Being the face, voice, and CEO of Serato for ten years is a big thing. And in that time, Sam Gribben made a lots of friends in the industry, and especially within Serato itself. So when he was happy that the company was in the best shape ever, he decided to pass the CEO baton onto someone else. But Serato didn’t just want to send him off with jelly, ice cream, and a few beers in the office — no, they created a unique product that nobody else will ever have. Behold the Pioneer SG-1, the one of a kind superbly retro Serato DJ controller.
God knows how many times I’ve hankered for modern lumps of gear to be given a thoroughly retro makeover. There’s nothing quite like wooden sides to bring a touch of class to any DJ gear, but Serato went a little further and added all metal knobs and a revised faceplate to the standard DDJ-SP1. Not only that — the amazing finishing touch is the box, a complete one-off corrugated case designed to tell same exactly what he has meant to everyone at Serato. Even the logo is retro Pioneer.
I love this Pioneer SG-1, and wish more companies would put out retro versions. Or perhaps some very specialist outfits would get into customising all manner of gear with polished wood, metal pots and even real meters — for a fee of course.
Once again, good luck Sam with whatever you decide to do. Do be careful with the Tesla coil.
I want a Steampunk RMX1000.
Wow! That thing looks sweet! Would love to see Pioneer providing oldschool goodies for us customers, too. E.g. rotary kits for their mixers (DJM-2000, DJM-900).
This is the work of Jesse Dean if I’m not mistaken. @DJWORX:disqus check out his other work if you like this kinda thing!
http://jessedeancustoms.com/2014/03/20/serato-sg1-pioneer-retro/
Man…just checked out that link and his work is gorgeous. Man to be able to afford that kind of customization.
He’s surprisingly affordable for what he does. I’ve bought some off the shelf things and gotten a custom quote from him in the past.
The one warning I would give is that he needs an assistant (or did as of a year ago) — it can be tough to consistently get hold of him.
rs
Give me a retro DDJ-SZ with a real air horn instead of the button!
Thanks Mark. It’s good to see this awesome piece getting an audience – I certainly don’t DJ out enough to do it justice! Sam
Good Luck Sam.
Hey Mark, I had one of our internal team create the retro packaging and the custom work on the hardware was indeed done by Jesse Dean Design. I was very happy with the result and recommend them for any custom work you can imagine
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