So we’re sat here ending a long day with a first. Normally, we’d get gear sent to us and review it at our leisure. But today, we’ve picked up a brand new product from the BPM Show floor, and are reviewing it live and direct from our hotel room. Today, Reloop announced their new product — behold the new Reloop Fader Knobs. Warning — we’ve had beer.
Before we get into the obvious comparisons, let’s read the press release:
RELOOP FADER CAP & KNOB SET
Muenster, 12th September 2014
Fresh and bright neon-style colours on your DJ mixer or controller: The Reloop Fader Knobs help you create your equipment’s indivdual design. Simply remove existing knobs and replace them with the new ones! The knobs are handily rubberized, ergonomically adapted and they are available in a set of 8 pieces. Customize your gear!
Features Fader Cap Set
- 8 knob caps
- Suitable for all potentiometers with d-shaft
- Rubber coating for tight grip
- Ergonomic knob cap size
- Easily exchangeable caps
- Individual design for your equipment
- 8 fresh, glaring neon-style colours
- Compatible with all current DJ mixers and controllers
Technical Details
- Available in yellow, green, blue, purple and white – Weight: 20 g (packaging unit)
- Dimensions: 7 x 12 x 7 mm
Features Knob Cap Set
- 8 knob caps
- Suitable for all potentiometers with d-shaft
- Rubber coating for tight grip
- Ergonomic knob cap size
- Easily exchangeable caps
- Individual design for your equipment
- 5 fresh, glaring neon-style colours
- Compatible with all current DJ mixers and controllers
Technical Details
- Available in yellow, green, blue, purple and white
- Weight: 20 g (packaging unit)
- Dimensions: 7 x 12 x 7 mm
About the faders and knobs
This will be brief — there’s a single knob and fader cap, and each come in sets of eight across five different colours, with a slight rubberised coating. Price-wise, for a pack of eight, these come in at €11,90/$17/£11.50.
Obvious Comparisons
Chroma Caps. It’s undeniable so there’s no point in sugar-coating it. These new caps are a response to online retailer DJ Techtools multi-coloured gear enhancers. The range isn’t currently as advanced as Chroma Caps though, but should have more or less the same ability to fit a wide range of mixers and controllers. The rubberised coating on the Reloop caps is in our experience a little less sticky, and marginally better for scratching.
We suspect that compatibility will be better with knobs more-so than faders. From experience, the standard D-caps tend to be way more interchangeable than fader caps. And these Reloop caps pretty much prove this. We just happened to have a Rane Sixty Four (our review here) kicking around our hotel room, and set about pulling off the stock Rane caps and swapping them for the new Reloop ones. Sure enough, the knobs fitted pretty well, but the caps sat a little high on the fader stem, leaving a larger gap than normal. This isn’t a slight on the Reloop caps, but more of a cautionary warning. I’m sure that Reloop, much like DJTT does in the store, will compile a comprehensive compatibility list.
More beer and a group test
With more beer came more comparisons. We couldn’t help but notice the obvious similarities between the Reloop caps and M&Ms, as well as Skittles. Group test time.
We tracked down some confectionary supplies at the local garage, and beer too, and set about defining the parameters of the test. Obviously, it’s a little difficult to get a bag of Chroma Caps delivered to our hotel room at 11.30 at night in the UK (hi Ryan at the DJTT store – it was us), so we just had to make do with peanut M&Ms and assorted Skittles.
Knobs
We’ll be honest, fitting either of the sweets to knobs proved to be an issue. The D shaft is just a little too thick to maintain the integrity of either of them.
Result: Reloop knobs win.
Fader Caps
Both the Skittles and M&Ms faired better in this test. The sharpness of the fader stem allowed us to push the sweets into place. The brittleness of the peanut M&Ms was definitely a hinderance to stability, and the roundness made crabbing harder than it should be. The Skittles were more stable, and the sharper edges were definitely giving a better performance. But ultimately, they were too small and too soft to offer any long term performance.
We noted that the M&Ms were a closer fit to the faceplate than the Reloop fader caps.
Result: Reloop fader caps win.
As sweets
Clearly this is where the Skittles and M&Ms really have the edge. Their track record in this area is unparalleled, whereas the Reloop caps and knobs are an unknown quantity. Indeed, when we took turns at trying the different flavours of Reloop caps, each one proved to be just as chewy as the other, and frankly took too long to melt in the mouth. Well… they didn’t melt at all.
Results: Jared and Mark – M&Ms. Ray and Dan: Skittles. Nobody picked Reloop caps.
Summing Up
This was a useful group test to run, if only because it allowed us to drink beer and eat lots of sweets. As far as the parameters of the test go, it has become clear that alcohol and confectionary make reviews more funner.
Our advice – don’t use M&Ms or Skittles to add a splash of colour to your DJ gear. That’s just crazy talk. Use the new Reloop caps and knobs instead – they’re rather nice, if a little chewy. ;)