Tag Archives: DJ equipment

Teenage Engineering DJ Console concept brings OP-1 style aesthetics to the deejaying world

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Teenage Engineering has become an inseparable part of the music community in the past decade. Ever since their OP-1 synth debuted on Swedish House Mafia’s music video for their song ‘One’, the company has been on a rise, launching Pocket Operators, recording/playback gear, turntables for children, and even venturing into phones for Nothing and the R1 AI device for Rabbit. Their position in the new-age music industry, however, remains cemented for the next few years to come – but if there’s one device missing from their music-making tech repertoire, it’s a great DJ console. While most people love making music, there’s a case to be made that if you want to connect with your listeners, you need to perform your music too – and deejay consoles help artists do just that. Designed to bridge this product gap, Chris Matthews designed the OP-J, a Teenage Engineering-inspired console for disc jockeys looking to play and remix tunes.

Designer: Chris Matthews

Deejay consoles don’t really need to be portable, but there’s an understated beauty to how sleek the OP-J is. It’s about as thick as its synthesizer sibling, with the same design language running through. You’ve got two rotating discs, knobs, keys, buttons, cross-faders, a speaker, and two screens that guide you through playback as well as effect settings.

Keeping in theme with the company’s focus on music creation, the OP-J allows you to do more than just play and merge tracks. Sure, it’s a pretty capable DJ console, with everything a disc jockey would need to get on stage and drop the bass… but you’ve got 8 keys and 8 more buttons to record/trigger loops, play melodies, or activate certain intros/outros to spice up your songs. Although it isn’t shown here, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could hook the OP-1 to the setup and take your performance to even higher levels.

Color-coded knobs let you control effects and envelopes, while a dedicated display just for the effects lets you monitor what you’re up to. It’s unusual for a DJ console to come with its own speaker, but just in case you want to practice in the privacy of your home or hotel room, the OP-J lets you nerd out without needing a separate speaker system. Yes, audio jacks on the bottom let you hook external speakers if you can, or headphones so you can preview tracks before cueing them.

The OP-J is just a fan-made concept for now, but if someone from Teenage Engineering reads this, we all could use an OP-style deejay console! Besides, let’s also take some time out to appreciate the Darth Vader-esque black and red version below?!

The post Teenage Engineering DJ Console concept brings OP-1 style aesthetics to the deejaying world first appeared on Yanko Design.

Modular DJ deck controller lets you decide how you want to mix your music

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Although it might seem like it, controllers for different devices and gadgets are actually designed to help make users’ lives easier. The overwhelming number of buttons on a traditional TV or set-top box remote, for example, are there to give nearly instant access to functions without having to dig your way through menus. Needs and trends change over time, however, and devices need to adapt with them, just like how those TV remotes have become significantly minimal, some with no more than five buttons. There are controllers, however, that can’t really be distilled down to half a dozen switches and buttons. Complicating matters is how different people might have different ideas on how to best use those controls. Straddling the fine line between those two camps, this design concept puts users in complete control of one of the busiest controllers in the market.

Designer: Marko Filipic

When there are so many things happening quickly that need your attention, the last thing you need is to fiddle with menus to remain in control. Sometimes, you don’t even get a few seconds to think about your next move and just function on autopilot. This is often the case with complicated controllers like the decks that DJs use to mix, scratch, and direct the flow of music at any given moment. A deck controller would have dozens of buttons, sliders, switches, and dials, but not everyone uses those same controls in the same way all the time.

This modular controller concept brings one of the rising trends in product design to the world of DJing, allowing the user to decide exactly how to arrange those controls or which ones to actually have present in the first place. The idea is to have a platform where one can easily add, remove, or relocate those gizmos where they’re most convenient. There are parts that are permanently attached to the deck, like the two large dials on each side, but the rest is fair game for the DJ.

