This is all just pure concept, but if DJ Tech Tools were granted permission by vestax to help design a custom VCI that was voted upon by the tech tools communit by us for us what features would you people want? to added or changed to the design? How would it look? What would it feature? How would it stand out over other designs on the market?
[Current list of ideas floating around]
Optional glow in the dark or black light sensitive paint
Optional no mixer design
Optional sound card
Optional Bigger jog wheels
Optional Longer pitch faders
Optional attachable rack mount ears
Optional direct drive motor
Joystick w/deck toggle A, B, or Simultaneous or X/Y pad w/deck toggle A, B, or Simultaneous
Non slip coating on jog wheels/Authentic vinyl feeling
More buttons/pads
Buttons/velocity sensitive pads
Lights
Four deck control (physically) - four of each transport control
Custom overlays
Balanced non-awkward layout.
USB port
and of course the mandatory 3 kitchen sinks w/4 kitchen sinks optional
Not trying to Hijack but can’t we pool together to make one of these ourselves? I know I would love a template for this. It could be a word, illustrator file or whatever.
One touch sensitive USABLE button in the effects section per knob and none none of this splitting it up into A B and master channel crap, at least 8 knobs, 8 buttons, 4 cross faders and two nice long firm faders (like the vci volume faders) per deck just for the effects section alone.
1 xy pad and 1 joystick per deck.
A bigarse drum trigger section - at least 14 nice sized touch sensitive pads (that allow high tempo triplets while not killing the wrist).
3 or 4 Jogs.
Improved open ended midi with like 1000+ intervals not 0-127.
3 octave piano, for those of us who wanna mosh out a synth while the tune is going, for knob/crossfader purposes the piano is considered a deck.
Ill choose my own audio card thanks.
Rows of super bright LED’s on the sides of the unit under a metal housing that shines plenty of light onto the deck.
minimum of 3x4 rows of high performance arcade buttons below the jogs.
Big, heavy and strong enough to beat up a vinyl loving, electronic dj hater with, while still living on to mix another day.
Arcade buttons surrounding both of the decks to control loop sizes
4 kitchen sinks is a must have feature wish I’d thought of that one
I like the X/Y pad idea, but I can’t really see the point of a joystick being necessary if you got a x/y pad anyway. Integrating a few good things from a MPD, Kaos Pad, and VCI would probably be a nice starting point design to work from. One thing to keep in mind is to try to keep the design user space friendly as much as possible at least.
A lot of different ideas might have start making a list of the different ideas then once a bunch are established run a few polls. I wasn’t expecting so many quick responses.
Joysticks naturally return to their center point which makes them particularly handy for pitchbending effects, way better than a jog wheel or a tempo fader. So sayings its to be used in conjunction with the jogs and temp fader, its not a replacement. Different devices pull off different effects better than others, so i like having a slew of different interface devices and choose the best effects to suit the device.
HUGE!! It really depends on the compromises that were made for practicality if we were to try and keep it close to as compact as the standard vci-100/300 designs.
It’s amazing how every DJ controller going today have velocity pads now. I’m not saying it was my idea, but yeah it was my idea. FYI Midi Fighter should consider those new mechanical Cherry switch arcade buttons HBFS-30. Even better yet would be if you could get some of those Razer optical “scissor” switches into a arcade button design like that. Optical is the holy grail on latency and reliability and scissor switches have the least travel. That design would be the most ideal time synchronized perfection. Yeah I’m a necromancer of threads this one needed a bandage applied.
What might people change with a midi hardware controller? Personally I’d combine a Mixer, DJ Controller, Sampler, Groovebox and Multi Effects into one cohesively functionality unit.
4 XLR/TRS inputs (enough 2 stereo hardware synths or 4 mono analog synths oh what fun)
2 XLR/TRS outputs (stereo outputs of course)
2 XLR/TRX AUX send/returns (why not!? Go big or go home!)
Coaxial/Optical input 2 (same and reasons I mean 2 motifs or XV-5080 well that’s a juicy thought)
5-DIN MIDI I/O 1 in 2 out (sequencing 2 pieces of killer synth hardware and input control for a keyboard or whatever fancies you!)
Sampler with overdub and SD storage (BOSS RC-LOOPER/MPC why yes please let’s explore this parallel musical rabbit hole labrynth!)
16 pads velocity pads split into rows of 4 steps and columns of 2
Touch screen for every control you could want or imagine and functionality including step sequencer/piano roll, automation, quantize options, 5 band parametric EQ per input channel plus 10 band graphic EQ output), X/Y pad, 16 track levels, and a cross fader plus other stuff I’m sure I forgot…(like that thing do stuff I want it all)
480 PPQN
96 polyphony 24 part multi-timbral with GM
2 Vinyl style scratch jog wheels
Quick access buttons or encoders for a profile access matrix between touch screen and endless touch encoder knobs controlling different automation functionality and switching
16 endless touch encoders knobs useful for step sequencer and mixer and step effects controls alternating matrix profile flipping allows for accessibility between both them and touch screen control to better prioritize and suit your workflow at a particular moments notice.
