I’m possibly a little late to the party on this one, but when I saw the Gearjunkies post on Facebook, I immediately fell in geeky love and made the same noises that we all make when we see our social media timelines proliferated with cute baby animals. For the ESI UDJ6 is just that – a cute baby audio interface made for DJs. I just want to hold it in my palm and stroke it.
For those that haven’t see it, the word from ESI:
UDJ6 is a new professional level 24-bit USB audio interface featuring 6 totally independent output channels.
Two stereo outputs (channels 3 to 6) are provided with RCA connectors on one side of the small and compact bus-powered interface, in its stylish aluminium case. The other side features a stereo headphone output for 1/4″ stereo connection (providing channel 1 and 2 signals).
Of course, every output channel can be accessed totally independent from within any modern DJ application for Mac OS X or for Windows. This compatibility is provided by the included ASIO 2.0 drivers for Windows XP / Vista / 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) and the full CoreAudio support for Mac OS X.
All this makes UDJ6 perfect for digital DJs on the road working with notebook computers. Simply use your favorite DJ software and mix your tracks the way you like it! Monitor and pre-listen to your signals via the built-in headphone output. UDJ6 of course also works on your desktop computer and is compatible with all important professional audio software applications as well.
UDJ6 comes bundled with a license of Deckadance LE from Image Line Software, a powerful DJ software that was written by DJs for DJs – simply start DJing with the separate output channels of UDJ6!
UDJ6 will ship to ESI resellers around the globe during summer 2012.
Features
- 24-bit / 96kHz D/A converter
- 6 independent output channels
- 2 output channels with 1/4″ TRS headphone output
- 4 output channels with RCA connectors for output 3/4 and 5/6
- compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista/7 supporting ASIO 2.0, WDM, MME (using ESI’s EWDM driver technology)
- compatible with Mac OS X and supported by the native CoreAudio USB audio support from Apple, no special driver installation required
- compact and portable design with around 7 cm x 6 cm x 2 cm
- includes license of Deckadance LE from Image-Line Software
So you won’t be using this with a DVS anytime soon. But for those whose needs are somewhat less complicated, the UDJ6 is ideal, and I’m talking especially about those with controllers that lack a built in audio interface. This would look good next to a Numark Mixtrack for example. And while I can wrap a whole cute story around its size, it looks built to take a bit of a hammering as well as gentle petting.
It’s shipping now according to Gearjunkies, and for the equally cute and adorable price of £89/€119. And I thought the NI Audio2 was small. Anyone else know of similar equally tiny audio interfaces?
Well i would love to carry two of these instead of the big Audio 4-6 or 10’s
i’m not sure about this mini USB connector!
I recently sold mine, but my favourite compact sound card was the Echo Audiofire 2. ….you need a firewire connection though.
Looking on Echo’s website, it looks like that’s being replaced by a new USB sound card, the Echo 2 ( http://echoaudio.com/products/echo-2 ). …..the spec looks impressive, but it’s got that mini USB connector as well!
FW is dead, now it takes a bit more for it it fall into oblivion.
I suppose that this is a flexible device. If you want to internally mix, you can output cue (on 1&2), main (on 3&4). If you want external mixing, you can output deck 1 (on 3&4) and deck 2 (on 5&6).
I can’t think of a case where you’d need outputs 1-6 for DJing.
-KLH
Handy to have the extra two channels for a dedicated sampler output. I used to do this with a Gigaport AG and an external mixer with Virtual DJ – decks 1, 2 and sampler.
Some people like 3 deck mixing.
Any idea if this is USB class compliant so that it will work with the DJ Player iOS app?
What the hell is that thing next to it?
It’s a baby Panda.
It’s a baby Panda.
Waaay too expensive given the features. Not competitive with TA2.
But… but… it’s so cute and small. I want it now.
i wish my girlfriend said that every now and again.
Compared to the Audio 2 (which I currently have), the dedicated headphone output that the UDJ6 has is a HUGE feature, and for the sake of convenience is well worth an extra $50US. If I can find a place that sells this in the US, I’m totally going to get it.
Value-wise, the TA2 definitely wins as it comes with Traktor Pro 2. This is great for someone starting out with Traktor, but for those of us already running it, this extra “feature” is of no use.
Overall, I think it’s a coin-flip between the 2 interfaces depending on what your specific needs are.
To tell you the truth, I’ve never had a TA2 at home. So I can’t really say if the TA2 doesn’t play nicely with some headphones. In any case, decent headphone amps are available at well below $50.
neat little soundcard, input for dvs use would have been neat but still cool.
If the outs were TRS this would be a no-brainer for me. Unbalanced connections are susceptible to interference from outlets, laptops, lighting rigs. It’s no coincidence that mid to higher end mixers lean on XLR or TRS for the sake of sound quality.