I’ve been doing a lot of personal research comparing the sound of different CDJs and DVS. I was a bit obsessed by the subject, which very few djs realize.

I was a SSL user for some years, then I abandoned Serato because of it’s horrible timestretch, ditched the whole laptop djing thing as I personally never liked so much to carry a laptop at a gig, and got the CDJ 900s. Loved them and loved the 2000s too, there are many good ideas in the product, but I  was really deceived discovering the huge master tempo bug.

On some songs, they were plainly Unlistenable using master tempo, which sometimes to do some tricks it’s rather useful (finding tempo on the fly on an acappella, etc) when pitching more than 3%. Sound was a chopped and the rhythm was altered.

Now with the 4.10 upgrade it is way way better. It sounds tremendously less chopped. I compared the two players, one after the upgrade, and one before (running os 4.05), playing the same song. Especially if master tempo is on and you try to pitch more than a few %, the difference it’s pretty obvious.

Thank you Pioneer. Some people still care about sound quality  more than having useless features, so don’t forget us!

2 Pioneer CDJ900

Rotary Mixer Model One

E&S Isolator

Exposure 2010s as a preamp

Phase Linear 400b as a power amp

PMC TBS2+ monitors

First customer receives a Model One

…in South Africa! S’fiso Khumalo posted on my facebook page:

“Thank you Matteo Ionescu, I’m so addicted to my rotary mixer’s sound quality. My old mixer is now relegated to it’s original packaging”.

Thank you S’fiso for your great feedback! Happy to know you love our first mixer!

Cricco Castelli tests the mixer at home: watch the videos

DJ & Producer Cricco Castelli, a name which needs no introduction in house music, testing his home setup. We are tweaking an analog setup with some sweet specially finished 1200s, Teac PA 4 phono preamp unit, and Genelec 1029a monitors.

Cricco has really encouraged me with it’s feedback, and we’re working close together to enhance your experience. He is really helping me understanding the potentials of this mixing instrument and how to make the maximum out of it. Watch these short videos..

Cricco is enjoying a lot the mixer and the sound coming from the speakers is really sweet…he is using also an SPL Vitalizer unit on the master output which enhances and excites the mix.

In the second video, the mix is furtherly enhanced by a compressor too, inserted  on the master output chain.

Very interesting results.

The model one music mixer is ESPECIALLY THOUGHT for integrating in a custom setup like this.

Design your own sound…add cool boxes to your mix.

We will experiment more and publish results and impressions.

..

Some quick lessons learnt:

A good vintage but perfectly usable dual Phono preamp enabling the model one mixer to work with your turntable setup with a great sound for 50€?

Yes, so it seems! The vintage TEAC PA4 unit is perfect for a turntable setup with the Model One mixer. It is a vintage unit of some decades ago, but still interesting. It is a dual RIAA preamp, so you need only one box for two turntables. Neat. I really recommend it – shouldn’t bee impossible to find on ebay or classified ad sites, sometimes as low as 50€. A great deal today.

Going for Active speakers? Genelec monitors  have PLENTY of gain. Highly recommended with the mixer.

And so they’re ideal with a passive, rotary mixer. Cricco has a couple of Genelec 1029a, I own a couple of 8040a, and they both work really great when connected to the rca outputs of the mixer, via a simple RCA to XLR adapter.

A simple solution for a great sound. That’s what me and Cricco said when commenting how cheap used Genelec monitors are – and with their built in protections, it’s hard to find a broken one. We are taking no money from Genelec, just an advice from somebody who owned three couples of them and never had a problem. They are not my home mixing setup, but my production monitors mainly. And they provide me good sound when writing newsletters like this one.

Every possibility is open, build your own mixer

The Model one rotary mixer is the basic element which provides pure mixing of two analog stereo channels. The purest mixing engine. You can experience it’s purity or add some fun, in your custom way. Add an exciter, an isolator, a filter on the master output? On the input channels? Everything is possible, and highly recommended to experiment!

That’s what I want to encourage you to do.  Nowadays studio hardware of some years ago is incredibly cheap and may be much more usable than software. Have fun. Experiment. Listen to the music and enjoy.