The first and true online turntablist battle the WSTC is in full swing and there's some serious action throwing down over at www.slickbeats.net. It's down to the final 8 competitors and things are heating up for sure. Big ups to Tobias from Slickbeats and the co-founder and owner of the WSTC Loop Skywalker for making this such a great battle. But to give the winners the best possible prize, we need your help.

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Seems I wasn't the only Englishman scouring the floors of the Anaheim Convention Centre for hot DJ gossip. Armed with a better camera but hardly any battery by the end of Sunday was Eitan from WestendDJ in London. Clearly better at this kind of thing than me, he took some quality footage and secured some informative infomercials for the growing WestendDJ.TV website. Check the NAMM footage here.

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Diminutive... small... diddy... wee... are all words to describe Gemini's little white hope the iKey. This tiny lump of iPoddish niceness aims to make your recording needs a tad easier by being the missing link between you and your external USB devices. Deft and Gizmo cast their eyes over one and like what they find.

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A brand new player in the digital market is Cortex. While other companies are wrestling with CDs, DVDs, HDs and probably other things ending in Ds, Cortex have taken the novel approach and aren't doing Ds at all. In fact they're doing Bs - USBs that is. For Cortex, built-in media is soooo yesterday - it's all about external USB devices for song storage. So now you can just plug and go. Or plug and play, depending on your preference for hijacked advertising straplines.

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There are some indisputable facts in the scratch scene - one is that the Rane TTM56 is arguably the favourite if not best scratch mixer. Another is that Serato Scratch Live is the best digital DJ solution. So Rane in their infinite wisdom thought it might be a bit cool to shoehorn SSL under the bonnet of a 56. Well we all thought that anyway and DJ Akeim even beat them to it. So it comes as no surprise whatsoever that the 57 was created.

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It took me a dogs age to find the Urei booth. Keen to take a look at the new 1601E mixer, I eventually tracked down the Urei people in what wasn't much more than a darkened room. They needn't have been so shy about their gear as they also had a couple of surprises up their sleeves with the 1603 (4 channel) and 1605 (7 channel) club mixers. Can't these people count?

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Gemini had a lot to look at. Not only was the CDT-05 working (actually 3 of them) but they also sneakily released a new darker iKey sibling as well as an iPod mixer. And as if that wasn't enough, they also managed to squeeze out a full on 5 channel club mixer as well.

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New kid on the scratch block Audio Innovate were at NAMM showing off their new knobtastic slightly left field mixer the AEM-100. Coming from a former designer at Numark, the AEM-100 comes complete with a Pro X Fade as standard plus an effects section akin to old school analogue synths. Oh and there's the somewhat controversial fader cuts buttons as well to get your head around...

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NAMM proved to be a quiet time for Denon with nothing brand new on display, and I believe that this may the way of things for a while. While having a stand full of it's new flagship DN-S3500 CD decks, the only other thing of interest to us was a new faceplate for their DN-X1500 club mixer - this time in silver to match the aforementioned CD deck. But grafted into the mixer was Denon's new Flex Fader.

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While I steadily wade through the NAMM footage (don't worry, there's plenty more to come), here's a little light entertainment.

Tell your friends, family and even complete strangers about the utter greatness that is the Eclectic Breaks Pro X Fade promo reel. No other words are needed. Enjoy.

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Do you remember when the Numark CDX came out with it's real vinyl platter? Do you also remember thinking "wouldn't it be like way cool and stuff if Numark put a tonearm on there as well"? My guess is that it was always planned to do just that. Now hot on the heels of Gemini's long awaited CDT-05, Numark have announced the X² (squared, not 2 - just so you know). And very nice it is as well.

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Much like my surprise when turntablist crew Noisy Stylus brought out luggage, now cool clothing company Mixwell are bringing out a CD deck, albeit with the help of Tascam. The CD-DJ1 is a dinky piece of scratchy goodness when used with the TTM1 but equally well equipped for all sorts of other DJs as well.

