So the first place I heard about this little triangle of joy was an early review by DJ Enrie at beezoblog.com and i was immediately drawn to the short video demo if the Dicer’s capabilities. After hearing the price tag of $99 I logged my ass onto djcity to place my order in the fastest manner possible; figuring i’ve thrown WAY more money at other DJ gear that appeared way less innovative, so why not try out the Dicer? 48 hours later and i’m unwrapping the UPS box, feeling like a DJ on some kind of ‘half-way to Christmas’ summer gift celebration. Long story short the Dicer is one of the first pieces of equipment that has ever exceeded my expectations, below is my in-depth coverage of the good and bad of Novations new gear grand-slam
The Good
Location: How has no one ever thought of using the ’45 Adaptor’ cylindrical depression in the Technics 1200 & 1210 series turntables as a midi controller anchor!? The idea is so simple, yet no one’s done it yet and it places the Dicer’s controls exactly where you’d want them. Not to fret CDJ users, the back of the device can be switched out so it can be stuck to the corner of a CDJ
Many of the Rane Sixty-Eight’s positive attributes for $99: Three of my favorite innovations of the Rane Sixty-Eight Mixer are it’s Serato midi linking, in particular the side cue buttons, auto roll, and loop features. I like the Dicer’s layout better because instead of controlling loop and roll length with one knob (like on the Sixty-Eight) there are a series of six buttons that are used to change loop and roll lengths. The difference? On the sixty eight you can only scroll up or down chronologically in your loop or roll, on the Dicer you can skip around from a 1 bar loop, or 1/16 or to a 1/8 bar loop accurately. The Dicer brings all of these controls with a savings of about $2,400 (if comparing to the sixty-eight price tag) I honestly can’t believe they are only charging $99 for this… I would have been willing to pay more. What a steal!
Buttons: These were the buttons I was hoping the Rane-Sixty-Eight would have. They are ‘beat-pad’ type rubber that have a lot more feeling to them than the hard-plastic Rane Sixty-Eight square cues. (same type of rubber used on the APC 40) They also light up in 3 different colors corresponding to which mode is selected; cue – red, auto roll – green, or loop – yellow modes. This is not only stellar for knowing which mode your on, but is great for knowing exactly where your Dicers and their buttons are in a dark DJ booth. I also never experienced any latency problems, the buttons were superbly accurate.
Features: Instead of a long drawn out written description I think it’s easier to grasp what the Dicer does by watching a demo video of it, here’s a good video by my buddies at DubSpot that shows a lot of the Dicer’s capabilities: DubSpot Dicer Demo (great course by the way, if you can catch one of Dubspot’s touring Ableton seminars I highly recommend it)
Plug n’ Play: One of the draw backs of many MIDI controllers and external effectors are their complex tangle of cords and required software setup. The Dicer is extremely simple, just requires one USB port and a headphones-like linking cable to connect the two Dicers together. The devices are powered through the USB connection so there isn’t any bulky and tangle-prone power cord either. Just plug it in, launch Serato 2.1 and your ready to rock!
The Bad
I can’t really find anything bad to report, it’s a solid piece of equipment especially for the price. The only criticism I can find about the Dicer is also something that DJ Enrie @ beezoblog highlighted and that is the temptation to overuse some of the Dicers features, in particular the auto roll. it’s one of those things that as a DJ you’d probably be pretty excited to use a lot, but you have to think of the crowd reaction. In my opinion using the auto roll very often would start to degrade the quality of your set, especially if used a lot when your not mixing. For example using the auto roll to change up your song while it’s playing would start to get old after a while if you keep doing it; a little goes a long way. I find my self using the cue point feature about 80% of the time. The Auto roll and looping features I use for some of the transitions, but try and be tasteful in their utility. Where the Auto Roll can get fun (and sound good) is with harder house tracks if your in a venue that allows that genre. Really fun to mix in key and bounce songs off each-other with the auto roll.
With a price tag at $99, and some of the most innovative MIDI controlling designs i’ve ever come across, the Dicer is forsure one of the best ‘bang-for-buck’ additions to your gear bag. I would guess that the Dicer will become a common sight in most DJ setups over the next few months.
