Allen & Heath Xone: DX USB Midi Controller w/Serato Itch

http://images.guitarcenter.com/products/optionLarge/AllenHeath/651861.jpg Happy Halloween to all the DJs, Fans, and followers out there. This Halloween, the only thing scary about the product I'm showing you is the price! But as usual, when I present a product that's not priced low it's because I find it to be well worth the money and this is certainly well worth it's price. The Xone:DX is a performance audio controller for electronic DJs and is the result of close design collaboration between Allen & Heath and Serato. The Xone:DX with Serato ITCH DJ software offers 4 Virtual Decks and Serato DJ FX.

Allen & Heath are the fourth major manufacturing partner to co-engineer on the Serato ITCH platform. Using their 40 years of experience creating world-class mixers and specialty controllers, Allen & Heath has created another excellent medium for electronic music performance. The Xone:DX with ITCH provides the electronic performer with precise control and manipulation of more audio.

The 4 Virtual Decks of the Allen & Heath XONE:DX mixer exist in a clean uncluttered environment on the ITCH software interface. Using the DX library navigation control, you can quickly make selections from your crates. You can then accurately mix 4 audio tracks on the virtual decks along with other external sources. Each of the XONE:DX's virtual decks can be assigned multiple Serato DJ FX that are hosted in ITCH software

OK so you're looking at dropping about thirteen or fourteen hundred for a piece of technology like this but hey I spent twelve hundred on the B-52 prodigy and it didn't even have Serato built in. By the time I puchased Serato separately I had spent over seventeen hundred dollars. So in comparison, this is actually a bargain even at fifteen hundred! No wonder this was such a big hit at this years BPM affair.

Well that's it for now trick-or-treaters but as always, "Stay In The Mix"

BPM 2010 (Just A Peep)

Finally, last year's UK DMC supremacy champion DJ Rasp has been doing sterling work demoing Numark's extensive range of digital goodies to the masses, and I managed to grab a couple of sets of him taming the ITCH based V7 decks and X5 mixer. Purists might be unhappy with a turntablist going for it on digital decks, but the demos do prove that like it or not, quality turntablism can be done on digital decks. I've got a 3 minute set:

I'm still waiting for some footage of this years winner of the Ortfon Serato BPM turntable battle. (I hear it was a young brotha from Chicago that stole the show) but I'll keep on looking for the videos that I know are coming soon! So until next time "Stay In The Mix"