- It's old news that these days spinning vinyl has become something of an stodgy practice, championed largely by the lovingly classicist, defiantly low-tech or the fashionably retro. With the increased roll-out of four-deck software and hardware like Allen&Heath's latest unit, the Xone:DX, however, it's only a matter of time before the idea of only mixing two songs at once becomes as quaint as the thought of using circles of grooved wax to produce sound.
Produced in close concert with Serato so that it could be directly integrated with Serato's ITCH software, the DX unit juggles four decks with enough ease that it's possible to temporarily forget that DJing started off in a two-deck universe. The DX appears to be a successor to the Vestax VCI-300, the previous integrated ITCH controller, thus like the VCI you get straightforward, out of the box plug-and-play action. Whereas the VCI has a minimalist, Apple computer-like visage, however, the DX appears stout and bold, coated in armor-like grey-blue and sporting a matrix of black controls. The biggest step in performance that the DX takes beyond the VCI is that it offers the possibility of controlling ITCH on four decks for the first time.
The DX and ITCH get along with the sort of effortless harmony you'd expect with direct integration. If, however, you're already committed to different mixing software, Traktor Scratch Pro, for example, you'll need to spend a bit more time on the set-up side of things, mapping hardware to software controls via MIDI. (This can be done manually or with the aid of a downloadable .tsi midi-map file.) Traktor aficionados may want to consider the DX's formidable kin, the Xone:4D, as it is Traktor Scratch certified, or, outside the Allen&Heath universe, the Traktor Kontrol S4, itself only recently unveiled to the market and perhaps the only real rival to the DX as a four-deck digital DJ system.
On the whole it would be fair to regard the DX as a kind of dialed-down version of Xone's 4D unit. In addition to bearing a similarly sleek appearance, the DX boasts a 10x10 sound card that rivals the one found on the 4D; the overall sound quality is impressive and full, offering particularly strong lows and mids. The unbalanced output is solid as well, perhaps the only limitation on the DX in terms of audio quality is the mic gain, which seems a tad low. Compared to the 4D the DX is slighter in size, price tag and breadth of control; the biggest difference between these two units, though, is that the DX is merely a MIDI/USB controller.
Unlike its beefier cousin, the DX cannot also act as a standalone mixer, thus to utilize the DX's ample number of external analog inputs you've got to have it jacked into some software. Any external signal will be threaded through the DX's soundcard to be processed at 24bit/96kHz (meaning no quality loss for digital audio), with the exception of a direct minijack, useful for an mp3 player in case you have a mid-gig equipment meltdown and need to smooth things over as you reboot. In a nice touch, any external signal is subject to the gain, EQ, fader and FX of its respective channel.
The primary performance advantage that the newer DX wields over the 4D is its size. For the most part Allen&Heath have done a commendable job in scaling the components of their heavier mixers like the 4D down to a DJ-bag sized, gig-ready machine, measuring around 50 mm deep but still packing four channels, decks and ITCH controls. While it is undeniably compact and self-contained, there are two drawbacks that keep the DX from being an ideal travel companion: it's heavy, and it's kind of dark. The weight is to be expected given the amount of technology the DX is packing. The low amount of LED feedback produced by the unit is more questionable, given that it's most often going to be deployed in fairly low-light circumstances, i.e. a dark DJ booth. The DX's semi-gloss finish also means that what overhead light is available will reflect and possibly further interfere with reading the LEDs.
For the most part the controls on the DX are high-quality, well placed and pretty responsive. The exceptions to this are the two jog wheels: they're a bit on the wee side, and they're neither touch nor pressure-sensitive, meaning scratching and similar modes of mixing tricks are rather off the table. It's most likely Allen&Heath's drive to produce a highly compact piece of gig gear that has resulted in these slightly underwhelming wheels; one only has to think of the mighty discs sported by the VCI-300 as a point of comparison.
Modest wheels, however, would have meant a larger and more costly unit, and given the musculature of the DX as a whole they shouldn't be taken as a dealbreaker. The unit functions well even if you're never going to become the next Q-Bert on it. The challenge of portability has also affected the traditional turntable pitch fader, which presumably due to space limitation has been replaced by a push-action knob, a two-stage rotary encoder that delivers either coarse or fine pitch adjustment and is accordingly mapped in ITCH.
ITCH's four virtual decks are handled by the "dual-layer" capacity of each DX deck. A large dedicated layer button allows you to toggle between decks one and two on the left and three and four on the right, and a visual correspondence of each respective virtual deck with either a green or red light that lets you know where you stand at all times. These lights are a well-considered touch, greatly aiding the DJ in the task of rapidly processing a shifting network of sonic and visual cues.
Above the decks you find the loop section. Perhaps no part of a MIDI-USB controller inspires more analog versus digital DJing debate, because it's in the loop section that the controversial beat sync button can be found. Whatever your thoughts on the matter, it's hard to ignore that when the craft of beat-matching gets substituted by a button, the DJ's brain and hands are freed up for other things. In the case of the DX, this will most likely be exploring the at-times dizzying possibilities of sound collage opened up by the unit's four digital, loopable channels with onboard effects. There's plenty to twiddle here, from hard-cutting three-band EQs to the two banks of FX controls, with each bank connected to a scrollable list of possible FX on ITCH. A rotary loop-length knob makes it quite easy to expand and contract the number of bars, which can contribute in no small degree to fluidity in a loop-centric mix.
Setups like the DX-ITCH coupling further herald the rise of a DJ world where individual tracks matter less and less, becoming raw fodder for an increasingly elaborate arsenal of devices that verge on instant-remix machines. The DX's ease of use, solid beat-matching and loop-making abilities make it an inviting means to carve up your music files all over again, even though its price tag might still make you pause before swiping your credit card. In the end, it's ITCH DJs who are converts to the four-deck path who stand to benefit the most from a DX, as there simply isn't another ITCH controller out there that compares. Considering the unit's competitors outside the world of ITCH, it's not difficult to imagine that the DX, despite minor design drawbacks, could become a standard of measurement in the still-Wild West of four-deck controllers.
Ratings:
EASE OF USE: 4/5
COST: 3.5/5
SOUND: 4.5/5
BUILD: 4/5