While those that know me know full well I’m a bigger fan of Traktor Pro than Scratch Live, I have no allegiance to anyone and this is just one more step in the evolution of DJ gear that brings us one step closer to everyone being able to play on the same systems (without having to plug in and unplug decks and DVS soundcards over and over again)…

Check out this writeup on Skratchworx!
http://www.skratchworx.com/news3/comments.php?id=1500

If you own a PC, a webcam, and have access to a printer you could make yourself a cool little DIY hardware step sequencer. The D-Touch Synth and Drum Machine is a software-based, hardware-controlled system where the hardware is absolutely free (you build it with paper, which means no confusing soldering or wires). Just print out the paper control surface, form the cubic control pieces and set up your webcam accordingly. When you move the pieces of paper horizontally or vertically, it changes the timing and other control parameters of your drums and samples…or samples for that matter. Could be a great social interaction tool if someone was looking to get a lot of attention/promotion during second Saturday events here in Sacramento.

d-touch youtube video

Directions can be found here: http://www.d-touch.org/

The computer of tomorrow is here today! It’s really, really…well, it’s what I want to look at for inspiration when I sit down to make a track or do some mastering. Yes, it might not be the most practical piece of hardware in terms of cost, but the loveliness alone is worth its weight in gold.

Builder Pius Giger (aka Lessdegrees) brings us the “Edelweiss” that boasts an interesting looking hardware system including lots of pretty lights and a fully water cooled motherboard, processor, and harddrive.

If you’re in the market for a new PC, chances are you should go for an HP, Acer, or whatever. If you’re in the market for a new sports car, but think you might have more fun bragging to your friends or fellow hardware geeks with a great looking centerpiece for your music creating workstation, then you could start considering this beautiful beast.

A full complement of premium faders, knobs, buttons, and new Strip Search virtual needle-drop control that integrates with ITCH.  NS7FX exchanges turntable and control information with Mac or PC’s at more than ten times standard MIDI resolution, which results in a system that feels good with ultra low latency.

Pros: appears to have quality hardware (but only time will tell), well laid out and won’t leave you stumbling over your hands, pre-mapped out for ITCH (for all the lazy people out there ), optimized for a rock solid piece of software for limited crashing (Serato ITCH)

cons: expensive (nearly $1500USD), low likelihood to be a permanent fixture in a club and because of that it could turn into an expensive piece of practice gear.

Features:

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Now, the iDiscover keyboard, along with the companion iDiscover Keyboard app, has 25 keys and effectively turns your iPhone into a music studio complete with synth-action keys, and pitch and modulation wheels. It doubles as a MIDI controller also.

It will be interesting to see if these types of products catch on since the the main plus of an iPhone is its portability, but I really like how powerful and versatile things are remaining while shrinking.

[images from keyboard magazine]

Here’s a wonderful review from Electronic Musician: NI Audio Kontrol 1

Native Instruments

Another year, another ton of good gear displayed at the NAMM show. Something that I always like to look for when this show comes around are the less known companies and what interesting things they come out with. It seems that these companies are a little more daring and can sometimes break into an aspect of hardware missed by some of the larger companies (roland, korg, yamaha, etc.).
The piece of gear this year that gets my nod is a piece of gear that I’ve actually been following for some time by a great team in Sweden. No, it’s not Elektron (who I think will probably be demoing a new sampler in the near future at one of the upcoming shows). The company is ‘teenage engineering’ and the great gadget coming out sometime this coming year is the OP-1.
The OP-1 comes with everything you can think of. Sampler, keyboard, sequencer, controller, efx, great interface, color coding so that you don’t get confused when you’re looking in a hurry during a set, and a whole lot more.
One of the main features demoed at NAMM was the newly announced tape recorder function. “It instantly lets you record anything you do on the OP-1 to any track of the built-in Tape feature. Record your sound tweaks or beats in real-time. Change speed during recording, or record backwards. Split, lift and join. Make a loop or record a section with Tape Step Recording. You have twelve minutes recording time in normal tape speed and 4 tracks to put your magic on.

Turn on Beat Matching to sync tape speed to the internal sequencer. When you change the tape speed the sequenced tempo follows but the pitch of the sound is constant. This is great for creating beats on multiple tracks with different pitch.”

In addition to recording live and mixing it up with the tape recorder function, you can connect a computer to the mini USB port on the OP-1 and the OP-1 shows up as a mass storage device. Ready for you to drag and drop audio files between your computer and the OP-1. The 4 tape tracks are available as well as sampled waveforms for you to manipulate. No additional software or drivers required!

This synth baddy comes with everything you’re looking for in a synth these days. Portability for the live users, power and depth for studio users, and (probably one of the coolest features *not made public yet*) the ability to sync up with other OP-1 users for a jam session via WI-FI!!! I, for one, can’t wait for the day when all my gear can talk to each other without me stringing multiple MIDI cables everywhere.

The price, from all reports on the website, is looking to be under $1000, which is very doable when you look at everything you’re getting with this synth. BETA models will be shipping out soon, and I believe teenage engineering will be shipping in late summer/early fall (if everything goes smoothly).

For more information on the OP-1, go to ‘http://teenageengineering.com/products/op-1/’

teenage enginering’s youtube

Some notable mentions for gear that I’ve found about at this NAMM: Allen & Heath Launches the ZED-10 and ZED-10FX Mini Mixers, Akai iPhone keyboard and app (connect you iPhone/iTouch to a freaking keyboard!), keyboard mopho by Dave Smith.

Is there really a market for this? A $1,000 Pioneer mixer with no effects?

Read the Skratchworx story here…