NAMM 2012

In case you're not following the recent developments from NAMM, but here's a couple of highlights which I thought I should share;

Numark:

Numark (who now own AKAI) have been busy and shown off a whole new range of MPC products, including the MPCDJ controller;

Picture courtesy of DigitalDJTips

It looks a lot like their NS7FX controller but with the addition of all those lovely backlit MPC pads in the centre.  I think that since the acquisition of AKAI in 2004 this has been coming, merging the 2 product lines.  No doubt there will be more of the same in the future too.  Phil at DigitalDJTips has kindly provided some nice photos from NAMM 2012 here.

Numark have also been busy with their own product line, among the items is the iDJ Pro - an extended version of the iDJ Live controller.

This time around the iPad sits neatly in the centre between 2 jog wheels and above the crossfader.  Unfortunately it doesn't look as if you can swap out the faders easily, so you will probably be stuck with stock.  Ideally I'd like to get some magnetic faders on this and see how it reacts.  It looks like a definite improvement over iDJ Live with the custom version of DJay, however given that Apple tend to change the dimensions of their products at each version it'll be interesting to see which iPads fit this unit.  Personally, I'd like to see a larger waveform on the screen instead of the spinning platters (or at least reduce the size of those platters on the screen to make space for other detail).

There's some more discussion on this over at DigitalDJTips (thanks Phil!) with video from NAMM.

Rane:

Rane have added the Sixty One mixer to their TTM series;

...and a more detailed version, Sixty Two;

Korg:

Korg has released a new version of their Kaossilator and their Mini KaossPad series, both with a similar design (looks like rugged casing) and look to be much smaller than their previous versions.

...more gear lust will follow I'm sure!