a lot of people using The Bridge. The software, combining Ableton’s clip-launching facilities with Serato’s digital DJ setup, perhaps demands a lot conceptually and musically of its users. But boy, are these three using it – and pushing its envelope to the breaking point. I caught up with virtuoso cellist and technologist Greg Heffernan (Cosmo D) at the lovely Percussion Lab party in New York. Greg sends a full description on how the setup works technically, as he originally wrote for the folks at Ableton (who I imagine were quite interested). There’s a lot to follow, so happily, there’s a gear diagram, as well:

To start, there are three of us. I play cello, Zach ‘Kroba’ Koeber plays saxophone and Dan ‘Hirshi’ Hirshorn is on two turntables + mixer. We play our instruments into and alongside Ableton, recording, manipulating and effecting our sounds on-the-fly. Dan provides the rhythmic foundation for our music and because of The Bridge, all of us are in sync with each other.

I’m running my cello into a MOTU Ultralite Mk3 Firewire interface, which is connected to my MacBook Pro running Ableton and Serato simultaneously. I use a Behringer FCB1010 foot pedal (connected via an M-Audio UNO [MIDI] interface into my computer) to record clips of my cello playing, cue effects and generally navigate around the Session View of Ableton. I record my cello live into the Session View as clips, then run these clips through an effects chain on an effects rack. I then use the two expression pedals on the FCB1010 to crossfade between my ‘dry’ cello sound into an effected sound. The effects are controlled with two Korg Nano Kontrols situated below my laptop. I also use a Korg nanoPAD to play sampled clips of various found audio.

Zach’s setup mirrors mine, to an extent. Using a mic to capture his live sax sound, he runs his signal into a Tascam US100 [audio] interface which goes his computer running Live. He uses his FCB1010 to capture and record clips of his own, alongside a Korg nanoKONTROL to control effects. The reason why we chose the FCB1010 and the Korg nanoKONTROL is because they’re relatively inexpensive, easy to carry around the city and on the subway, and have a lot of buttons, knobs and faders for their size. Zach’s computer is connected to mine via an Ethernet cable and his Live set is slaved to mine via Midi Sync, so we’re always locked in the groove together.

The linchpin of this whole setup, however, is Serato and The Bridge. In addition to my running Ableton, I have Serato running via a Rane SL1 [mixer] also connected to my laptop. Coming out of my laptop is a cable going into an external monitor. Dan uses this monitor to display Serato, enabling him to do what he does with his two turn tables, Serato control vinyls, and his Behringer DJ Mixer. Because of the Bridge, my Ableton rig is locked in with whatever he’s spinning, whether it be our original dubs or tunes that inspire us. With everything sync’d up, Zach and I, through our instruments and software, react musically and rhythmically to Dan’s DJing. Dan, via the effects on his mixer and control of his vinyl, reacts musically to us as well.

In terms of audio routing, my audio and Zach’s audio are running into Dan’s mixer, so he’s mixing our sounds as much as he’s controlling Serato.

The Gear

Cosmo D:
1 cello
1 MacBook Pro 13″
MOTU UltraLive Mk3 Firewire Interface
2 Korg nanoKONTROLs
1 Korg nanoPAD
1 Behringer FCB1010

Zach:

1 saxophone
1 MacBook Pro 15″
1 Tascam US100 interface
1 Korg nanoKONTROL
1 Behringer FCB1010

Dan:

1 Rane SL1 DJ Interface
1 Behringer DJX750 DJ Mixer
1 Dell 17″ Flatscreen Computer Monitor
2 Turntables (Technics SL 12000)
2 Custom needles.

Lots of cables.

In Videos

New York public radio station WNYU hosted the trio on their program Table Tennis. Three highlight excerpts below, followed by the full program for those of you who want it:

For those of you who aren’t quite ready to leap into The Bridge yet, but do want to loop your instrument, here’s a great place to start. Cosmo D talks about his live looping process in Ableton Live, at the site Bangbang.

