Official info on the Kontrol Z2!

**erpi** · 10-09-2012, 11:47 PM

and so dear smitten...

**DJSigma** · 10-10-2012, 08:28 AM

Originally Posted by rdej47

Can anyone confirm if the line faders are scratch worthy (nice and loose)? I still dream of my sold Rane TTM-56s those faders were untouchable.

Someone on my forum posted their impressions after playing around with one at BPM: -

The good: -

I'm shocked at how amazing the xfade feels, you seriously couldn't tell that it wasn't a full on innofade pro.

The bad: -

Stiff line fades, seriously can some one tell me which main stream gear had stiff line fades 5 - 6 years back? Why in recent times do more and more manufacturers keep nursing mixing dj's in to thinking they can't control a free flowing line fader? As Chriss points out the Z2 line fades aren't the worst/stiffest but its a total waste of innofaders. Basically it's a two channel mixer you can scratch on rather than an actual scratch mixer.

And outside of the faders, here's the rest of what he said: -

The good: -

The work flow and traktor features are minimal but heavily performance orientated. I love the clutter free layout. IMO this is where NI shine on all there hardware, despite some heavy weight features the learning curve on NI hardware is pretty minimal compared to other similar gear.

The single super fx knob and new macro fx do plenty in terms of replacing the need for a dedicated fx controller like the X1. They've basically hijacked the midi fighter super knob theory.

Post fade fx option was a serious must, this isn't just a biggie for those who mix internally, it also means you can still have post fade fx while also being able to assign fx to individual sample slots rather than the whole remix deck.

The bad: -

PLASTIC POTS! What a huge let down but no real surprise, £700 ish quid for a mixer and in less than two years the heavily used pots, Bass, Filter and Fx will feel the same as the pots on my sold X1, shit! Personally I'd happily pay more for metal pots but NI know full well most of there customers would rather pay less because thats the nature of the 3 year shelf life time we currently live in.

Stoopid gloss fingerprint magnet finish, at the end of sunday the Z2 looked like someone had been eating fish & chips of it, but worse still was it took only two days of BPM usage for the white paint marking's around fade to rub off.

Impossible to sample ya self cutting, the Z2 controls tractor DVS only via (anti post fade sampling) internal mode, meaning my long wait for an improved loop recorder experience continues. Maybe there just waiting for cross product integration and Maschine will take charge of live sampling duties, I say this because the loop recorder has been well and truly left behind in terms of updates since early versions of T2.

And ultimately he seemed to be in agreement with me: -

Like you I wish NI just made a version that wasn't so compromised to keep costs down.