Key Of Grey

Photo courtesy of Mixman

February 15th, 2009 – Following yesterday’s post on new gear, I figured I’d post about my old gear. As regular readers of this site know, I’m looking to get into digital DJing and have been researching software platforms like Torq, Traktor, Scratch Live, Ableton Live, among others.

Since I’m not rolling around in piles of money, I’m exploring free solutions, and the re-purposing of older resources. One of the free software titles that I’ve been looking closely at, is Mixxx. Mixxx is an open source alternative to the software I listed earlier. I’ve heard good things about it, and have been eager to try it.

What makes it ideal for me, other than the free aspect, is that it supports a diverse range of  hardware controllers. One of the interesting ones it supports is the Mixman DM2. Mixman and I go way back. Back in the late 90′s, Josh Gabriel of the group Gabriel & Dresden created the Mixman software. I can’t think of any other music software that triggered loops live at that time. The Mixman was sort of like the MPC of software. You could trigger loops using your computer keyboard, and load up sample packs. Although the software was limited, it was a lot of fun. They eventually released a dedicated USB MIDI controller to work with the software, the DM2.

The DM2 has a several trigger buttons arranged around the inner surface of the jog wheels. There’s a joystick to control effects, a cross-fader, and transport. While it was more a toy than a tool to release hit records, it was a lot of fun. I bought one and then, like many things I buy, it languished in a dusty closet.

Fast forward to a few month ago when I started seriously researching DJ MIDI controllers and imagine my surprise when I found out people have re-purposed the old DM2 controller for use in programs like Mixxx. So you may be thinking to yourself how this affects you since the product wasn’t that big a success and it’s 10 years later. Well, you can still find brand new units on Ebay and, here’s the best part, you can find many for $40 or sometimes less. That’s a very inexpensive MIDI controller.

I’m still working out the kinks with Mixxx right now (in OSX, the MIDI mapping for the DM2 is broken in the newest version of Mixxx, while my Windows machine doesn’t support OpenGL, and consequently crashes the software). I’m going to install it on Crunchbang Linux and see if that will work. In the meantime, I quickly loaded up Ableton Live and verified that MIDI signals were being picked up, so if you’re interested, you could create a nice map for the DM2.

I think it’s great that there are people out there that are interested in making obsolete gear like the DM2 useful again. Check the Mixxx forums for links to free software that allows you to make your DM2 software agnostic if you have one. Bring one out to a gig and I guarantee that you’ll be unique. Are you using gear in ways other than what it was originally designed for?

Mixman DM2

Mixxx