EASTER EGG: DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Rane TWELVE MKII

As a writer of DJ stuff for some 17 years now, the things that come my way often offer remarkably less literary inspiration than before. This morning, however, was different, as waiting in my inbox was a juicy morsel, one that I’d seen but entirely missed the first time, but was now quite unmissable. And in this respect, instead of leak or scoop (because neither are correct) or some other journalistic cliché, given the day that I’m writing this, and the obvious deliberate nature of its appearance, let’s call the appearance of the yet to be released Rane TWELVE MKII in DJ Jazzy Jeff’s recent stream an Easter egg. 

You’d be forgiven for missing it — I certainly did when I watch Jeff’s test stream. And I was looking for anything of interest in his studio that we may not have seen before. But there it was, in three different streams. Firstly in the announcement stream, then the test stream, and finally the full show. To me, this means it’s quite deliberate, thus doesn’t count as a leak — it will have been sanctioned by Rane and Serato. And it’s definitely not a scoop, because neither of those manufacturers told me about it. 

Observations: 

It’s much the same, but with a few addition controls:

1. Extra button on left of deck select buttons. From another angle, it looks like “HOLD FOR (?)VS MODE”. DVS? Sure does look like an 8 as well.
2. There looks to be a small screen below the bank buttons 
3. 12 and 2 o’clock markings
4. A new button next to the pitch buttons. It sort of looks like “LOCK” or “FUCK”, but I’m reasonably confident of the latter being incorrect.
5. A new rotary control. 
6. Another new button under the rotary.
7. There’s only power and USB cables in view, so I suspect this will remain as a controller without audio out.

Words cannot express how disappointed I am that the on/off carbuncle is still there. That ugly pointless control should have been designed away many years ago. Just let it go. 

As for what the new controls do — I’ve thrown my best Photoshop-fu at the labels, but I can’t make out anything. I’ll let you lot hazard guesses.

SUMMING UP

I think my ambivalence to the original TWELVE meant I didn’t spot it in the original video. And the minor updates on this still don’t interest me either. So unless there’s a killer feature hiding in plain sight, I doubt there’s enough to entice existing users to update. 

As for when — well Rane recently announced a buy one get one half price deal that expires at the end of May, and combining that with the finished nature of the product, then I’d say… well, to be honest, I wouldn’t like to guess when the Rane TWELVE MKII will drop. The whole world is up in the air right now, but July seems feasible. But don’t quote me on that.