Ask A Sound Guy

Music devices just keep getting smaller and smaller. We saw music listening devices go from CD players to iPods (which keep getting smaller themselves). Even recording technology has gotten considerably smaller (2″ tape machines down to a digital Tascam recorder). So why can’t DJ tech get a little smaller?

The 60GB Tonium Pacemaker effectively replaces a very large DJ rig and scales it down to fit into your palm. It contains two decks, a mixer, FX, and everything else that you need to get rolling.

Box up your CDJs and DJM and get ready to get wild with the Pacemaker.

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On February 1, 2009, we made our first post on this site.

We weren’t sure of what this site would become, and we definitely didn’t know if the site would actually LAST  a whole year. We’ve seen blogs come and go, and I know Sanjay and I are very happy that AASG is still around.

If you would’ve asked me a year ago what my aspirations and hopes were for the site, I would’ve said that I wanted to attend a trade-show or two (we did), post some tutorials that people find useful (I think we did that), and start reviewing awesome hardware and software (we’re doing that, too).

Thanks to everyone who’s read, is reading, and continues to read the site! We wouldn’t do this if it weren’t for all of you!

It’s no secret that there’s a lot of DJs in the world that prefer to work in the digital realm. There’s a lot of reasons for it and one of them has to be all the cool stuff you can use in conjunction with your laptop. The Eks OTUS is the perfect case for this argument.

With the Eks OTUS Raw being debuted at NAMM this year, I had to finally get my hands on one of these units to see where the OTUS started.

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Will this iPad-thing be useful for musicians and engineers?

Do we really need to talk about the iPad? There’s so much tablet fodder out there that I doubt anyone will ever come across this, but just in case someone is interested, I’d like to offer my sound-guy perspective on the device.

First Thoughts:

My first impression of the device as images and tweets were pouring out of the closed-door press conference, was that this gadget looks a lot more square than I expected.  But my first music-related thought was that this device could be AWESOME at wireless, multi-touch-enabled MIDI controlling.  It’s not hard to imagine the iPad running a touchscreen version of Ableton’s Launchpad hardware unit.  There’s really enough space there to see mixing control surfaces like the Jazzmutant Lemur and Dexter app.  So, yeah, first thoughts were “this is kind of square” and “big multi-touch screen with wifi and bluetooth = totally rad control surface apps!”

Nitty Gritty:

Sadly, in tune with the general disappointment of the day, the features (or lack thereof) started to get in the way of the potential of this device to make an exceptional addition to a music-nerd’s arsenal.

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The Launchpad comes with a couple of “User Modes” which are modes made to be assigned to just about anything you can think of. This adds a lot of flexibility to the Launchpad as the video above demonstrates.