It’s Sunday morning, and I’m slobbing around on the sofa, when I pick up on a post by Jonathan Cruz aka legendary turntablist Shortkut on Facebook:
Obviously as a Vestax fan, I’ve followed the events subsequent to the company folding. Vestax DNA has popped up at Casio from Toshi Nakama, and I’ve also heard many rumours about the future of the much-loved and missed brand too. But this is the first time anything concrete has appeared online.
SO WHAT IS STPVESTAX
Doing a whois on the domain really only tells us that it’s based in Japan (which is a good start) and does bear the mark or Mr Shiino, the owner of Vestax. But the content of the holding page offers clues to what might be in store. This looks like a 4 channel mixer (the image is called mixer_002.jpg which is a giveaway). But real vu meters… trouser trauma ensues. Shall we say booth/headphone and master vu meters on the right? I think that above the channel meters are additional buttons with a label that looks like “DJ” and one of the buttons possibly being a headphone (cue button?). So far, so awesomely good. And then there’s the input label above the first channel too.
Now, being the curious type that I am (numerous IQ tests reveal that I see patterns), I’m always intrigued when I see numerical sequences. A company brings out something called say the X4, I’m immediately wondering about the X2 and X1. So when I see a filename called mixer_002.jpg, my inquisitive nature always gets the better of me. And this dear reader is what mixer_001.jpg looks like:
Be still my beating heart, for this looks like the very essence of Vestax may well be coming back in the form of a classically styled premium and possibly analogue mixer. It looks like a render, but this could (and I stress could emphatically) be the relaunch of Vestax.
Given the proximity to NAMM 2016, it’s possible that more announcements will be forthcoming. But either way, we can only hope that Mr Shiino has finally sorted through the debris of the Vestax implosion and has managed to put it back together again. God knows that we’ve been missing Vestax. And if they’re doing something like this, they could be working on other things that hopefully won’t cost $4000 each.
To be clear, as ever I’m not playing games — I don’t know a thing. I have no other answers for you.
ARE YOU EXCITED?
I know I am. Is the time right for Vestax to return? Is a rebirth as a premium DJ company what we’ve been waiting for? Do we need a brand that we can love all over again?