contributed by: Andre Cato
Manufacturer: Visiosonic

First there was the turntable, which for many years was the only available medium available for DJ’s to play music, and create the seemless mixing style from track to track.

In the early 1990’s cd players started to offer potential as a new format for Dj’s to spin their tunes from and this at least from the mobile DJ’s perspective was awesome.. Turntables at parties generally suck because the of the surface where you set up etc, etc. Now it seems that the world of music for internet lovers at least has turned to MP3. With the likes of Napster providing endless downloads of all types of music there is no limit to what is in a DJ’s collection. But until now there has not been a unit to combine the MP3 files on your computer, into the world of dj’ing at parties and clubs.

So what exactly comprises a MP3 DJ Console?

Ah ha, the magical question, how do you control the technology? Well American Based company PCDJ have built a system that comprises both hardware and software and have basically created the first virtual DJ unit.

Controller Unit

The DMC-1 MP3 controller connects directly into your laptop computer. On your computer you can basically store more music than you would ever need to play at any event. The controller is so light it can be carried anywhere, or you can mount it into your existing system. Like the Dennon controller units.

Software

Software available for this system is in 3 levels. Silver, Blue then Red. With the software you can record and rip and take advantage of the onboard effects including: looping - Set up a drum loop and then play an acapella over the top

turntable brake - Acting just like pushing the stop on a technics 1200, where it comes to a sudden sliding halt

Synchronized Auto-Mix – Look Mum, No Hands theory….

Auto BPM detection - Internal clock that reads the bpm from the repatitve 4/4 beat

20 cue points per track. - Ok so basically that is quite insane. This means that you can have up to 20 different points within a track that you can instantly jump to and play as a sample or start the track from… This would be insane for playing samples on the fly etc.

Blue

DMC-1 comes with PCDJ BLUE software, letting you jump right into making and mixing MP3's.

Red

If you want more functions, like automatic BPM detection, looping and up to twenty cue points, then you need the power of PCDJ RED.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Intel® PII or AMD® Athlon 350Mhz processor or above ° 64 Megs RAM ° Direct X (Direct sound) supported sound card ° 5 Megs of free hard drive space ° Windows® 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 (NT 4.x not supported) ° SVGA Graphics (800x600 minimum resolution at 16bit color depth) ° CD-ROM

This is only the beginning, where do we go from here?

Well MP3 in my opinion really can not take over for DJ’s just yet..The sound quality is very bad and the continuous flow of good music is still what it is all about. Hopefully as the technology grows so will the tools, allowing the actual machine to somehow filter and re-enhance the compressed and destroyed mp3 formatted file!

Cost

The software is about $400 Australian for the top line Red, and about half that for the Blue. The actual physical components are being sold only in the USA at the moment, and I am trying to get some prices so come back here for more info as it comes to hand!