Last summer, I reviewed the Tonium Pacemaker, which is a great little tool for a new DJ or hobbyist. Recently, I got my hands on some more serious hardware, the EKS Otus.
What Is EKS Otus?
The Otus is a way to get more hands on with your digital DJing. I see a lot of DJs with software and many with traditional decks, but how many mix the two? I don’t know, but that’s just what the Otus does. For DJs comfortable with their craft and who have good software to mix their music, the Otus gives them hands on control. For people like me, it makes DJing easier.
What It Does And How To Us It
EKS has some pretty user-friendly instructions on their web site to get everything set up, but I still had some problems getting it going, even after I realized that I needed to map all the channels per the instructions. Eventually, I found that I just needed to make sure I started the EKS Midi Agent first, then Deckadance, then plugged in the Otus via USB. The USB is also the power source, so my testing consisted of just my laptop with it’s power cable, headphones, USB to the Otus, and the Otus, itself. For such a device, it’s really portable for a DJ who travels. The Otus should fit nicely in a backpack with a laptop.
Some of it’s capabilities, it seems, are going to depend on the software you pair it up with. As long as you have the right software, however, it does just about anything I could imagine a DJ needing to do with music. The most prominent feature is the 7.5 inch jog wheel that lets you adjust pitch by touching on the outside or scratch by touching the surface while spinning. To the left of the jog wheel I found the master volume and cross-fade control knobs. Above those were the left track control knobs for bass, mid, treble, and headphone volume. The top right of this device has the same four knobs for the right track. Below the right track control knobs are seven loop control buttons to trap or release a loop and control how long or short it is. Below these knobs is a pitch ribbon with a button to adjust the scale. On the bottom left, opposite the pitch ribbon is a set of general playback control buttons, including three to remix on the spot. Dead center at the bottom is the layer control button and directly above it at bottom center is a touch pad with two mouse buttons and a set of six programmable action buttons. On the back is the USB connection, headphone jack, analog RCA outputs for both virtual decks, and S/PDIF outputs for both virtual decks, as well. The whole thing rests on four pointed rubber feet to minimize vibration interference.
For this review, I downloaded and installed something called Deckadance (per instruction from the EKS web site), which was only a time-limited demo. I’m not sure if it’s the Club or House version, but either way, the purchase price of $99 or $179, respectively, seemed worth it. It would be nice to see some basic free software packaged with the Otus, but I imagine this device’s target customer will already have something like Deckadance in use. A professional DJ might also have been able to do a lot more than I did with the Otus, but I still got plenty of action out of it.
Of course, there’s the basics, like messing with the EQ controls, cross-fade and cue points, but there’s also some pretty cool controls like the three buttons to the left of the play/pause button that accessed randomly configured reloopers which could also be mapped out very specifically if needed via the software. I was able to program each differently for varying effects. With Deckadance, I was able to have six different reloopers set up, three for each deck. The loop control buttons also made it very easy to set up a loop, and adjust the length as it loops. Between the reloopers, the jog wheel, and the loop controls, I was able to create some familiar effects that actually sounded decent, if I do say so myself.
Everything is lit up green or red, depending on what track you’re controlling, and looks pretty cool. It would also be very helpful in a dark club, especially since some of the control buttons are pretty small and close together. One of the more unique features of the Otus is the four control wheels placed handily at its corners. They can be programmed to meet your own needs such as rapid movement through a track, file and folder selection, pitch and volume. While I didn’t use these a lot in my testing, they came in handy when I did use them with one exception. I found myself turning to the track pad to mouse through my track lists rather than use one of these control wheels because it was faster and felt more natural.
Also programmable, as mentioned previously were the six action buttons. I used these for recalling cue points, but they had far more possibilities, many I didn’t even have time to touch on. These were actually touch pads rather than buttons, so you had to either hear what you expected or watch for it on your laptop. Similarly, the pitch ribbon was a touch sensitive pad, which made precision a little tricky.
Final Thoughts
Although I was able to keep the EKS Otus for a lot longer than expected, holidays and other circumstances prevented me from giving it the time it really deserved and after using it, I really wanted to hold on to it longer. What I did experience was nothing short of magical, even if it could use a couple minor adjustments like the placement of the headphone jack or the tiny loop control buttons. For the price, it’s worth it, but only if you’re going to put it to good use as a pro or just have the money to spend. Portable, powerful, and good looking, I’d say any professional DJ should add this to his or her arsenal.
I’m no DJ, but I know cool tech when I see it, and when I was sent a Tonium Pacemaker to review, I had a good feeling I’d like it. The Pacemaker is essentially a music player with dual outputs, a large hard drive, and mixing capabilities crammed into a tiny package. It’s like a DJ’s travel kit. Having mostly no clue how to really DJ, I decided to enlist the help of local musician and club DJ, Brian Forge for this review.
