TECHNEWS words: MICK WILSON 138 TECH TALK — MANU GONZALEZ The Ibiza-based DJ/producer talks about how the island helped launch his tech voyage. DIGITAL LOVE 141 IN THE With the release of four new digital STUDIO products from Denon, has a new era We hear about French producer for DJs dawned? Vitalic’s studio gear. t’s undeniable that 2016 saw some pretty seismic shifts. Except, perhaps, in the DJ technology community. We kept on doing what we did with the I same old, same old. However, the new year may hold some surprises. We can now reveal a potential game- changer in the world of DJ technology, with the release of Denon DJ’s new DJ gear. Four new products aim to confront the dominance of Pioneer DJ in the booth: the SC5000 media player, Engine Prime music management system, X1800 mixer and the VL12 turntable. We suppose the biggest announcement was the new Denon 140 808 STATE DJ SC5000 Multimedia Player. When we first saw it, we Is Roland’s new DJ-808 controller were impressed by the way it looked, even before we had a set to become legendary? chance to get hands-on and find out what it could do. The DJ Mag Tech crew were amongst the first people to ever see and touch this array of new DJ technology. We welcomed it — after all, whilst there has been a cycle of industry standards over the years, there have only really been two periods of dominance without anything else really making a dent. Technics had its 1200s and Pioneer DJ had its CDJs; many tried to buck the trend but fell by the wayside. It must be said that perhaps Denon with its earlier SC range was the only one that even had a chance to topple the mighty CDJ, with the SC3900 and its motorised platter, and then the SC2900. Both very capable machines, but they 143 INTO THE didn’t capture the hearts of the DJ community. Now the new SC5000 has been launched, with a plethora of features XONE and innovations that might just make the CDJ look like Allen & Heath’s new XONE:PX5 DJ yesteryear’s equipment. mixer reviewed. FAMILIAR FEEL The Denon DJ SC5000 looks a little bit like the current CDJ-2000 Nexus, with its large tilted touch-screen display, jog-wheel and pitch-slider position and knob/button placement. A deliberate trick in that, if a DJ was to use the SC5000, they would be immediately comfortable without 150 TECH having to undergo an extensive learning curve. As soon as PRODUCER we set about the SC5000 there were no surprises. It was Killer Sounds, Sample Tank, immediate. The large multi touch-screen display beats the CDJ’s hands down. It’s almost like having an iPad Mini, Plug-In Corner and more... with swipe touch gesture manoeuvrability. The rest of the controls and dials and the eight performance pads at the base of the unit felt equally assured and offer up a feel 134 djmag.com TECH NEWS SOUNDBYTES STUDIO ESSENTIALS Polish DJ/producer Deas drops five of his Studio Essentials TOUCH SENSITIVE Algoriddim has released djay Pro for iPhone. The popular DJ app has been redesigned exclusively for iPhone 7, taking advantage of the phone’s unique haptic feedback and 3D Touch capabilities. DJs can now feel the beats while scratching and scrubbing the music. And with 3D Touch, users can precisely set a cue point without having to lift up their finger, while interacting with the waveforms. £3.99 alogriddim.com TAKE TWO Pioneer DJ has upgraded its Thermionic Culture Vulture flagship Serato DJ controller Mastering Plus with the all-new DDJ-SZ2. The “This is one of the most characteristic of quality. The new player will analyse music files on-the-fly. updated and upgraded four- devices in my studio. Built around five Just stick in a USB containing audio files and it does it in the channel controller now allows analogue saturator tubes, it is what I use on machine. It has dual-layer decks with dedicated outputs, and DJs to get hands-on with the a group of instruments. Everything sounds the 8” jog-wheel will display custom artwork and the current latest additions to Serato DJ, closer, and crunchy.” playing track. including key shift, key sync, This is the first media player to fully analyse both beat grid pitch play and Serato Flip. Elektron Analog Rhythm and musical key onboard the unit. All this is done utilising the It also comes with improved “This is my drum machine, I use it in every all-new Engine Prime software, Denon DJ’s take on Pioneer jog-wheels for more accuracy song. Very quickly I can build up the main DJ’s Rekordbox software. Engine has been around for a while, in