As promised I'm back from 2 days at the Plasa light and sound show @ earls court, london with a roundup of the new kit I got to play with and some pics for you to dribble over !
First the pics... :) http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/users/mbl/plasa/ Quite an interesting year this time round - loads of new products and the reps seemed quite happy to talk me thru everything and let me get hands on with the kit :) CD Decks with scratchy platters seem to be flavour of the moment - in my pics you can see the new denons with motorized platter [and some attatchment so you can stick a 7" to the top of it for that 'realistic vinyl feel']. These were pretty sweet actually - you can play 2 tracks off the same cd at the same time so you only need 1 of them to play out. My biggest issue with these is they look a complete nigthmare to use if vaguely inebriated [the guy on the stand took about half an hour explain the features and I was already lost - e.g four looping sample banks which you can nest within each other !?]. One thing that stood out about this badboy was the ability to flash it with upgrades from the denon website [apparently it initially wasnt developed with mp3 functionality but this is a flashable upgrade]. On the 2nd Day I went which was a trade day rather than public day I got a chance to play on the new technics cd decks..all I can say is *wow* ! Check the pics - these babies have the same motors at 1210s and similar construction platter. They feel really solid and sound great. Loads of nice stuff on them like the ability to sample the deck's output [eg I did some scratches, then sampled the scratches and played them back out] other niceties included braking speed pots, a platter free-wheel mode, scratch-aid effects [like a one-way mode for stabs] and reverse-play throw switch. The rep says these are gonna weigh in 700GBP when theyre released - this seems to be the ballpark figure for most of these next gen cd decks about to hit the market. After some sweet talking I managed to grab a go on the final scratch demo rig to fiddle with the new traktor interface. This is really sweet and seems a lot slicker than the old i/face. They seem to be really focusing on practilicalities for the working DJ with features like a playlist generator tool which shows you relative bpms of tracks and total mix time [useful for planning those recordings or for radio jocks]. They seem to have a new type of fs 12" too which is lighter weight vinyl for scratch manipulation and is broken down into separate timecoded sections for easy navigation and I think so u can make your own breaks etc. The rep claimed you also now jack an Archos or Ipod into an f/s laptop , mount the drive and use the tracks straight off the device which sounds pretty handy. A company stanton now work with have developed a laptop stand to acompany f/s which keeps your laptop above the decks at an angle off the table [sales pitch: "prevents you spilling beer on the laptop!"] :) Numark had some fun stuff on their stand this yr including a device which looks like a record deck with a widget that scans the platter on it. The deck actually takes cd's via a tray in the front and manipulates tunes off the cd using the platter. To me this seems like a hardware version of finalscratch and I don't massively see the point. The rep pointed out the cost aspect as a major point - two of these @ 700GBP a piece is a lot cheaper than 2 1210s + laptop + finalscratch. Saying that I think fs gives the DJ way more flexibility and you can carry it in your bag - but it ll be interesting to see how these numarks fare when they hit the shops. Pioneer were showcasing two new battle mixers on their stand this year. There are two models - both provide some intersting features such as adjustable x-fader resistabnce [flick across for scratching or tactile resistance for smooth fading] and adjustable fader lag [not sure what this does tbh!]. The more expensive of the two models has a touchpad for kaos type effects and menu driven configurastion of the mixer. The unit has 50 odd effects which can be assigned to the faders and scratched/messed about with. There is also a foot pedal control for effects and session connectors for battle teams etc. Unfortunately pioneer refused to let me play wioth this so I cant tell you much else about it suffice to say its now on my shopping list !! :) I had a quick visit before I left to the Korg stand and managed to sneak a look at some new things they've come up with. The main product beeing pushed was a new 'entracer' video kaos pad. This does allt he stuff the audio pad used to do but also takes in a video feed and as u can expect lets u wiggle around with video fx using your finger. This was hours of fun to play with but it weighs in at the 800GBP mark and the demo model really didn't seeem to have great res or frame rate but saying that its easy enough even for a 7yr old to get to grips with. Korg also had a valve based sample/music workstation. I only played on this briefly but it featured a 2 stage fx pipeline, more buttons than u can shake a stick at and it had a really nice 'raw' analoguey sound to it. Another fun product was the Microkorg - this looks like a oldskool[tm] moog-style keyboard/synth - the price is 350GBP and it had some really great sounds. I have a groovebox and this thing totally blows it out the water sound-wise. It has a mic and vocoder too for muchos retro shenangians :] Well that's about sums it up - hope this was handy to some of you [my wallet is now cowering behind the sofa !] Peace, marc ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the designated recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. This communication is for information purposes only and should not be regarded as an offer to sell or as a solicitation of an offer to buy any financial product, an official confirmation of any transaction, or as an official statement of Lehman Brothers. Email transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free. Therefore, we do not represent that this information is complete or accurate and it should not be relied upon as such. 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