So I'm walking down the aisles of the central hall in the Las Vegas
convention center for CES 2007, and I stumble upon the Numark/ION
booth. I see speakers, MIDI controllers, people playing keyboards
and drums, seems like a fun booth, especially after countless
displays of wireless chips and iPod accessories. Let's see what
else they have. Cool, they have the iCUE, a new DJ controller! It
looks a lot better than M-Audio's
X-Session Pro, with blue and red backlighting (one color
for each deck). On the booth, it's connected to a desktop Windows
PC but nothing seems to work. Fair enough, maybe they don't want
people to mess with the settings. On the screen is the Numark DJ
app that uses the same color cues as the interface, nice. A quick
look at the facts sheet tells me it only runs on Windows. Bummer, I
really wanted one... but wait, what's that picture on the top of
the booth? An iCue, connected to a Powerbook 12"!!! So it's not
using BootCamp or Parallels, it must be OS X. I ask the first
person I see that seems to be in charge of that booth section: "Can
the controller and software work on both Windows and OS X?". I can
tell by the way the guy looks at me that
a/ he didn't
understand the question at all, and
b/ he's going to BS me
big time. "Uhhh, well you can turn the knobs to change the way you
scratch the music" he says. "Sorry Sir, I meant: can it run on a
Windows PC and an Apple computer?" I fire back. "Oh, yes it uses
MP3s, and what you play on your computer". I was speechless! Why
couldn't he just say "Shhh, I have no idea what you're talking
about, but let's keep that between you and me, I have a family to
feed", or "I don't know, but let me ask someone who is more
familiar with this product line". Hopeless...
If you go on the ION website, you'll get the
same confusing
message: Powerbook picture with "DirectX compatible soundcard"
requirements. Come on ION, there are cool looking non-Apple laptops
out there! UseSony Vaios, or a UMPC, but don't confuse your
audience! If you want sexy laptops, port your stuff to sexy
laptops. Ni's doing it, M-Audio's doing it, why can't you?
CreateDigitalMotion (a great blog BTW) has a
good coverage of the Numark VJ'ing solution, whose
controller seems awfully similar to the iCue, and they mention
cross-platform support. Let's hope the same will materialize at
NAMM for the iCue. I'll definitely keep an eye open for USB DJ
solutions at the next NAMM, it seems companies are finally taking
notice of this market opportunity.
CreateDigitalMusic
(another great blog) has already posted some really interesting
infos about upcoming NI and M-Audio products.
