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Gemini's FirstMix USB DJ controller now available for novice mixers
Seasoned DJs have plenty of ways to hone their electronica acumen, but for less experienced audiophiles, Gemini has just unleashed FirstMix -- a USB-based controller designed to help the everyman get in touch with his inner Pete Tong. The device's layout is simple enough, with two scratch wheels, rotaries and a cross fader. All you have to do is connect the panel to your laptop, select the tunes you'd like to mash up from your iTunes library and use FirstMix's touch-sensitive jog control to scratch the night away. To help you get started, Gemini will ship its new controller with MixVibes' Cross LE DJ software, but it's compatible with Virtual DJ and other mixing programs, as well. If you're interested in taking FirstMix for a spin, you can find one at retailers like Musician's Friend, for about $100. Otherwise, you could just head past the break for a demo video, along with a full press release.
FaderTouch creates custom trippy visuals for your own private club, opium den (video)
A night of trance insanity just isn't the same without some screen somewhere projecting bizarre and nonsensical but thoroughly trippy visuals -- but what if you host your own basement raves and all you have is basic cable with C-SPAN? What you need is the faderTouch, a road case-based "visual performance" device created by VJ Fader that allows you to play virtual instruments by dragging fingers across the screen, instruments like one seemingly based on Pong and another that spawns and destroys pixels and notes using Conway's Game of Life (the cellular one, not the one with the spinny wheel and the peg families). It's a fun toy, but it seems somewhat... overengineered to us. A simple laptop with a touchscreen could manage the same thing without the finnicky rear-projection system, but then that wouldn't look quite so road worthy, right? Video after the break.
'The Fader' magazine issue available free on iTunes
Who says the iTMS is just for music and videos? The Fader is a magazine that is "the definitive voice of emerging music and the lifestyle that surrounds it," and embodying that lifestyle they are: available now, for free, from the iTMS is their July/August 39 page summer spectacular in PDF format covering emerging music and artists. They even provide a non-iTunes RSS feed as well as a direct link to the PDF itself for all y'all who haven't hopped on the iTunes/RSS train yet.How cool is it to see traditional media diving head-first into new distribution outlets like this? I know it isn't quite the first magazine to ever get PDF'd, but it's certainly the first to make it onto the iTMS shelves - and a fitting first, if we may say so.[via MacMinute]
