Someone told us the other day that real DJs are analog. While we’re huge fans of the warm sound of vinyl, we’re pretty sure this person has never lugged 15 crates of albums up four flights of stairs, only to have to return to the van to get the turntables and mixer. While some DJs are visiting the chiropractor for their back problems, Tonium introduces the Pacemaker 666. This handheld portable mixer might not replace a full kit for pros, but for hobbyists—or even club DJs looking to, um, mix things up for a while—the Pacemaker stays on-beat.
The Pacemaker crams all the features a DJ could want into a handheld system. In fact, every time we thought we had mastered the device, along came another feature to throw into the mix. The Pacemaker replaces knobs and sliders with a few buttons and a touchpad—mastering the controls requires learning lots of button-touchpad combo moves, which can be a bit confusing at first.
The rechargeable Pacemaker holds 60GB worth of tunes and supports an alphabet soup of file formats, including MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC, and more. The device ships with a desktop audio mixing application that also syncs music to the portable. The software analyzes your music for BPM and will import all your compatible tracks from iTunes.
Hold the Pacemaker in one hand, pop bubbles with the other.
The round touchpad is the main interface item on the Pacemaker. You navigate lists, control the pitch, BPM, echo, reverb, and a host of other features from the touchpad. For the most part we had very few issues with the touchpad. There were a couple of times when we had to swipe a few times to get a feature to activate. Not a huge issue, but it did disrupt our flow twice. And you should know better than to disrupt a DJ’s flow.
You hold the device in your left hand, so your thumb can activate a three-position switch on the left side of the device, which is used in concert with the touchpad to issue various commands. It’s a great setup if you’re right-handed, but lefties might find it awkward.
The audio ports on the bottom of the device are both 1/8-inch audio connections. If you’re using pro headphones with a 1/4-inch connection, you have to use a 1/4-inch to 1/8-inch adapter, which can present problems. The ports are too close together for some adapters.
Mixing, fading, adding effects, it’s all seamless once you get used to the Pacemaker 666, which allows an unprecedented amount of control for a handheld device. Once you master the Pacemaker’s controls, you can simultaneously rock the party while shaking your groove thing. Novices will appreciate the auto-syncing feature, which can match BPMs for you. And the Pacemaker can save your mixes on-the-fly and send them back to your computer for further editing or sharing.
Incredible amount of features for a device this small. Supports a wide variety of music formats. Save your mixes as you create them.
Could be difficult for lefties. Audio inputs at the bottom too crowded for thick 1/4-inch to 1/8-inch adapters.
