One of Serato’s key performance features is slicer mode. First seen on the revolutionary Novation Twitch, the ability to chop up beats has been a massive success for the Serato camp and their respective hardware partners. But it does depend on having the 2×4 pads right there on the controller. Well it did depend on that, but with the updated Serato Remote 1.1, even if you don’t have pads on your controller, you can now have that slicing goodness on your iPad. Denon MC6000 MK2 users are now rejoicing.
For those not familiar with the slicer function, imagine an 8 beat bar with each beat on one of the 2×4 pads, and when you press the corresponding pad, the beat rolls to a predetermined amount. This can be as the music plays so it moves to the next 8 beats, or set on an 8 beat loop. It sounds complex, but in use it’s essentially a roll/slip mashup. And up until yesterday, you had to own a Serato fuelled controller with performance pads to use it. But as of today, if you own an iPad (not for iPhone just yet), you can have slicer as part of your arsenal of performance tools without having to upgrade your controller.
This is brilliant news for all Serato users. Making key features modular reduces the reliance on constant hardware updates. It might well be that Serato can harness the power of the iPad and focus on expanding support for key features without forcing users to fuel their gear acquisition syndrome year in year out.
Serato Remote 1.1 is a free update. And if you don’t already own it, you can grab it from the app store. And for the moment, it’s 50% off.