Custom Faderbox V3 — now with MIDI

Off-the-shelf might work for most people, but not DJ RhYmEs. Having already done a very tidy fretless fader mod to a Mackie d.2, he has now turned his attention to the issue of a fader in a box, and the results are spectacular. Driven by an Innofader and a Livid Brain Jr, the custom Faderbox V3 brings scratching to a single turntable, as well as MIDI buttons.

DJ Rhymes faderbox v3 3 (3)

Many years ago, we worked with Elliot Marx from Audio Innovate to create a reimagining of a fader in a box. Project Faderbox was the best concept to never get made, but it’s clear to see its influence in the Kontrol Z1, Akai Pro AMX and others. But DJ and modder extraordinaire DJ RhYmEs (remember his take on the fretless fader?) has run with the original simple fader-in-a-box concept, and after a couple of very glossy prototypes has arrived at V3. This one however combines an Innofader with buttons, and thanks to Livid’s Brain Jr, the Faderbox V3 is effectively a fader and Dicers combined.

DJ Rhymes faderbox v3 3 (1)

I’m sure there’s a bunch of you wondering what the point of such a device is. But before we get deluged with turntablists explaining why this is the best thing since sliced bread, allow me to explain. DJs in the wider sense mix music with two decks, often playing tracks from beginning to end. But scratching is a very solitary process, one where a turntablist can get lost for hours with a single beat and a single scratch sound. Stripped back, you really only need a single turntable and single fader to do this, which is where devices like the faderbox come in, but they’ve been few and far between and never available commercially.

DJ Rhymes faderbox v3 3 (3)

And I fear that it’s the same with this too. Of course you could take it further, add more stuff, and end up with something approaching a mixer. But that’s not the point, and for me this is ready for Kickstarter to turn into an actual product. God knows I wish we’d made ours back in the day.

The Faderbox — is it for you?

Aside from the fact that it’s not commercially available, if it was would you buy one? Would you drop cash on a Kickstarter campaign to make it happen? Are there things that you’d like to see in such a product?

Faderbox Gallery

Tags
Mark Settle
Mark Settle

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

Articles: 1228

Related Posts

23 Comments

    • atten vestax:this is what you must do…..a one channel skratch mixer is long over due……
      atten vestax:the people who make these are idealistic and wont make any for no one else……
      atten vestax:make em for us!
      PLEASE!!!!

  2. very nice, but it doesn’t solve the key issue for scratching, how to get the beats into the mix. I would buy it if it had
    1)usb in – for a laptop
    2)1/8,1/4, or rca in with no buzzing or hum. this would be for a phone
    3)an eq and gain/cut that would work the above two as one channel
    4)inputs for the turntable with eq and gain/cut
    5)a switch to flip/flop the channels for righties or lefties
    5)master volume out
    I would prefer these eq and volume knobs to be small, not full size like on this one, and they should be on the left end as you face it.
    That’s all it needs to be a great product.
    Adding the ability to flip a small switch and get a full cut on both side like the piemontese one, well that would certainly sweeten the deal, but wouldn’t be a dealbreaker if it didn’t have that function.

  8. YES I would fund on Kickstarter and YES I would buy one (or two) I have yet to find anything on kickstarter that I wanted to back but I LOVE this idea.

    Two things for me:

    1.) Serato native support (I KNOW this is not an easy one)

    2.) iOS support.

    BTW I would be willing to put $300-500 to help the cause.

  9. Nice, I love Livid and the Arduino. After I got rid of my S4 MKI, I was thinking of building a custom All-in-One using a 3 tier euro-rack case. It makes me happy to see how creative people can get with them.

  12. THIS IS A STRAIGHT UP BITE ………ITALY IS BEING MANIFACTURE THE SAME ITEM FOR AGES NOW ……YOU ARE A STRAIGHT UP BITER . FULL STOP NO QUESTION…..GET THE SHIT RIGHT . HEADZ AROUND THE GLOBE KNOWS WHO DID …INVENT …DEVELOPE AND OF COURSE BUILD FOR THE FIRST TIME …WHAT U CALL YOUR PROTOTYPE OR INVENTION…THER IS PEOPLE ALREADY USING THE CORRECT ITALIAN MODEL ….CALLED BARRA IN WORLD VIDE COMPETITION THESE DAYS…..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYwHePDQlrA

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUzHrl2Kyw0

    AND I CAN PROOVE THAT WE INVENTED THIS OVER 1O YEARS AGO ….AND IS BEING ALSO TESTED BY HEADZ ALL AROUND THE GLOBE ….YALL NEED TO COME CORRECT AND TELL THE TRUE STORY .
    DJ SKIZO FROM ALIEN ARMY ITALY FINEST.

    • We mention Barrificio Piemontese’s work in our original Faderbox piece in 2008. I don’t think anyone is saying the Faderbox v3 is original. It’s just moved on beyond being simply a fader in a box. The original idea has been adapted and developed using tools that weren’t available back then. Sick scratch skills BTW.

      • this comment stuck with me all day, because you said “beyond being simply a fader in a box” I think the idea will fail if we take it in the direction of midi. for me, it needs to be a “scratch mixer”, i.e. all things we use regularly on our mixer “for scratching” and none of the things we don’t use regularly “for scratching.” it needs to be more than just a giant frisk fader, but it also needs to be as small as feasible. I think raster has really hit on something with the way he has his setup, allowing two TTs to be side by side. if given a choice between the barras style boxes, OR one with most of the necessary controls on the front side, I would choose the latter.

    • I know about the original “Barra” faderbox and I don’t say that my faderbox is the original one or that I invented it for the first time! What I did is building my owm selfmade faderbox, that’s it! There is only one made, it’s just for myself and it’s not for sale. So what’s the problem???

Leave a Reply