This design is made possible by a grid of Pogo connectors in the middle of the deck, similar to those gold dots you’d find in older smartwatches as well as tablet keyboard covers. Here you can make any arrangement of buttons, sliders, and dials, some of which take up more than one “block” on that grid. In a way, it becomes a fun puzzle activity for DJs to build their own personalized deck.

The base design for this modular DJ controller leans more towards minimalist trends with its white coating and lack of decorations. Admittedly, this might look a little out of place among a DJ’s other tools, so there’s also a variant that brings those familiar accent lighting on a predominantly black deck, a better representation of a DJ’s vibrant and unpredictable style.

The post Modular DJ deck controller lets you decide how you want to mix your music first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Zen Garden-inspired DJ console might seriously put you in a ‘trance’

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There’s something incredibly calming about the Whiteout. Designed to be a DJ console that offers incredible amounts of control to the person behind it, Whiteout features a base with multiple grooves and a series of knobs you can place on them. The knobs work both as rotary-controls as well as sliders, while the base itself lights up with a minimalist interface. A pair of grooved circles on the base act as the turntables, while touch-sensitive controls on the top let you play, pause, loop, transition, solo and mute tracks. Overall, the kit offers a meaningful redesign to the DJ console, which is sometimes an overwhelmingly complicated collage of lights. Whiteout calms you down and keeps you focused as you send out ‘chill vibes’ to your audience. This might just be the most perfect controller for the international music festival ‘Sensation White’!

Whiteout is a winner of the K-Design Award for the year 2019.

Designers: Su Hyun Bang & Byoung Hoon Woo

A Japanese Zen Garden is the inspiration behind this award-winning DJ console!

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Today DJing has taken the world by storm, especially when it comes to the younger generation. More and more individuals are looking at it as a tangible career option, rather than a simple hobby or sidelined passion. However many of those interested in this field often end up with cold feet once they get an eyeful of the actual DJing equipment. A result of many complex technological innovations, DJing equipment isn’t the most aesthetic or user-friendly product out there. As a result, DJing seems more of a mystery than it actually is. The experience can be quite uncomfortable as customization of the user interface is quite impossible, and the equipment cannot be modified according to the personal taste of the DJ or genre.

However, designers Byoung Hoon Woo and Su hyun Bang decided to simplify the entire ordeal with their ‘Whiteout’, DJing equipment inspired by the Japanese garden style, Zen garden. A Zen garden is a simplistic garden style that utilizes rocks, sand, and gravel to recreate the essence of nature. It is believed to have ‘a calming effect’ on the mind. Drawing two of the main characteristics of a Zen garden; circulation and repetition, Woo and Bang have created a unique and neat form of equipment wherein a DJ can capture his musical world. The formative language of the Zen garden-inspired turntable helps to relieve the psychological burden or stress that can overcome DJs before they play a set. Much like the pebbles and stones found in a Zen garden, the DJ console consists of detachable knobs and faders. These knobs and faders allow the user to freely configure the console and modify it according to his/her taste or the genre they prefer. With fewer buttons, there is a wider space allowing more detailed manipulation, equalization, effector usage, and numerous other functions. The knobs and faders are portable! You can remove and store them in a dedicated case, and carry it around with you, allowing easy access to them anytime, anywhere.

The minimalism and crispness of the Zen garden design, the detachable knobs, and faders all come together to form a beautiful product, which looks exquisite even when not in use. Not to mention it was the winner of the Grand Prize of the K-Design Awards in 2019.  An aesthetic alternative to pre-existing DJ equipment, and not to mention highly functional and portable as well, this is one console that could even get me to try my hand at DJing!

Designers: Byoung Hoon Woo and Su hyun Bang

Pioneer Electronics Unveils Flagship CDJ Player CDJ-2000nexus

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Pioneer has unveiled its new next-generation flagship CDJ player for DJs. The device is called the CDJ-2000nexus. The device has integrated Wi-Fi and when used with the company's rekordbox app for...