Pimping Rane faders — to Infinity and beyond

While Rane's build quality is/was legendary, the plastic bodies on their faders were a weak spot. Enter Infinity Faders, a boutique metal replacement.

Infinity Faders replacement Rane fader (4)

Infinity Faders replacement Rane fader (4)

I LOVE the idea of improving your DJ gear down to the component level. Be it faders, knobs, or faceplates, DJs can not only personalise their setups, but also improve them too. And that’s exactly what the new Infinity Faders are all about — not so much swapping out a full Rane fader, but replacing the bits that have been shown to fail in time, and extend their life and performance at the same time.

As you can see from the video, it’s a pretty simple idea — the Rane fader is made with some plastic parts, and it’s those that the Infinity Fader replaces. The fader body is swapped out for a CNC machined billet aluminium part in a swift process. I would however recommend unplugging the mixer completely just to be safe.

Combining my engineering and DJ knowledge, I know that DJs can and will break anything in their hands in time. I still marvel at how DJs break thick fader stems, so when I saw that the Infinity Faders were machined rather than cast or forged, the production engineer in me wondered if this would be strong enough. So I fired off a question, and this is the engineering-friendly response:

“My engineers and machinist both machine parts for the gov’t and private sector and have assured me what is best and most durable. We are also anodizing the parts which makes it stronger as well. Basically in a nut shell this thing is a TANK and feels way smoother than originals.”

Well that’s my inner engineer satisfied then. And it’s backed with a lifetime guarantee too.

So to price — each Infinity fader will set you back $75 including shipping within the US. And if you care to pimp your Rane mixer some more, they’ll do three for $210. Not cheap, but we’ll get to that.

SOME THOUGHTS

Many years ago (almost 11 to be precise), I wrote a piece about a call for standards, and wished for a time where DJ gear could be put together like a mountain bike, and upgraded with higher spec parts. We have seen an amount of modular controllers appear, but that’s not really what I’m taking about — I’m talking specifically about components. And all these years on, those standards still don’t exist to any great degree.

Now we’ve seen Pro X Fade and Innofader faders hit the market, as well as Cooler Caps and Chroma Caps replacement controls appear that allows DJs to make their gear better. And now a small company has come to the market with a way to improve the plastic bodied Rane faders. And I love it.

I’m all for championing cottage industries (like my buddy Ric at 1200plates) who have an idea and go for it. The one thing that you all must appreciate is that DJing is niche, and areas such as turntablism are super niche, and if you want to go in even more, portablism is about as niche as you can get. So you must expect to pay prices over and above what you might feel comfortable with, because the economies of scale dictate that R&D and startup costs are way harder to recoup when only selling hundreds or thousands of units. And it’s also highly likely that your idea will be copied by someone else, and heaven forbid churned out of a chinese copycat factory.

So expect to see more of the little guys being featured by the little guy around here. We more than anyone fully appreciate how tough it is in a market dominated by bigger businesses, so we’ll get behind the one man bands and small businesses and showcase their assorted wares, and hope that you get behind them too.

GALLERY

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Mark Settle
Mark Settle

The old Editor of DJWORX - you can now find Mark at WORXLAB

Articles: 1228

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19 Comments

    • Xone mixers generally come with Alpha faders with an option to upgrade to the Innofader. Unlike the Rane fader, making a similar part to upgrade those faders would require some serious disassembly and soldering by the end user. The chances of things going wrong are high.

      As for from Europe — I’m sure they’ll ship outside of the US. You’ll just have to pay.

  4. This is great. I was on the edge of buying two more replacement faders for my 56, but I can wait for these to release for only $6 more. Any date on release? Is there an Infinity Faders website?

  5. Why are they calling this piece of machined aluminum a “Fader” when that is not the fader, that is just part of a fader? And why is this piece $75 when an entire brand new rane magnetic fader that includes all of the electronics, slider, mounting brackets ect is only $100? this part should be no more than like $30.

    • Provided they don’t have any electronics in them, you could get metal replacements made for them by a local machine shop.
      Id guess at them being simple blocks of plastic with holes for the rails and holes for the circuit board to screw onto.
      Worth a google to see if one is near you to get a price.

    • With regard to the fader stem strength, the machined version is likely stronger than the original cast ones but its still a thin bit of ally, a good sideways swipe will bend it, less likely to snap but too much bending will eventually fatigue the metal.
      Custom ones made in titanium would be the ultimate upgrade, if I had a rare i’d make some for it.
      Now I’m wondering what I can upgrade on my mixers lol

    • I noticed that they are out of stock everywhere as well. A few months back when they were bought by Numark I was wondering if I should stock up on them for fear that they were going to move manufacturing to China. I don’t know if that’s the case, but it looks like I should’ve regardless. My upfaders are getting a little stiff.

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