A couple of weeks ago, some Facebook drama took place. Elliot Marx, owner of Audio Innovate and maker of the rather splendid Innofader range, decided to take to social media and make a very public stand against the new Mixars brand, and in particular former DJ Tech head and new director of Mixars Alessio Foti, for what he considered to be… well read the thread to get the idea. We’ll get into that in a bit.

Such a stand is likely to have consequences. And having been spurned by Elliot, Mixars has been left with a fader shaped hole right in the heart of its product line — not an easy shape to fill given the utter dominance of the Innofader. But there is another… one that has laid relatively dormant for a while but is about to get a fresh start. Having beavered away on fresh designs for a few years, Pro X Fade and Mixars will be joining forces to fill the aforementioned fader shaped hole.

There’s some brief PR:

Mixars announces new partnership with Pro X Fade

Working together to deliver premium fader technology

Bologna, Italy — 23 May 2016: New Italian DJ manufacturer MIXARS is pleased to announce an exclusive partnership with Pro X Fade that will deliver new fader technology to the expanding range of MIXARS products.

“Since we introduced the MIXARS brand, DJs have told us they want the choice, to buy with confidence, and to perform with premium level fader technology right out of the box” says Alessio Foti, founder of MIXARS. “And this new partnership with the proven knowledge and quality of the Pro X Fade team will allow us to do just that.”

The new project, dubbed “Galileo”, will see fresh Pro X Fade innovations exclusively installed in existing MIXARS products, as well as future projects. “Using the knowledge and experience we gained from bringing the first third party fader to market, we’ve had the designs ready to go” says Siya Fakher, Director at Pro X Fade. “And we’re incredibly happy that this new partnership will turn these designs into real faders, and be installed in premium mixers”.

And with an eye to the future, the MIXARS Galileo roadmap includes delivering an easy-fit plug and play retail version, with broad compatibility planned across a wide range of mixers.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. (Galileo Galilei)

^{Galileo Galilei (Italian pronunciation:[ɡaliˈlɛːo ɡaliˈlɛi]; 15 February 1564– 8 January 1642), was an Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician who played a major role in the scientific revolution during the Renaissance. Galileo has been called the “father of science”. (Wikipedia)}

Alessio Foti
MIXARS Founder and Director

Mixars is a brand of RCF Group: One Group, One Family, One Love.

I’m not getting into the drama of this situation — there’s a lot more to this than is being played out in public, and frankly it’s none of anybody’s business. What is clear however is that Elliot’s stance has led to a not exactly unexpected reaction, namely driving a potentially large customer to look for premium faders elsewhere, finding them from a proven source, and at the same time kickstarting Innofader’s only competitor with a bunch of fresh investment. Obviously this is bad for Elliot, but great for the scene — because choice is good.

New technology however also means unproven technology. But the Pro X Fade guys have had long enough to learn and grow from experiences gained from their first time around the block. So I have high hopes for what they’ve been working on.

GALILEO — REACHING FOR THE STARS

How this could pan out in the longer term is unknown — obviously Mixars gets their own brand of faders, and in time the DJ scene gets an alternative to the ubiquitous position that the Innofader currently enjoys. Much of this depends on public opinion — will they take sides or just care about the getting great faders? Brand loyalty, and in the case of Innofader personal loyalty to Elliot’s stellar customer service will play an important part too. Mixars and Pro X fade will definitely need to keep this in mind as they plan for the future.

What is clear is that Project Galileo has to happen and quickly. As Elliot has stopped sales of Innofaders to Mixars (but not support for existing ones), the next round of product needs a good fader as do future batches of current products too. I imagine that now the deal is done, it’ll be full steam ahead to make this happen. It’s been on the drawing board for long enough.

We’ll have more on this as it develops, which hopefully will be when we get to play with new faders. I hope it won’t be long.