My need to comply with whatever the latest “challenge” has been thrown down in social media is nil. I have no desire to post my first and last profile pictures on Facebook, or to tell you what the last thing I ate was and that would be my porn star name (fish pie). But the current #10YearChallenge thing (clearly I’m doing it wrong) got my attention, so I decided it would make a decent throwback moment to show how far things have come in a decade of DJ stuff.
Check out this archive page from January 2009 on skratchworx. Luckily, it’s a busy one with NAMM coverage. NI’s Maschine is seen for the first time, as was the Audio 4, a device that funnily enough we were fondling in the Worxlab today. But most importantly, you get a glimpse of the Vestax mixer than never was — the PMC-08Pro2.
It’s interesting to contrast and compare 10 years ago NAMM with what’s happening next week. There’s certainly fewer companies, and they’re bringing out fewer new products too. And one could argue that things haven’t necessarily moved on in a way that a full decade in a rapidly evolving technology led market might imply.
And just for fun, here’s 15 years ago in the skratchworx archive. We’d been running a matter of months at this point, and this is where you’ll see that things have changed significantly. The launch of Scratch Live and the Technics SL-DZ1200 puts this firmly in the realms of ancient history, relatively speaking of course.
Be careful though — a trip down memory lane can turn into a productivity black hole.
Ahhhh, that 05pro4…Good article, a trip down to memory lane.
I still believe that Vestax reached Mount Everest with the 08 and then innovated the shit out of it with the 05pro4 (tho, not on the quality part), yet almost everyone missed that boat, incl. Vestax themselves…
I’m gonna take out my 08s now and cry while holding them in my arms…lol
The comments on the Serato page are so good.
Halfasemitone: “It’s amazing how little these companies think that a computer will be the wave of the future. The biggest problem with these controllers are that laptops and home computers were not designed to be scratch controllers. They were designed for general use. That’s why I don’t trust controllers that NEED computers.”
“Finally, someone who knows a good computer. Mac OS, the only operating system that was designed with music video and graphics in mind from the ground up. So much technology has been bitten from Apple. Now that’s a company that leads the future.”
Jon Easton:
Little inside scoop from stanton tech people. They are coming out with a stand alone final scratch. I don’t know weither it is a cd player or hard drive or flash card based, but they have been working on it for a while.”
Skratchboarder: “Sound is muddy but pay attention to how responsive the waveform in the GUI is compared to Traktor Final Scratch’s. In the last couple seconds a-trak powers down the turntable and it sounds a lot more natural than TFS as well.”
James: “Does anyone think Vestax is gonna get on the timecode bandwagon and release their own version of FS and SL???”
Mark I keep asking you to stop making me feel old geez. man ive been coming here a long time
I bet that was a great mixer, but that has to be the worst faceplate design that Vestax ever made. The 08pro MK1 was so handsome, elegant, dare I say sexy..
I never could afford Vestax when I was starting out :/
That black Vestax VCM-400 still looks lovely!
I have a a TR1. Same thing but in silver.
Hey don’t change subject now. I want the news about Denon’s new controller! :)
You find out about what Denon released 10 years ago via the helpful links in the above story. That’s the best you’re getting for now. I’ll just be over here reading the PR and looking at the pictures again.
Damn, the Audio 4 was a great bit of kit. That, the Audio 8, and the first gen Audio 2 were genius. It was just a shame they weren’t USB class-compliant…
These days it wasn’t so important and new ones are (audio6/10dj) but it haven’t any value if you don’t make your iOS apps compatible or updated. I’m still waiting for some news from NI related to its software side…
Hopefully 10 years from now Phase will be released.
#10Yearchallenge
Gizmo to Mark Settle
Long live DJWORX.
I would have loved the 08 mk2 with the fader eq’s, the 08pro with some midi controls would have been my perfect mixer.
Still gutted Vestax went under, my vci 380 is still crying out for dvs :(