And in an interesting way of visually interpreting their music, dancer Genna Baroni choreographs a dance to a track from the trio’s Chocolate Waveplates EP in a music video:

There – now no one has any excuse for not dancing at an Archie Pelago jam. The setting and videography is pretty informal, but it’s nice to see movement as a way of interpreting music.

Music:
Chocolate Waveplates EP Sampler [Slime Recordings] by Archie Pelago

And lastly, a live show from earlier this year at Glasslands in Brooklyn.

Official site:
http://archiepelago.com/

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:

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

What should digital DJing look like? It’s an open question. If you aren’t willing to contend with the (potentially-unreliable) combination of real vinyl control records with computers, the question becomes what DJing technique hardware should embody. Writing for CDM, Ambivalent of Minus Records was most enthusiastic about advanced hardware mixing in Allen & Heath’s Xone:DB4. Boutique manufacturer Faderfox focuses instead on advanced, four-deck effects and control, minus the big, record-mimicking platters.

The big players, though, are focused on a kitchen-sink approach that combines turntable controllers with integrating mix, effect, and transport controls with software. We saw Native Instruments’ Kontrol S4, integrated with their own Traktor software, in August. Now, Pioneer and Numark are showing up to the NAMM trade show with their own entries. Numark has one dedicated to Serato; Pioneer is actually releasing two devices, one for Serato and one for Traktor.

Here’s a snapshot view of that hardware. Interestingly, while other manufacturers (inexplicably, I think) try to time all their announcements for tomorrow, Pioneer and Numark seemed eager to get out ahead of the other announcements.

Pioneer DDJ

Pioneer DDJ-S1
Pricing: US$1599 suggested retail
Software: Serato ITCH
Availability: March 2011

Specs:

• Two-deck design (perhaps a demerit, but I think nonetheless likely to be popular, as four deck operation is far from a given with most DJs)
• Inputs for two mics, one aux (RCA)
• Balanced master outputs (2x XLR, 1x RCA)
• Plug-and-play USB connection
• Effect controls, deck controls
• Library navigation, including an LED that shows you position, search, and slip playback (and needle drop-style transport, as on the Numark)

S1 US Product Page

Pioneer DDJ-T1
Pricing: US$1299
Availability: February 2011

Specs are similar to the S1, but with:

• Four deck operation
• Less visual feedback: in exchange, you give up the LEDs with position, VUs. (Personally, I like the four decks, but more of this will break down to preference for Traktor versus Serato.)

T1 US Product Page

Smartest marketing pitch: Pioneer touts that the design and audio fidelity both come from pro Pioneer DJ equipment. That could be a strong selling point, and a draw for people who have been loyal to Pioneer hardware who haven’t yet made the leap to the computer – even if the Numark is cheaper and does four channels of mixing.

Good analysis elsewhere: DJ Tech Tools has extensive practical analysis of both designs.

Numark NS6

Pricing: €999/£799 (not sure on US$ price)
Software: Serato ITCH

Specs:

• 4-channel DJ mixer with standalone operation
• 24-bit audio interface with balanced XLR output
• Touch-sensitive, illuminated wheels with 3600 ticks of resolution
• Effect controls, deck controls
• Library navigation
• USB connection, sends standard MIDI messages

Tasteless product branding award goes to… “Strip Search,” a handy feature (emulating needle drop onto tracks) that unfortunately recalls enhanced security at airports. Bad. Worse, on the NS6, it’s “enhanced strip search.”

Good analysis elsewhere: Skratchworx has some smart insights, including the likelihood of Traktor and Virtual DJ mappings and a competitive price. They actually give the nod to Numark here on price, build, and having two extra channels.

http://www.numark.com/ns6

Snap Reactions

What about the jog wheels? And what about NI? Pioneer and Numark may both face stiff competition from Native Instruments. NI frequently emphasizes to me the quality of the wheels on their Traktor Kontrol S4, which use eddy current breaks so that as you rotate them faster, resistance increases, making the feel more natural for the control scheme. And speaking of NI, they have announcements coming this week, too.

