Beatbox: Wacom- Not Just a Tablet Manufacturer Anymore.

Wacom is a company that is no stranger to visual artists and graphic designers. For well beyond a decade they have been established as the manufacturer of pen tablets that are the industry standard. Despite the hefty price tag on Wacom's line of professional tablets, including their highly respected Intuos line, people are willing to dish out the big bucks for their unsurpassable build quality, flexibility, and functionality. 

So recently I found out about their new baby: the Nextbeat DJ console. Instantly I found it highly interesting how a niche company known for being the best in breed in one small line of products decided to venture out into the unchartered territory of the DJ/musician market. It sort of makes sense as many creative artists also happen to have a soft spot for music, while at the same time it's almost questionable due to their lack of experience in this market (which changes about as frequently as the average price of fuel over the course of a year). 

Nextbeat is a mid-sized console which has two decks, a sampling device, an info screen, a touch interface that lets you pitch bend/adjust pitch/crossfade/trigger your samples, and a few effects. The cornerstone feature is that the large touch interface (which has 3-band eq's for both channels and your effects devices) can detach from the concole and operate wirelessly via an infrared signal. It appears that Wacom has the performing artist in mind here. You can load your tracks via a CompactFlash card; buying a 16 gig one for less than $50 is no sweat nowadays. It's tentatively slated for release later on this year.

My impressions? As an all-in-one console it looks pretty neat; there are many people out there who are skeptical about using a laptop setup (and the risk of it possibly crashing) during a live performance that the Nextbeat will squarely cater to. It could certainly be a fun tool to use at a wedding or house party and I think your average person will love watching the dj play around with the external touch interface. However for club use, serious mixing and turntablism I don't think the Nextbeat is quite there yet. The touch interface for the crossfader and the pitch control seem kind of awkward. You can only view one waveform at a time on it's small screen, not both simultaneously. The ability to sample and trigger their playback on the touch wheel is pretty cool, but the effects are so run of the mill (flanger, delay, etc) that I don't know why I'm even talking about them! 

Also, I'm impartial to the touch interface and how a DJ can disconnect it/play like an instrument. Some artists will argue that it will add a much needed dimension to a DJ performance that they feel is boring to watch, while traditionalists will argue that it will just make the DJ look like they're trying to show off, thus rendering Nextbeat a toy in the process.

Regardless of how uncertain I am of the Nextbeat under intense performance conditions, it does look like it can be a promising all-in-one console for Wacom. Knowing how quickly DJ technology is evolving however, they will need to establish a supporting market for this thing FAST. If they can't, the unsold Nextbeats will have to be melted down in order to make new Bamboo tablets!

This is the best video I could find of the Nextbeat (although the interviewer gets a little annoying by constantly interrupting the guy giving the demo)- check it out for yourself!