the mix. rhythm parts. It has a great sound, and the but this new incarnation has been pimped up. Engine Prime £1799 pioneerdj.com device speeds up my workflow.” is a librarian and analysis system that lets DJs import music by dragging and dropping songs, or via direct integration Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor from existing iTunes or Serato DJ collections. Completely “I use this compressor almost always in the rewritten with a host of new features, the Engine application is final stage of my mixes. The compressor is optimised for use with the new SC5000 media player and X1800 actually a set of four mono compressors Prime four-channel mixer. plus a set of transformer outputs, which allow me to colour the sound recordings The X1800 is a four-channel club mixer with creative and without aggressive operating of the device. powerful sweep and BPM-based FX controls, and a hi-def One of my favourite things.” audio engine. The X1800 is designed to work hand-in-hand with the new SC5000 media player via the Engine Connect Retro Instruments 2A3 protocol, sharing the beat grid and time information with LEGO BEATS “Well-known reproduction of a Pultec EQ, the mixer, from the player, to align the FX LFOs. Denon DJ’s Check out these wicked new just on steroids. Beautifully brightens the expressive ‘Flex-Fader’ cross-fader adds a new level of physical Lego kits from Numode. The upper band in my recordings and thickens performance flexibility, while the all-new frequency-controlled German company specialises the mixes, I love it!” ‘Band-Isolation’ brings even more creative possibilities in Lego replicas of some of for DJs. And last but in no way least is the impressive VL12 dance music’s most legendary Looptrotter Satur8/24 turntable. Denon DJ has decided not to go down the Technics kit — Roland’s TB-303, “The Looptrotter recently came into my route with its new turntable and has plumped for an original- Technics’ 1200, Akai’s MPC studio. It’s built by a Polish company — a looking deck with a host of equally cool features. and a classic ’80s boom 24-channel summing mixer, containing eight box. The Lego replicas don’t channels, with analogue saturation. I must It’s an interesting time for Denon DJ and it will be intriguing generate any sound, but look admit that for years, I used a ‘tube’ to see what Pioneer DJ (and the rest) does next in response as good as the originals, with summing unit. The Looptrotter is a nice to this quartet of products. What can be said is that this new the attention to detail being change. It sounds very good and it is hard ‘arms race’ will benefit DJs as both companies and others look truly outstanding. for me to imagine my mixes without it now. at ways of improving and using the new technologies. numode.net Satur8/24 is really great.” •denondj.com djmag.com 135 TECH NEWS APP REVIEW SOUNDBYTES APP: KADO VERDICT DEVELOPER: KADO FORMAT: DESKTOP APP PRICE: FREE 30 DAY TRIAL 8/10 links, which takes users to the usual popular dance music download stores. It can be run alongside iTunes or DJ software, and its smart filter GO WITH THE FLOW options allow DJs to search via Talented producer Tim style, BPM, key, track popularity Exile has released a new KADO IS A NEW desktop app that as well as other options. It also loop sequencer called allows DJs to research tracks tells users which DJs have been FLOWs, which is packed for their sets. It’s an intelligent playing the tracks. with over 1GB of loops, musical search engine that will Kado can also suggest new created from improvised EMANUEL SATIE find tracks that are a match. Call releases. For example, if the app jams with his Flow Machine CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT it a personal music assistant. has learned that the user has instrument. The loops are APPLE MACBOOK PRO It searches/analyses 200,000 played multiple tracks from a royalty-free and can be DJ sets to find music that works label in their last set, Kado will used by anyone as long as Emanuel Satie doesn’t name just one piece of with the sort of sounds you tell inform them when that label they have a copy of Native kit but manages to eke out five… it to look for. Simply drag and releases a new track. We used to Instruments’ free Reaktor drop a track into the Kado app get friends and contacts to do 6 Player. “I thought long and hard about what piece of from a computer and Kado will this for us, to help whittle out • FREE equipment I wanted to choose for this feature.