Pioneer this week launch the XDJ-Aero and all the blogs are talking about it. It’s £870 but, says the blurb, it’s aimed at the home DJ. So why so expensive? Well, as well as being a four deck, four USB-input mixer, it’s also the first ever Wi-Fi-enabled controller. This means that you do not need a laptop to use it, just your iPhone/Android and yes, up to four of them.
Controller/mixers that work with iPods have been around for years and who knows, is it snobbery or professionalism that has kept them in the realm of the Wedding DJ? Pioneer think though, that you will pay all this dough just for the convenience of not having to connect cables or having an iPod shouting “amateur” sticking out the top.
Think on, Pioneer, think on. Surely connecting via Wi-Fi is at least as much hassle as plugging in a cable and I know which one I would rely on in the hectic environment of a club and it’s not Wi-Fi. And it streams, it streams, ladies and gentlemen so even if there’s no hiccup there (would you trust it?) it is reliant on the DJ not nipping to the toilet with their phone in their pocket and going out of range. Yes, you can operate it remotely via the app, which should be a whole lot of fun but I can’t see how that is worth the price tag.
What it also means is that, once the punters get a whiff of what you are using you can no longer claim to not have that track they desperately want to hear, because if it’s on their phone, you can stream it from there. Nightmare! What were they thinking?
So to summarise, Pioneer have launched a controller for the home DJ that is more expensive than most professional ones, and rather than the nice safe USB connection to your laptop, you are encouraged have to stream the music from your phone, so best remember to put it in airplane mode when you begin and leave it, you know, sitting in the booth when you go for a leak mid-set. And any dickhead in your crowd can now send you their shitty Soundcloud rip to play “because it’s their birthday”.
Super.
Read more: Pioneer
Those nice people over at Digital DJ tips have dedicated a whole article to answering a question from a reader, to wit: How Can I Avoid Buying The Same Song Twice? They should have asked us. It’s simple- don’t be a spanner!
Read more: No
It may not be very Rock’n’Roll, but Allen & Heath have won the Queen’s Award to Enterprise. Well done them!
Read more: Allen-heath.com
Finally, props to Numark. The same day I bitched about my PC blue-screening with their DJ:IO soundcard installed, they got in touch and sent me a new driver and so far I’ve had no further issues. If you’re having problems, there is an answer.
Read more: Numark Community
