The magazine

What Is Worth Buying, and What Is Worth Waiting For

A new flagship turntable lands in January, a three-channel flagship mixer is already out, and the software update costs nothing.

The Pitch Fader Came Back, and It Is Not Nostalgia

The most discussed DJ hardware of the year competes on physical control rather than screens. That says something about where playing records is going.

Push Without the Laptop Gets Closer

Live 12.4 lets you build controller mappings on the hardware and switch off the scripts that fight with it.

Wireless Audio Arrives in the Booth, Carefully

A club mixer now has a transmitter built in. Here is where that genuinely helps, and where a cable still wins.

Stem Separation Became Normal, and Nobody Discussed What That Means

Pulling a vocal out of a finished record is now an editing step. The technical problem is solved. The taste problem and the rights problem are not.

Move Grew Up: Four Tracks, Real Recording, Effects on the Way In

Ableton's cheapest hardware becomes a four-track recorder and a performance effects box in the same update.

The Free Ableton Update That Removes a Box From Your Studio

Link Audio streams sound between machines on a local network. Everything else in 12.4 is useful; this one changes setups.

Sixteen Tracks on Screen: What the CDJ-3000X Is Really Solving

The club standard gets a bigger display, WiFi and USB-C, and admits that browsing is now harder than mixing.

The Fourth EQ Band Is the Reason to Look at the DJM-V5

AlphaTheta's three-channel mixer keeps the flagship's signal path and adds a filter that stops transitions from collapsing.

The New Technics Flagship Is Really About One Control

A heavier chassis and new feet solve the booth's oldest problem. The pitch fader is what changes how you play.