What about space in a DJ booth? Even in some pretty high-end, spacious clubs, DJ booth real estate is at a premium. It’s hard to imagine comfortably pulling off what Numark has in their screenshot at top. Pioneer has designed their controllers in such a way that they fit over top of the keyboard on your computer. (See image below) Advantage: Pioneer.

Is this really the kind of DJ controller everyone wants? This is my big question. Integrating with DJ software in this way certainly looks practical. But I can’t help but wonder if these designs won’t change over time as DJing is no longer about turntables. That could make unique new touch interfaces or Ableton Live controllers or unusual assemblages of looping hardware something that differentiates DJs.

I think the Pioneer units are prettier. I’m sorry. I’m shallow.

What do you think? Let us know in comments.

The Bridge, the software resulting from collaboration between Ableton and Serato we first saw in January, is available today. The integration is free, provided you have the right software: you need both a copy of a full version of Ableton Live or Live Suite 8.2 or above and Serato Scratch Live 2.1.1. (Live LE, for instance, is not compatible.) You need the Serato Scratch Live hardware in order to run Scratch Live, for those of you unfamiliar with the Serato side.

Check out our past coverage for more details of what The Bridge is about:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/tag/the-bridge/

At top, Ableton has released a video that shows off what may be The Bridge’s most popular feature: for people who have Live and Serato, the software makes it ridiculously easy to use Live to fine-tune mixes you’ve made live in Serato. (Yeah, Percussion Lab should be all over this feature, as big Live and Serato fans who regularly make mixes with Serato that they stream live on the Internet and later release… you get the idea. Ditto anyone else in the same boat.)

Thanks, GearJunkies, for spotting the vid.

The basic features:

• Transport control syncs up Live and Scratch Live, so that a turntable or CDJ can pitch, nudge, and loop Live. (“It’s like having Ableton Live on one of your decks,” explains Ableton PR.) Beatgrid syncs beats, too.
• View your Ableton Session View from inside a window in Scratch Live, with control over clips, scenes, instruments, devices, and mixing.
• Record Serato performances as Live Sets, then tweak them, as in in the video above.

Ableton has high hopes; Gerhard Behles says in the press release, “The Bridge encourages DJs to become producers and producers to become DJs.” That may be, but my guess is that Live has already done that to some extent. What’s been missing is that the people who, um, “bridge” those two roles have wound up with somewhat split personalities, working in Serato and Live but without any workflow between them. Initially, I’d imagine it’s that crowd – the people who already own the two products – who will give this a try. If it works well for them, that means a still-larger army of Ableton advocates who tell their Serato-using friends to try the other tool, and visa versa, but that may be down the road. (Conclude arbitrary speculation; check back with me in about a year and see if I was right.) I’m not sure Live users will be rushing out to buy Scratch Live hardware, but eventually this could make Serato users more comfortable getting their feet wet on the production side.

Official site:
http://www.ableton.com/thebridge

We’ve known since January that Ableton Live, the live production software, and Serato Scratch Live, a leading virtual vinyl and DJ app, were to be connected with new software called The Bridge. (See our Q&A from the NAMM trade show at the beginning of the year.) Now, after a limited private beta, the software is available as a public beta. There’s also full documentation online if you just want to browse through and have a look (which you well may want to do, as the prerequisite hardware/software setup is non-trivial).

How does The Bridge work? To sum up in one line, The Bridge provides access to Ableton Live sets inside Serato, and allows you to export your Serato mixes in Live’s native format for after-the-fact tweaking. Having talked a lot about The Bridge, I’m eager to hear how it works in the real world.

