TECH NEWS TECHNEWS words: MICK WILSON BRAND NEW AND GOOD FOR YOU... Numark drop two new DJ products designed to get your groove on ot to feel left out of all its sights. The NS6 was a solid bit of Up next is the other new offering, the NTX1000 is packed with all new the fun their cousins are well-built kit and gained itself a lot of the NTX1000 Turntable, which — as technology to ensure that the deck having over at Denon DJ, fans. Now Numark have redesigned with Denon DJ’s new VL12 turntable is perfect for DJs from all walks of N Numark have announced the NS6 to bring you the NS6II; a — shifts away from the usual 1200 life. Scratch, mix or mobile DJs will the release of two new bits of DJ completely reworked version of the clone styling and adopts a design find the NTX1000 perfect for their gear — the NS6II DJ Controller and original with even better specs. that gives Numark’s new deck its needs, with a start-up torque of 4kg, the NTX1000 Turntable. It’s been a own identity. The new deck looks S-shaped tone arm, adjustable pitch- while since Numark have announced The NS6II is a four-channel DJ pretty cool, with its black and silver range from ±8%, +16%, +50% as well anything major in the DJ arena, controller with eight performance metallic casing taken from the styling as the ability to change the start and so the timing couldn’t be better as pads per deck that can be utilised and design of the top of the range stop speed of the platter. Aside from they also look to get in on a piece of in a variety of ways with the Serato NS7III controller, making for a sturdy the obvious offerings of the deck, it the action. inMusic have certainly DJ software — for controlling your and rugged build construction. The also comes with its own dust cover to stepped up the assault on the DJ hot cues, loop points, samples etc. deck itself is not over-complicated, protect it from bangs, spills etc. booth with the launch of the Denon It also allows two laptops to be with it being simple in layout and £560 NS6II / £320 NTX1000 @ Prime Series and whilst that is connected to it at the same time via design, but don’t let this deceive you, numark.com getting a lot of attention, they have dual USB ports. This gives DJs using now turned their attentions to one of Serato DJ the ability to go b2b in a their longest and successful brands, more expressive way than before, Numark, with the launch of these two both using their laptops and the one new bits of kit. controller — or simply for making DJ hand-overs even more stress-free and The Numark brand has easily easy. Adding to the flexible nature of been one of the staple marquees the NS6II is the stand-alone mixer, associated with the dance music which has connection options for scene and mobile DJs, covering all external media players or turntables aspects of the marketplace from via the RCA line/Phono inputs, beginners to the pros. The original making the NS6II the hub of your DJ NS6 was punted as a controller for set-up. The mixer section comes with DJs who needed something with a the usual array of EQ and FX controls, lot more grunt than their entry-level with filter knobs on each of the four offerings, but also at a price-point channels. that would sit favourably with the Another new feature is the central jobbing DJ and the hobbyist — colour LCD display embedded into the while offering top-flight specs and jog-wheels, which offers DJs instant professional performance. And it visual feedback as to the status of certainly had Pioneer DJ’s DDJ-SX in their tracks. 142 djmag.com TECH NEWS SOUNDBYTES BLOCK-ROCKING BEATS ROLI’s modular Blocks controllers can now be used with third party software. DJs and producers can now use their Blocks modules with Apple’s Logic pro and Garageband, IN NEED OF A BOOST? Ableton Live, Bitwig Studio as well as Native Instruments Kontakt and Spectrasonics We look into Sample Magic’s new plug-in, Boost... Omnisphere via the new Blocks Dashboard BOOST is Sample Magic’s third plug-in, alongside Boost can be used to master a processed track, software. The new software is free to their Magic AB and Stacker plugs. It’s a simple, subtly enhance an already finished project or registered Blocks users. powerful, mix-finalising utility, designed to completely sculpt the dynamics of your song from • roli.com get your music sounding as full and polished as start to finish, breathing fresh life into your music possible using a minimal amount of processing and readying it for commercial release, club or power. radio play. Boost comes with a wealth of modes to help The new plug-in is also perfect to bring your radio producers get a really good mix. Multiband show or music for TV to broadcast level and even compression, four-band EQ, stereo enhancement, process vocals, drums and other elements within high- and low-pass filtering and brickwall limiting your mix. Boost is the perfect all-in-one mix-utility are all available to help create a fuller, louder and tool to give your mixes that polished sheen. wider mix. £49.95 @ samplemagic.com STUDIO ESSENTIALS ​​Alex Arnout marks 10 years of ADDED PROTECTION Dogmatik Records with a label Decksavers continue to provide essential retrospective compilation. Here protective covering for all the latest and are his studio essentials... newest DJ and production gear. The new covers keep all your gear safe from harm’s way whilst showing it off to the max. Made from a shatterproof polycarbonate material, the new range of covers come in either a clear or smoked finish. • decksaver.com ROLAND TR 808 ROLAND TR 909 “This is definitely my first go-to bit of kit in the studio. I “Love this machine. For me it’s the sound of house don’t always start with creating a groove but when I music, it shaped the music we play today and is still do, it’s the first thing I turn on. The 808 is what got me going strong — both in its original form and as the into making music in the first place — crisp hats and TR-09. The shuffles are amazing and add so much to snares and with enough decay, the meanest kick the way I write.” drum you’ll ever hear coming from a drum machine.” ROLAND JUPITER 8 “I’m a bit of a sound stalker, so I’ve always tried to find where the sounds from my favourite records came from, and this came up again and again, even on film soundtracks. I use this for everything; bass, chords, arpeggiators etc. I really couldn’t imagine studio life without it, so many ways to modulate and create new sounds and twist them up — it’s a firm favourite.” ACCESS VIRUS TI2 UP TO DATE... “This is the only digital synth I have but it easily Serato continue to push forward their flagship REALISTIC CONCERTMATE MG1 competes with all my analogue ones, even goes a Serato DJ software with yet another update. “The innards were designed by Robert Moog and little further. I remember these being used by friends Version 1.9.6 brings with it a host of produce a grainy-sounding polyphonic gem; I’ve had that were writing drum & bass back in the day; I was improvements in the DVS department with a so many little distorted riffs coming out of this piece always impressed with the banks of sound and how new Anti-Drift option to stabilize BPM, Smart of equipment. I just had it restored a few months back futuristic they all sounded. Love the control and Sync and improvements to needle-drop and I can’t seem to put it down at the mo, I’m always shaping on this too, I’ve definitely over-used it, but sensitivity. In addition, it has support for amazed at what I can get out of it — an you can download new banks all the time so it never Reloop’s RMX-90 DVS mixer. underestimated bit of kit, for sure.” gets old.” • serato.com djmag.com 143 TECH NEWS SOUNDBYTES APP REVIEW APP: AUXY STUDIO DEVELOPER: AUXY FORMAT: IOS PRICE: FREE+ AUXY AB is a new player to designer, Henrik Lenberg, the world of mobile music has a lengthy background in production. In fact, they are app design and mobile music approaching this fast-growing creation (one of Soundcloud’s market place with a different founder employees) — slant, aiming to shake up the with the aim of the app way that DJs and producers to drastically reduce the HYPER FANTASTIC make tunes using mobile complexity of the traditional Sanho’s HyperDrive is a new compact devices. Auxy AB are looking studio by rethinking the Thunderbolt 3 USB-C hub for the 2016 to the future when it comes to interface for mobile users. The MacBook Pro. The hub plugs into two of the the Auxy app. The app for iPad GUI is a fusion of the grid style laptop’s USB-C ports and provides users with and iPhone aims to deliver and linear approach found on bring more sounds to the app a host of connection options that are not something different to the other apps and will take some via in-app purchases.