When new gear gets splashed across the pages of DJWORX, it always comes with a narrative of how life-changing it is and how you positively and absolutely must buy it today. But little thought is given to the back story and the route that the latest slice of nextlevelness has taken to end up on your screen and in your life. The above slab of history has a story to tell, and one of you could be the author of the perfect ending.
Say hello to the Allen & Heath Xone:DB4 mixer. Not just any DB4 you understand — this is the original development unit that saw all the poking, prodding and fondling by not only A&H’s finest minds, but also by some of the world’s greatest — nay legendary DJs. For this reason, this prototype was codenamed the “famous8”, and with good reason.
As you might expect, this unit has been through the wars. While R&D types might treat their new babies with love and tenderness, DJs are brutal, and I suspect were told to be especially mean to this helpless unit too so that it could be rigorously tested.
With the DB4 now being an established product, the question of what to do with this slice of history arises. I’m sure many dark and dusty basement rooms archive barely working bits of dev kit, but this one is 100% working, and has been lovingly repaired, restored, and otherwise transformed into a truly unique piece of DJ gear.
But rather than stick it on a shelf in reception for posterity, A&H has decided to offer the famous8 up for auction on eBay, the proceeds from which will go to a charity close to the hearts of the design team. From the CLIC Sargent website:
“CLIC Sargent is the UK’s leading cancer charity for children, young people and their families. Our care teams have been providing specialist support across the UK for years.”
A very worthy cause indeed.
Just in case you’re trying to make out the signatures:
Artists:
- Armin van Buuren
- Paul Van Dyk
- John Digweed
- Mat Playford
- Ralph Lawson
- Speedy J
- Simian Mobile Disco (James Ford)
- Mix Architekt
Design Team:
- Andy Rigby Jones
- Rob White
- Rob Clark
- Mike Williamson
- Jim Wrigley
- Sam Farnell
UPDATE: When is the auction?
The ebay auction runs from 6-10th June. And here’s the link:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/263724717139
It’s rare for such an item to be made available to the general public. Such things are usually kept for reference. And I know that given the attachment that the design team at A&H have for the DB4, parting with this will be tough. But it’s a truly amazing charity that will benefit, so please dig as deep as you can. Whether you use the fully working and unique famous8 or not doesn’t matter — it’s having this piece of history in your mixer collection that counts, but of considerably greater importance is the great work that can be done by CLIC Sargent with your generous bid.
GALLERY
This is just beautiful. Big ups and much respect to A&H for making this happen!
“here you go …. this mixer was a disaster we don’t want it so we’ll donate it “
I love the DB4. What do you not like about it?
Drivers
I’m not sure how it’s a disaster. John Digweed still uses one. Also, Armin Van Buuren, I think?
I think your experience is atypical Scott. I’ve read many glowing reports from users since it came out.
If you can find the old Xone Forums ( I think they are still there) sift through all the comments…. there were many users having issues – mostly firmware / soundcard / mac related. There was promises of new firmware/features – but then it died…. This isn’t a cheap mixer — people bought it on this premise of it being updated — A&H state it’s still a current product but aren’t updating it anymore. So they have pretty much abandoned it. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a great mixer — but when your bass kick hits and the meter delays the response, it throws you off and turning the mixer on / off during a set isn’t an option to reset it. I paid $3000 (CDN) for this and have been plagued with problems — I would sell it back to them if I could. They even replaced the logic board and still has issues. So this tells me there is some design flaws in it — rather than take responsibility for it they just brush us aside and hope to sell the PX5. It’s quite a shame TBH – this was my first A&H mixer and the hype around it was false. Maybe the GLOWING reports from users are fine for some and maybe they aren’t using it with a computer – but if I wanted an analogue mixer I would have bought a 92 …. I have it for sale and once I get rid of it i’ll likely go Pioneer. Sorry to sound like i’m a nagger /complainer – but as a consumer when I pay for something I expect it — no i demand that it work and that the company making it stand behind it.
No one can deny the driver issues have been a big problem, but that didn’t make the mixer a disaster. As is always the case, the problem can be traced back to not having people maintaining the software. This becomes especially bad when drivers go beyond basic ASIO/CoreAudio. A&H weren’t the first, and they won’t be the last. All we can hope is that these companies learn their lessons.
XONE DB line was a DISASTER. Allen & Heath approach to this problem was a DISASTER. DB line was a lemon and A&H simply ignored all buyers and pretended that nothing happened. For a flagship product worth over 2 grand. They handled it very poorly and a lot of people should be FUCKING FIRED! Made in China by the way. Beside utter garbage drivers (till this day) and complete lack of customer support, build quality was average. I got paint chipping away from mine after 2 months of moderate use at home (form silver buttons). Bugged product, zero help form manufacturer. Never again. If you use it as a standard mixer, then it’s fine. But once you try to use computer, midi or soundcard, you are fu*ked. It can freeze on you anytime. Unreliable.
Agree with that, it’s sad that Allen & Heath give up the DB community ! Xone DB4 have a looooot potential even in 2018 ! I love my DB4 and all the features actually i don’t know what’s missing, maybe yes a send return, some news effects…. I don’t use computer so i have a good report for the quality & durability (made in UK), the drivers are a joke in mac OSX. with the last update of traktor with DVS compability we don’t have a firmware update…
And A&H have closed the Xone forum
I see you mention the PX5, unfortunately that has it’s own issues. The soldering went on mine so it kept turning off during sets! I sent it back but got it back of them damaged externally, they then tried to blame me. Awful to deal with, terrible customer service but it’s a shame I do like the mixer. However I won’t be buying anymore of there products in future.
The build quality on the 2 units that i had to send back was really bad. Just not worthy of a 2k-mixer. I still think it’s sad because the mixer has some unique features. An update someday would be interesting but i doubt it.
dude own this mixer and its amazing.
Yeah, amazing mixer, but needs some work on the headphone and cueing system. Delay, EQ, cue side select (including automatic “Side” mode), and switching back into stereo cue when more than two are selected in Split Mode would really make me happy. Not having a dedicated split cue button is a drag, but with these menu choices it’d make up for it.