Finding the Rhythm

A new addition to the family

October 25, 2008 at 4:56 pm Leave a comment

I’m a bit late in writing about this, but there’s a new addition to my family. Well, so to speak; no, I’m not a proud father of a bouncing baby, but rather, the proud owner of a shiny new Allen & Heath XONE:4D mixer/controller.

Last December, I acquired a XONE:3D, after lusting over the thing for most of 2007, and saving my pennies and nickels so I could afford to buy one. (It was a lot of pennies and nickels, so much saving was involved.)

Unfortunately, my ownership experience with the 3D wasn’t the best. Within the first month, I returned home from a gig to find most of the unit dead when I hooked it back up in my studio. Three weeks of being without it later (shipped off to get repaired), it was fine… For awhile, and then suddenly it started having a number of minor but annoying problems that slowly became more major over time.

Ordinarily, that might make me want to dump the thing and try something else. But most any digital DJ who’s tried a XONE:3D probably feels as I do: You’d have to pry this thing from my cold, dead fingers to get it away from me.

To make a long and sordid story a bit shorter, I actually did get rid of the XONE:3D, but not before using a replacement 3D for a few months, finding it perfectly reliable and robust, and making me even more confident that my original 3D was, simply, a lemon. It happens, even with the best of products I suppose.

I got rid of the 3D, yes. However, the day I did so was the day I got a new XONE:4D. The 4D addresses a number of the 3D’s technical shortcomings, and adds some great new capabilities, but otherwise retains everything I loved about the 3D. To get the 4D away from me, you’d not only have to pry off my cold, dead fingers, but figure out how to unchain it from my cold, dead body.

Honestly, I just can’t imagine DJ’ing any other way.

My full review of the XONE:4D and its improvements over the 3D is coming out in DJ Times in the November issue, which will hit newsstands and subscribers’ mailboxes in the next couple of weeks.

Entry filed under: DJ Wesley Personal. Tags: Allen & Heath, DJ Times, XONE:3D, XONE:4D.