Before I jump in to the topic at hand, why not turn one of these tracks on to listen to before you read on? KillaMC sent me a newer track of his a few weeks back and haven’t gotten around to posting it until now and Damaged Good$ just dropped a new track earlier this week.

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Damaged Good$ – We Hate Damaged Good$ Too [Download from BandCamp]

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KillaMC – Flow On

I’m glad I fought the urges to buy a Vestax VCI-300 and waited to see what came out of NAMM. The xone:DX is similar to the xone:4D, but it’s built to take advantage of Serato Itch. When compared to the VCI-300 the only thing the VCI-300 does better is the jog wheels. The jogs on the DX are fairly small even as MIDI controllers go, but I’m sure I’ll manage. Everything else about the unit has me excited for its March release. Twenty channel USB 2.0 soundcard, manipulation of all 4 channels in Itch via the two onboard jog wheels, built in FX, inputs for turntables or two line-level devices. In one word, huge.

A twenty channel sound card!? That is insane, compound that with the ability to plug in vinyl turntables or line-level devices (iPods, CDJs, Kaossilators, etc.) and you’ve got the piece of DJ hardware that I’m most excited for this year. Wait, there’s more. Not only is the DX fully Itch compatible, but it is able to be used to control OTHER DJ software. Want to use Scratch Live or Traktor instead of Itch? You got it (although you’ll still have to have the Serato box plugged in to unlock the software). Xone really delivers here with the xone:DX and as soon as this thing ships I’m going to be addicted to the thing. Depending on how well it works as a standalone mixer, the DX may even take its place as the centerpiece of my daily DJ setup. Jump to the bottom of the post to check out a YouTube video demo of the DX that Skratchworx posted.

Hey Xone, it’s your friend Eric. I F@#$ING LOVE YOU!

PS: Rane you better unlock 4 channel SSL even if the old SL-1 box is plugged in. Sure, the SL-1 only supports 2 output channels, but the DX supports all 4.