TECH
for the individual tracks within a timeline, users
are really restricted in what they can do. Also,
the lack of an ‘undo’ may soon drive many crazy.
In their defence, some of these issues will be
resolved in the forthcoming update but there are
other things that need to be addressed. No thirdparty plug-in support as yet, some questionable
button placements (effect ‘bypass’ next to effect
‘remove’) and other little design quirks.
One gripe is that in timeline/arrange mode,
audio ?les can be placed on top of one
another and both will play, which can lead to
some embarrassing results if DJs have left a
small snippet of audio in their timeline and
forgotten about it. These irritations pretty much
encapsulate DJ Mag’s impression of ONE DJ as
a work-in-progress. It also illustrates why we
like it, and are genuinely looking forward to
seeing it go through its various progressions and
developments. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in
a day and if you look back at the very ?rst version
of Ableton it was nowhere near as re?ned as what
we have today. For every issue we encountered
and challenged, the developers were either
receptive or actively on the ball already to get a
?x in place.
Flaws
Possibly the single most important feature of live
performance software is stability. DJ Mag tried
ONE DJ with two kinds of Mac (an older Core Duo
2 MacBook Pro and a newer i5 model) and found
it largely to be very stable, with one functional
exception: when switching from a four-deck
set-up preset to a two-deck set-up preset during
playback, we experienced two crashes. And with
no ‘last set-up’ back-up, everything DJ Mag had
been playing (timeline layouts, loaded tracks etc)
was lost — had we been live we would have had to
230 djmag.com
start loading tracks again from scratch before the
crowd heard music again.
All this said, if you read the ONE DJ site carefully
they only recommend use with newer Macs and
i-series processors, and we experienced the
crashes on the Core Duo 2. And as DJ Mag didn’t
use a PC for testing, we can’t comment on how
stable it is on this platform, but doubt there are
many major issues if any at all.
ONE has a MIDI-learn feature that’s easy to use
and it supports the HID protocol, so compatible
controllers can offer super-low latency, but at
the moment the amount of controllers that are
supported as standard is sparse. There will be
templates released very soon for the likes of
Vestax, Hercules, Numark and companies like
that, but some of the major players are currently
missing. This is a tricky area to approach as ONE
is a modular design and effectively will be used
differently by different people — this means
making standard templates is tricky, as how
the software is set up depends on how DJs use
their controllers. We think they should have
made standard basic mappings for every major
controller before launch. Maybe it’s something
that a DJ would want to explore for themselves.
With this ethos, it is easy to build an impressive
hardware controller set-up using various
manufacturers’ pieces of kit to control the
various elements of the ONE.
We’ve got used to everything being handed to
us on a plate. The gripes mentioned above will
only affect the DJs who don’t want to get their
hands dirty, other jocks may just love getting
deep into the whole process of creating their
own layout and mappings and a unique DJ and
live performance set-up that will cater for their
individual needs. And so, all in all, ONE DJ feels
like a version one, but Audio Artery know it, and
are actively developing it. Critically, though,
what is here is great, and the fact that they
hold their hands up about things that could be
improved and have assured DJ Mag that they’re
on the case is surprisingly rare. The ONE could
have an amazing future, and after all Ableton
Live has been around for over 10 years — imagine
what ONE will become in another 10 years?
At just £45, ONE DJ is cheap but doesn’t feel
budget, and it is really worth checking out.
There is great
potential
here and the
more of us
BUILD QUALITY
7.0
that give it a
EASE OF USE
7.0
try, the more
FEATURES
7.0
impetus (and
VALUE FOR MONEY 9.0
resources) they
SOUND QUALITY
8.0
will have to
improve it.
VERDICT
HYPE
Innovative modular design
and arrangement features,
plus all the usual features
(decks, fx etc).
GRIPE
Needs a lot of re?nement
and broader processor
compatibility.
PRICE
£45
CONTACT
one.dj.com
An exciting first attempt
and worth checking out,
but needs swift
development.
7.8/10