Last week, Allen & Heath teased us with some teasing about their next lump of nextlevelness. Called the Xone:PX5, it’s being previewed live in Berlin as I’m writing this. And no sooner did I post:
“Where are the xone PX5 posts? Why aren’t kids internetting this stuff like they normally do?”
…that the first pictures started arriving. And after speaking to A&H this afternoon who told me that official info will appear in a few weeks, we find ourselves honour-bound to dissect the little bit of info that we have to fill in the yawning gaps in our knowledge.
IT’S A MIXER
While I wondered off on a flight of pure speculative fantasy, I think I got pretty close with “4/5 channel successor to the Xone:92, maybe with an audio interface, and it’ll be the mixer for those who don’t want or can’t afford anything quite as exotic as the MODEL1”. While not a successor to the Xone:92, the Xone:PX5 is more of a Xone:63, a name that I’m surprised that this didn’t get.
Now rather than pull apart the handful of pictures that are floating around social media from the event (thanks deejay-basics.de) , there’s a photo of the basic spec:
The interesting stuff:
- The FX send is internal, external, and dual, hopefully meaning that you can blend say software with hardware effects. I remember the Korg Zero 4 being a bit like that.
- There’s one filter control that you can apply per channel. It’s unclear if that can be done to all channels at once, but it’s a fair bet that it’s just like the Xone:43.
- The internal effects have pre and post controls.
- There seems to be line and channel curve switches.
- The channel selectors are line, phono, and 20 channel USB, so aside from the usual physical hookups, you should be able to run 4 decks in say Traktor with channels to spare. This would be nice to hook up to Ableton Live too.
- Effects seem to be assignable to individual channels or the master.
So there’s some interesting stuff going on here. We’re told that this is a prototype with more finished versions appearing at BPM.
To us, this looks like a direct DJM competitor rather than a balls-out xone wet dream. It’s ticking a lot of those boxes, and certainly won’t look out of place between a pair of CDJs either. But there’s only so much that can be gleaned from blurry nightclub phone pics. And I’m sure more will be available on Twitter in the morning. But you certainly get the idea.
OVER TO YOU
Do you like what you see? And realistically, how much would you pay?
GALLERY
