Sónar 2011 report + Twitch news

[MrPopinjay]

You forgot 8 channel. Silly engishpint.

[Dustin V]

Thanks for the awesome review mate, you really answered a lot of questions regarding this controller.

I've now narrowed it down to either getting the Twitch or the Reloop Jockey 3 ME. They both look like excellent controllers, and viable alternatives to the S4. I'm torn between them. I sold my S4 last week, and am now looking into the next best thing.

I read that you also checked out the Jockey 3, after checking both out (lucky bastard ) So which one did you think was the overall better controller? For my needs the controller needs to be well built, professional, excellent sound card, versatile and compact.

We seem to have similar interests in controllers, so what are your thoughts between the 2 mate? Cheers.

[fullenglishpint]

My pleasure I started out thinking I would write a couple of paragraphs then ended up with 3 full posts lol.

so you want:

well built, professional, excellent sound card, versatile and compact.

For me that sums up the Twitch. The size and layout are very good, compact but not cramped. For me, jogwheels are pretty much redundant having used the touchstrip. They take up a lot of room and don't do a hell of a lot more than you can with the touchstrip (and in terms of versatility, its different use in the performance modes is excellent).

I do like Reloop controllers, and there's no doubt the Jockey 3 is very good. Its jogs feel great physically, but there are the problems raised by Ean in the review a couple of weeks ago. Maybe they'll be fixed by a firmware update, who knows. For my purposes, the Jockey 3 is a bit too big and has a bit too much going on with all those button layers and firmware modifiers. It's probably a little better suited to Traktor FX usage with the extra encoders along the top, but then again both of us have X1s for that purpose if needed.

I guess they're just 2 very different approaches. The Jockey tries to be everything to everyone by offering as many controls as they could possibly fit onto the unit, but in my opinion it's a bit overdone. The Twitch on the other hand won't control absolutely everything, but has a very streamlined workflow and does what it does well. As I mentioned in the review, with the 4 performance modes of the pads and touchstrip as well as customiseable LED colours on the pads, the Traktor mapping possibilities are pretty juicy.

The Twitch is definitely the one for me, but what you want only you can decide!

[MiL0]

needs 4 channels imo

but its tempting

[MrPopinjay]

The twitch or the reloop thing?

[Cook]

imo, twitch looks terrible for 4 deck mixing, juss sayin.

[fullenglishpint]

imo, twitch looks terrible for 4 deck mixing, juss sayin.

It's totally the wrong controller for 4 deck mixing. Luckily, that doesn't affect me

[MrPopinjay]

Oh yeah I really do agree, but I don't feel it was ever designed for it.

The Reloop 3 thing on the other hand, I really feel it would benefit immensely from a 4 channel mixer section rather than a shitty 2 channel one with a switch. It just seems odd that while it's largely trying to crowbar as many traktor features in as possible in a 1 to 1 manner (rather than the interesting and creative mappings the twitch seems to be designed for) it has 4 deck mixing bundled almost as an afterthought.

[willinfluence]

Great reviews!
Wish I could of made it to Sonar, oh well maybe next year

[MiL0]

The twitch or the reloop thing?

The Twitch... would make it a far more competitive with the S4 (for Traktor dj's anyway).

As it is, it's just a VCI-100 replacement with a built in soundcard... good enough, but nothing too exciting (for me at least).