Novation Twitch- Big hit or Twitchy failure?

DJ Gear & Hardware Hardware: Controllers, Mods and Gear
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Novation Twitch- Big hit or Twitchy failure?

Hi guys,
As you may have seen, Ean just posted the new article about novation’s jog-wheel free controller, the twitch. This is certainly taking a step forward in innovating the genre of controllerism, and I was wondering what was the TechTools’ Community take on this?

To start this all off- I’ll give my 2 cents

It is stunning. The touch strips provide all the function of a jogwheel that a controllerist needs. Searching through tracks to set cue points is just fine with them. Heck, this would even be fine for mix-dj’ing. Anyway, it’s not like a controller is optimal for scratching- leave that to the vinyl heads The pads reminisce of an lpd8, but they are smaller and they are triggers. I hope that they would provide similar tactility to arcade buttons.. If not, is it able to be modded to do so? Then to the slicing and looping.

I absolutely adore the slicing feature! Especially with the dynamic, illuminated touch strips. The dynamic touch strips are a favorite. Unlike the strip search touch strips on numark’s NS7 or V7, these actually move to the song, so you don’t get the whole song on one strip. This is perfect for fine searching and movements.

The soundcard looks alright as well, with standard RCA outs and ins come no surprises. Possibly single turntable timecode support? That would be fun, as well as maybe plugging in a kaoss pad as well? I especially like the separate master and booth outs.

Another thing to stand out to me- Look Ma, Only two decks! I personally don’t mind this at all. I in fact appreciate it as a sign of welcoming for controllerists. Instead of managing 4 decks at once, you have 2, so you can go deep into controllerism instead of juggling 4 decks. Just bite off what you can chew, and make the most out of it.

Now, we dj’s need to monitor our music right? The direct monitor feature is a nice welcome. Another thing- From the previews- it looks like a stereo mini headphone jack in addition to the standard quarter inch! I can now use my other headphones for home listening to monitor here with no adapter of any kind! For me, this controller is a one shot deal. I would use it everywhere, because it accommodates my needs perfectly.

Who knows what awesome re-mappings the DJTT Community will do!
Speaking of mappings. This controller is for ITCH- Serato’s game here. However, it would be awesome for it to be re-mapped to TP2, possibly using the extra slice features for extra FX controls. In the end- I could more than live with ITCH for the functionality this controller offers. Software aside, this is definitely going to be a one and done deal for me. One controller could handle all my needs. Whether it be mashing beats, or mixing and getting the party started, the Twitch is perfect for me!

To sum it up, this is a very dangerous idea novation gambled on, and I think the gamble paid off! Even though this isn’t the first touch strip controller, this is one that has potential to be used by the masses of controllerist dj’s!

Novation- If you’re reading, Can i have a review unit to test out? :smiley:

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You realize this isnt the first jogwheel free unit. Vestax TR-1

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It helps

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revised accordingly :slight_smile:

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Definitely gonna be a winrar for me

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Yea… That’s pretty awesome… Only downside is the lack of arcade buttons. Depending on how good the Traktor mapping is and if DJTT releases a mapping will be the determining factor for me, because Itch is great, but I’m still on Traktor. The built in soundcard is a big plus for me, simply because it eats up one less USB and offers some ease of us (especially with the mic).

I’m pretty damn excited, although I’m only going to buy it if I can find a way to use mai midifighters alongside it because I love them way too much to give them up.

Edit: I don’t know why, but this seems to blow the S4 out of the water for me. Maybe there will be some outstanding flaw in the end, but this has way too much personality for half the price.

Edit Edit: Sharing:

I don’t like the Traktor Mapping, maybe DJTT can fix that, but if not I’m still tempted to give this a shot in Itch T-T

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bcr2000. :wink:

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Or even the Oxygen8. :wink:

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Basically every “non DJ” piece of MIDI equipment out there :stuck_out_tongue:

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BCR is amazing and I’m starting to miss my Oxygen 25…

On a very very random note, Tekki, has your title always been “Adminerator?” I just not noticed that.

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I don’t come on these forums very often anymore but I am always looking at the articles they post on the main page.
when I saw this I new there was gonna be a thread on it so I had to check it out
I
personally think that the whole idea of this board is cool, but i personally just don’t like the fact that one of the main parts of Djing (beatmatching) has been reduced down to a button. and it is a must for this controller. I’ve never supported the sync button and never will.
I absolutely love the pads and all the functions it has I feel like in future models of a lot of controllers we’re going to see a lot more of these pads. or atleast the style
I just upgraded to a pioneer DDJ S1 and the one thing that bugs me are the hot cue buttons. they’re so damn small, all I use them for is for markers but not really cues.

all around I think it’s gonna be a good board. it’s going to let the user focus mainly on making his/her mixes better, without all the fundamentals. this could be bad, this could be good. personally it’s a bit of both

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That’s the point of the tempo knob and touchstrip. All the functionality seems to be there, it’s just formatted differently.

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This controller targets a different audience, I don’t consider it lacking.

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Wait… At 0:44 on the release video he says it will work with ableton live… Want to see more on that…

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Itch Bridge, maybe the hotcues buttons will turn into the little red square in Live, that would be handy.

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Wondering if this would provide any big advantages over a mixer, external soundcard and an x1? (in a Traktor situation) I couldn’t spot any major features / controls that you would gain?

If they’re provide the same purpose, that’s fine, I was just curious on the comparison of the set-ups.

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Less wires, FaderFX, the slicer, bigger buttons (for the bottom area), smaller setup in general, touch-strips, and user friendly layout (instead of user customizable). That’s the way it looks to me, but if your doing mixing and mixing alone (nothing fancy with FX or remixing) then there’s isn’t much of a difference at all for you (you would even surrender a few outputs).

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I think this controller is quite literally full of win. The more i read about it and think about it, the more I like it.

For one thing, £399 is pretty reasonable, around the same as the VCImk1 was, but you also get a free piece of very good software with it. I’m a total Traktor fanboy, but I like a lot of things about itch and hell it’s always nice to have options.

The big pad buttons look great, with multi coloured LEDs for all the feedback you could ever want. I’m assuming (indeed, hoping) that the 4 performance mode selectors are firmware based so they give you different midi notes on the pads and you don’t have to mess about with modifiers to achieve multiple functions (like the midi fighter 4 banks mode, without which the instant gratification mapping would be impossible).

I was worried initially about pitch control but i see they’ve put knobs there for that very purpose, I hope they’re smooth running and not X1 style stepped encoders, which are great for browsing and loops but not pitch control.

Working VU meters in traktor is something vestax took a fucking lifetime to sort out on the VCI-300 and I’m glad it’s working here from the get go.

Since i bought my VCI, this is the first controller that i can honestly say is tempting me to switch. I thought I’d never find anything I loved more! I guess it’s partly the fact that those big touch strips are a real viable alternative to jogwheels for track browsing and pitch bending but in a much smaller space. I’ll want to have a good hands on look first, to see what the pads and touch strips feel like, but I’m really liking this on the information we have.

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yea-if you look at the beginning of the main twitch video, you can see abelton on the laptop screen…

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I am definitely interested in this unit. I could see myself rocking one of these as a nice portable party unit.