The Bridge 1.0 Manual [Serato]
Serato Scratch Live 2.1.1 featuring The Bridge 1.0 public beta [Serato Forums]

Back in January, a number of us also wondered if people would try the opposite approach for integrating virtual vinyl with Live, by using Ms. Pinky via Max for Live devices inside Live. It’s very possible people have continued to work on this; I haven’t followed it closely enough. If that’s you, give us a shout.
Ms. Pinky + Max for Live = Scratch Anything in Ableton

This week, DJing is in the spotlight as DJ Expo, a significant trade show, hits Atlantic City, New Jersey. So it’s a good time to check in with some of the leading trends in DJ gear. We also get a chance to find out more about Native Instruments’ Kontrol S4, which judging my comments, split readers in terms of interest around its all-in-one design.

Native Instruments isn’t the only vendor aiming for a four-channel, all-in-one DJ solution at a price point of just under US$1000. Denon DJ this week unveiled their own entry, the DN-MC6000. Whereas NI is pitching a controller + audio interface + software combination, Denon’s offering is a standalone DJ mixer + (2 in, 2 out) audio interface + MIDI controller.

In other words, what the Denon gives you that NI doesn’t is a built in mixer you can use without a computer. That to me makes it worth comparing to the NI solution, even (or maybe especially) if you already own a copy of Traktor. Like the Kontrol S4, the Denon is also a “Traktor-ready” piece, it will also do up to four-deck control, and interestingly for AV performers, it has a selectable video/audio crossfader feature. What you don’t get relative to the NI kit is a full-featured DJ app in the box: the Denon comes with stripped-down versions, either Virtual DJ (Americas) or Traktor LE (Europe/Asia), though that’s moot if you’ve already got your own software. I’m also unclear on how the jog wheels compare; Denon says their jog wheels are “high-resolution,” but that’s dependent in the real world on the quality of the hardware.

It looks like Denon doesn’t have the specs up on their site, so see the press release and high-res panel image, or their audio interface + controller for Serato ITCH, the 5000.

Skratchworx has some great coverage of the new 6000. I agree with commenters that this would have been more impressive if the USB audio interface had four channels. On the other hand, I can see it being useful nonetheless with a combination of outboard gear and MIDI control.

Skratchworx also picks up on a really adorable single-deck controller that breaks off just one deck for US$299. For all the hype around the Traktor S4, the DN-SC2000 could be fantastic if the feel is any good. I could imagine its appeal extending beyond conventional DJs to live electronic and visual acts, since it’s cheap, totable, and could be coupled with other, non-DJ-style controllers. Hopefully someone I know at DJ Expo will get their hands on one and report back.

In other DJ controller news…

DJs Talk Kontrol S4

NI’s Traktor Kontrol S4 controller was undoubtedly the announcement that caught everyone’s attention, as seen yesterday here on CDM.

As spotted by readers, DJ Tech Tools has some additional details on the Traktor S4. There’s a reason they’ve got the inside track: editor Ean Golden was involved in the design.

Ean notes a couple of interesting details. The jog wheels can be used as fader effects controllers, based on a feature Ean developed for the Vestax VCI, and the new jog wheel “magnetic force technology” sensing allow for greater sensitivity. To me, it’s really going to be the quality of those jog wheels (and those of competitors) that make or break the design, more than anything. If you’re concerned about a reliance on power bricks, an “emergency” USB bus mode reduces headphone volume and LED brightness but allows you to run without a power supply. (I wonder how many people will wind up using that as the default mode.)

Native Instruments clarifies to CDM just how those jog wheels work. The technological solution here to me is fascinating; I look forward to actually trying them out. (Even though I’m not the target audience by any means, this certainly tickles my inner hardware engineering nerd – and it addresses a concern the target market has had with jog wheels as inputs.)

They don’t merely “allow you to adjust sensitivity” – due to the nature of the eddy current breaks inside, the resistance on the S4 wheels actually increases naturally with rotation speed. This means that the jog wheels are nearly resistance-free for minute movements (which is what you want to set cue points precisely), but build up natural-feeling resistance gradually (due to the magnetic induction) as you move them faster (which is exactly what you want for scratching or back spins).

