NAMM 2009 DJ Gear Round-Up

Jan 22, 2009 6:57 PM

Despite a strong showing in other areas, the 2009 NAMM Show in Anaheim, California Jan. 15-18 was pretty light on new gear for DJs, excepting DJ-relevant producer/performance gear such as Ableton Live 8, Akai APC40, Open Labs Miko LXD and others.

Allen & Heath featured performances on its new Xone:4D ($2,599) hardware mixer/MIDI controller/audio interface, which is now shipping but was not a new announcement.

Brand new to the illustrious Xone line, the 2-channel Xone:22 analog DJ mixer features the company's famous voltage-controlled analog filter on each channel, offering lowpass and highpass curves, frequency sweep and "mild to wild" resonance control. An external effects loops can route the effects back into the filter system.

The Xone:22 also features 3-band total kill EQ, crossfader curve control, XLRs for the main outputs and mic input, a dedicated record output, booth output with volume control, cue mix, a "cue-to-master" switch to preview the master output and 10-segment LED meters for each channel.

American Audio unleashed a barrage of club lights, but also the Radius 1000 ($599), a CD/MP3 player with MIDI controller capabilities. DJs can use it to play music off a computer with a familiar hardware CD player feel or to play CDs, CD-Rs or MP3 CDs straight from the Radius 1000. The unit does not work as a computer audio interface, so you'll need a separate soundcard to use it with a laptop.

When used for playing discs, the Radius 1000 includes 9 digital effects, and its 6-inch jog wheel works in normal, scratch and auto cue scratch modes. It also offers seamless looping, track searching, S/PDIF digital output, tempo lock and instant start.

DJs who need to supply some of their own lighting may be interested to know that LED lights, which use much less energy and keep the heat off the stage, continue their takeover of the lighting world. American DJ showed several new LED lights, including the 38 LED Pro ($149), a par can light with seven operating modes, DMX control and RGB color mixing. Converting two long-time bestselling effect lights, American DJ's Vertigo Tri LED ($179) and Aggressor Tri LED ($219) have joined the LED herd as well.

Updating it's DJX700 mixer, Behringer ($339 MSRP/$229 MAP) launched the DJX750 5-channel DJ mixer, which is very similar to the 700, except with a greatly improved digital beat-synced effects processor and bpm counter.

Little-known Chinese company DJ-Tech partnered with Kontrol DJ to create Kontrol One, a single-deck DJ MIDI controller intended for compatibility with any DJ software. Its stated features include a touch-sensitive, high-resolution jog wheel, a Deck Select switch to let you use four decks with a single Kontrol One, rotary encoders with LED rings, 22 buttons, including a Shift button that double the duty for all controls, USB bus power and a metal casing. No pricing or availability information was given.

Tiny Finnish upstart EKS was showing its new finished Otus controller at the Image Line booth. The hotly awaited piece is now selling in Europe, and EKS is hoping to land US distribution soon.

A feisty underdog in the DJ gear world, Hercules debuted DJ Control Steel ($465), a tabletop DJ MIDI controller that comes with VirtualDJ 5 DJC software for Mac or PC. As the name suggests, the box was built with a steel upper frame and base plate for road-worthiness.

Although Livid Instruments didn't have a booth at NAMM, the small but growing VJ/DJ controller and software company showed up to give a sneek peek of its upcoming controller, the Ohm 64, which is scheduled to ship around the end of the 2nd quarter of 2009 at a yet to be determined price.

Ohm 64 features an 8 x 8 grid of LED-backlit buttons in the center of the MIDI controller, and you'll have full MIDI control over the feedback the LEDs send out. Ohm 64 will include Livid's Audio Loop and VJ software, as well as some open source music utilities.

What would a major show be without a Native Instruments DJ announcement? Digital DJ mainstay launched the Audio 4 DJ ($249), a smaller version of the Audio 8 DJ audio interface that unlocks NI's Traktor software for use. Audio 4 DJ include a USB 2.0 port and two stereo RCA inputs as well as two stereo RCA outputs. While the box is built like a tank, it takes up about the space of a fist and has 24-bit/96 kHz converters from Cirrus Logic. The box comes with Traktor LE software.

Numark turned up with its usual strong showing, however, most if not all of it was seen or announced previous to this NAMM show. It's biggest news was that its long-anticipated NS7 ($1,599), a massive mixer-plus-two-deck controller for the Serato Itch software it includes, is completed and will be available for sale by February. The spacious and ruggedly built NS7 gives you hands-on control over every aspect of the Itch software. Numark also debuted an NS7 coffin-style flight case for $299.

Other Numark products now available include the Stealth Control ($399), a metal-chassis MIDI controller for DJ software made for computer jockeys who already own a soundcard, and the Omni Control ($549), a similar device except that it includes a built-in soundcard for all-in-one digital DJing.

Also of note, Numark is now shipping its HDMix ($1,499) mobile DJing system, a single box that includes everything needed to DJ with digital audio files: a mixer, two control decks, color LCD menu, removeable hard drive, an internal CD/DVD player (that also plays MP3 CDs or DVDs) and USB slots for plugg in iPods, flash drives for hard drives. A brand new HDMix flight case is also available for $299.

Famously tight-lipped Vestax also had some new products on display, although a couple of the techno-lust-worthy controllers are not shipping yet and have limited information available. Completely new to the show, the Vestax VCM-400 for Native Instruments Traktor Pro carries Vestax's trademark rock-solid build quality. Noticeably absent of jog wheels, it concentrates on other deck and mixer controls, with some real estate set aside to Traktor-only functions. A few of the controls include deck switches, an effects section, a song-loading joystick and a dedicated key knob. No shipping or price information was available.

Vestax also showed its VCM-600 performance controller made for Ableton Live that it showed last year, but announced that it is now shipping to stores and well have a minimum advertised priced of $899. The VCM-600 can control 160 parameters and triggers within Live, and it's six channel strips include 18 controls each. An effects section holds another 16 controls, and there's also a send/return section and crossfader.

Finally, Vestax's new mixer, the 05Pro2, is a top-shelf scratch mixer with a built-in 2-channel audio interface, as well as MIDI control capability and seven assignable buttons.

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