Allen & Heath PB
 |
The digital age has revolutionised DJing and brought with it a wealth of massive benefits than most would never want to be without. But it doesn't make everything better, and one such area that it positively hurts is the DJ changeover. The cable switchover dance of death makes turns a once smooth move of a crossfader into a nightmarish birds nest of RCA patching. There have been products to make this easier (the Magma Switchbox and NI's multicore cables), but Allen & Heath have their own ideas about this - enter the Xone:PB.
Yes, it's a big patchbay, so you've still got a spaghetti of cables to negotiate, but if you're anything like me and NI, you've already got everything clearly labelled up, rather than hazarding a guess as to which RCA goes where.
I think that this has a great chance of getting accepted for 3 reasons:
It's a rack mount unit - clubs love to "install" stuff
It's Allen & Heath
It's reassuringly expensive - perceived value is a very powerful thing
I still love the simple brilliance and affordability of the multicore cables. And absolutely nothing in the world beats the sheer beauty of my own personal Switchbox. But this has win written all over it. I guess I'll find out next week when it'll be on display at Musikmesse. Who knows - there might even be stuff hooked up to it too to prove the concept.
Words from the Cornish mothership:
The Xone:PB patchbay is a 1U rack size, passive interface box, designed to simplify the task of connecting encoded vinyl replay systems to installed mixers without the need to re-patch, providing a quick and easy solution to set changes in busy club line ups.
The outputs from up to four audio sources and the inputs to the mixer channels are connected to RCAs on the rear panel of the unit. The front panel connections echo the outputs from the audio sources on the left side, while connections on the right provide inputs to up to four external sources. Switches on the front panel select whether the mixer inputs are connected directly to the audio sources or diverted to the external sources, allowing very quick and simple interfacing to scratch amps or computer soundcards. The audio source connections on the front panel are duplicated, enabling two scratch amps to be connected to the same audio source for simple DJ handovers.
Additionally, two switchable inverse RIAA filters are available to enable line level sources to be connected to the phono preamplifiers of the mixer, there is common mode noise attenuation filtering on all external inputs to help reduce laptop power supply noise, and an earth lift switch helps prevent ground loops.