So other jog wheels typically have a fixed – or best-case: user-adjustable – resistance, while the S4 wheels essentially have dynamic resistance in a way that makes total sense for this kind of control element.

DJ Shiftee at Dubspot, the guy you see in the launch video, lists his favorite five features on the S4. A lot of these features do have to do with software as much as hardware. Sample decks and loop recorders, naturally, top the list (and I’d weight those two more heavily than the other three).

Dicer, Ultra-Compact Tool, Now Available

From the very large to the very small (and dropping a zero on the price)…

Ean Golden was also involved in the design of Novation’s Dicer, a cute little cue and looping controller that seems destined for stocking stuffer status this winter. It’s basically just a piece of kit that fits in the corner of your deck and adds some trigger buttons, but with clever mapping, that becomes fairly useful. The Dicer may not seem like news – it was revealed back in June – but it’s actually only shipping this week, with integration with Serato Scratch Live or Traktor Scratch Pro. (Serato was involved in the design of the integration.)

Ean talks about his inspiration for the design and the evolution into a product:
Novation Dicer Revealed [DJ Tech Tools]

What’s most amusing to me is that the Dicer and Kontrol S4 earned a couple of direct comparisons. I don’t know that that makes a whole lot of sense, but it does suggest that customers aren’t always looking for all-in-one solutions to jobs; small, cheap tools have a place, too.

Tools, Tools, Tools… Just Don’t Forget to Practice

Checking out new gear is always fun, but the most compelling DJ story I’ve read recently comes from DJ Shiftee, who has begun talking on the Dubspot blog about practice sessions.

We dealt recently with the question of dividing up time to focus on tasks, an issue I’d like to revisit soon:
Brains, Computers, Focus: How Do You Stay Productively Creative?

In this case, Shiftee plans out practice time, and even though music is “creative” time, he does actually time that effort, with the help of a cool online stopwatch. The image above (he apologizes for his crude handwriting) comes from sessions in preparation for the 2009 DMC competition, which he won.

So, beyond any tool, spending time actually practicing is something significant. If nothing else, it could increase your own satisfaction. And that raises a point – live PA, live electronics, whatever you call it, for those of you who aren’t “DJs,” per se, but also don’t have a conventional instrument, how do you practice? Practicing keyboard skills or guitar is one thing, but how do you practice “computer”?

Here’s the first in Shiftee’s series for Dubspot:
DJ School 101: p r a c t i c e > practice > PRACTICE

Ableton & Serato @ NAMM 2010 – The Bridge from Neil Bufkin on Vimeo.

Serato’s The Bridge, as covered by Neil Bufkin in video for CDM above, is entering a beta phase. This is an invite-only beta, not a public beta, and it hasn’t launched yet, but you can register your interest. The Bridge met a decidedly mixed reaction here on CDM – the unique approach to coupling these programs isn’t for everyone – but I still expect it’ll be a big release, particularly for devoted fans of Serato.

This will coincide with a new beta for Ableton Live.

I’m of course obligated to pass that along, as part of my ongoing campaign to ruin DJing.(*)

Serato would like to invite you to register your interest in becoming a beta tester for The Bridge.

This does not mean the The Bridge is in an Invite or Public beta phase, so please do not ask where you can get it!

Beta testing is an essential and highly important part of the software development process and your help will ensure reliable performance upon final release.

When we do officially invite interested DJ’s and Producers to beta test The Bridge, you will need:

Serato Scratch Live with supported Rane hardware
A Serato.com forum account
An ableton.com account with a copy of Ableton Live 8 registered to it.

APPLY TO BETA TEST THE BRIDGE! [Serato forums]
Thanks, Mutis Mayfield, for the tip!

(*) Anonymous commenter on wire to the ear: “Blogger nerds are killing the coolness of DJing. I blame Create Digital Music and Richie Hawtin! I also blame Andre Agassi!”