It’s got the look
Part of being a DJ is your image and who doesn’t want hardware that looks cool? From the pacemaker itself right down to every detail of the packaging, Tonium put out a great looking product. When you open the box, everything in it is in it’s own special place and in it’s own smaller black box, including the user manual which is also black and made to look cool. This thing oozes cool every step of the way. The Pacemaker is all black and it’s small… like, cell phone small. Well, maybe a little bigger than my iPhone, but for DJ equipment, that’s not much of a footprint.
Immediately noticeable are the two main components of the Pacemaker on its face: the display on top and the touch control on the bottom. The color display packs in a lot of information while you’re mixing, and looks pretty good. The touch interface is pretty smooth after you figure it out. Before you figure it out, it’s pretty frustrating trying to make anything happen, but it doesn’t take long to learn. Between the display and the touch pad is a touch slider to control the blending of the left and right tracks and with it are some more controls. On the side is a button that you can slide up for the headphone output. One end has the output and power jacks while the other end has the power button, a menu button, and the USB port. Inside this tiny package they’ve crammed a 60GB hard drive and I’ve seen other reviews with claims of 120GB drives.
The software and community Speaking of the internal hard drive, that’s where the software for your laptop or desktop is kept. No CD needed. Just plug the Pacemaker in and it prompts you to install the mix software on your PC. Don’t try it on Windows 7 RC1, though, because Brian did and it did not play very nice. It’s not an official release of the OS, so I didn’t expect it to. On XP, however, the software installed and offered some pretty cool features. It did have some problems dealing with us loading up the same track multiple times and trying to overlap it, but it also smartly prevented us from adding conflicting affects to the same spot on the timeline. The software, like the Pacemaker, is well-designed and has a lot to offer the rising DJ.
Better still is the mix community. Tonium is plans for this device to not replace all the expensive pro equipment, but rather to provide an open doorway for amateur DJs and those of us who just want to play. One of the great things about the device is that, aside from the obvious loading of tracks onto the Pacemaker, you can import and export mixes, completely layered with the cue points and blends you or another mixer created. So let’s say you throw down an awesome mix and you’re proud of it and want to share. You can export the mix to your computer and upload it to the mix site where others can listen, download and rate it. How’s that for community interaction? If it’s good enough, your mix might get featured and linked to from the newsletter. The mix site is a great idea that will surely help some newbies feel more comfortable with the Pacemaker.
Forge to the rescue
When found this thing in my mail box, my first thought was of how cool it was and if I could keep it (sadly, no), and my second thought was, “I’m not a DJ. How am I going to really review the capabilities of this thing?” So I called in a DJ. Brian Forge has been DJing for a long time and has been asked to guest DJ in other cities and over the weekend, he was nice enough to drop by the office for a few hours and try out the Pacemaker.
The Pacemaker is a great little piece of equipment. It features many, if not more, features than you find with standard CDJ units. All the basics are covered and there are many other FX available to play with. The interface does take some time to get used to though. I only had a short time to familiarize myself with the features and functions but as I caught on, I was able to navigate rather well. I could easily see myself using this while traveling. Whether to practice certain mixes, experiment with ideas, or even practicing and keeping myself entertained, this would come in handy. I do feel there are certain limitations though. I was not impressed with the way their cue system is set up. It makes it difficult to properly set cue points. It is a bit cumbersome to navigate a track once you set a cue point and even more difficult to reset one once it is laid. As with CDJs, you can only lay down one cue point at a time. Because navigation is a bit tricky, controllerism is a moot point with the Pacemaker. You will not be able to scratch or bring in FX on the fly. You have to hit the switch, and perform the most accurate of finger movements to just bring up the right FX, let alone control them. However the touch interface does seem to work well for basic DJing. Especially the crossfader. With proper practice, the sensitivity allows for some clean and accurate cutting between tracks.
Overall, I think this is an amazing little device. The limitations I have seen I believe are purely because of how hard it is to pack everything in to such a small, sleek little package. I definitely see myself wanting to pick one up as a “toy” and as a backup device, should my primary decks fail. I could easily see this being used by DJs on the road, by rising DJs honing their skills on the fly, and even people that host parties who want a DJ without going through the effort of hiring a professional.
Thanks, again, to Brian for his insight.
Conclusions
The first thing I think about is the price. It’s not exactly cheap, but it’s not expensive by comparison, either. For an aspiring DJ, it’s a pretty good price and a nice portable device. For a pro, it’s a great travel companion, like Brian said. If nothing else, you could save a mix and DJ a party at the drop of a hat. The usefulness of it seems to stop just short of professional needs, but is pretty complete for a beginner and I really enjoyed the amount of attention Tonium payed to details ever step of the way. Definitely worth the money if you have it to spare.