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OK - sorry for the delay but I fell asleep with my laptop within 30 minutes of hitting my room last night and didn't wake up for 7 hours. Thankfully I was in bed... with the laptop... just don't ask.

Anyway, I've been fighting with technology since 03.30am LA time this morning and eventually won - kind of. I have to rush to a super important meeting for skratchworx this morning so powered by Apple new iLife '06, I bring you NAMM Day 1. Please bear with the loading times - it's a little slow.

The next installment will be in much more detail I promise! :d:

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I have a little story to tell... I know that heads be fiending for the official Vestax PMC-08 Pro review yo (sorry LA rubbing off on me already), but someone decided to semi speculatively hack and publish the unfinished review elsewhere. Due to my super organised and logical brain, this guy realised that I'd probably use a particular naming convention and was correct. Now however, it's been tidied up a little, it's ready.

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It's NAMM so it's hot new product time. Pioneer have been a little quiet of late so it comes as no surprise that they'd have new blood for us. The DJM-400 looks to be a cool 2 channel plus effects plus looping sampler but the DJM-800 looks to be where most interest will be. But I'm hearing whispers of another product on the stand...

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As regulars to these pages will know, one of the biggest stories that we started off with was the long rumoured and eventually rather sexy digital answer to the legendary 1210 - the Technics SL-DZ100 CD deck. Regulars will also know that actually getting one of these units out of Technics proved to be a fruitless task. Undaunted by the rejection, ProfessorBX managed to lay his hands on one and has written the review so many of you have mailed me for.

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Usually at the CES show in LA, it's a wall to wall drool-worthy ultra cutting edge geek fest in the extreme (that I sooo wish I was at). Like other gadget freaks, I crawl the pages of Engadget and Gizmodo for a fix of the next thumb sized PDA or 6 metre wide LCD TV. But this really is either the coolest thing in the show or quite possibly the most cheese worthy item in the whole wide world. You decide...

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Scratch sounds on CD are nothing new. There have been a small handful of releases (Ultimate Scratch CD, Mixxing Link, Soundcraftsman) but while we wait for scratch tool makers to drag themselves into this millennium and smell the digital coffee, I guess we'll have to look elsewhere. And as if by magic, 3 come round the corner all at once in the shape of Sound Material volumes 1-3.

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Santa was generous to me this year - I asked nicely for Martha Cooper's Hip Hop Files in hardback and got just that. For those of you who don't know, Martha Cooper is a New York photographer who chronicled the birth of Hip Hop in photographs showing how it really was right at the beginning pre-bling. And now my next purchase has just come out - Can't Stop Won't Stop is out in paperback at last. For anyone wanting to get some real Hip Hop history, push yourself away from your screen and grab these 2 books today.

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For those of you who've been active on the internet scene for a few years now, you should be aware of the WSTC - the World Series Turntable Championship. Initially run by the Bionic Stylus crew, it's kind of been on then off then on then... well it's back and stronger than ever. Founder DJ Loop has teamed up with Slickbeats and to relaunch the WSTC and make it the DMC of the internet.

As is the way of these things, the draw for round one is done and the competition is ready to kick off.

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As we approach a big show, there's always a flurry of activity on and the 2006 Winter NAMM is no exception. Fresh out the starting blocks is Audio Innovate's AEM-100 - a Pro X Fade equipped FX heavy mixer.

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Tommy Boy is a name you'll always hear connected with Hip Hop. Indeed it was perhaps THE label synonymous with the very foundations of this scene. After the recent success of "The Roots of Hip Hop" release, they've decided to dig the crates some more and bring out a 12 CD set called "Hip Hop Essentials". Covering the acknowledged golden age of Hip Hop - 1979 to 1991 - Tommy Boy have put together a wide cross section of tracks that rocked the scene over this foundation period of Hip Hop.

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All good things must come to an end and so must 2005. It was a year of contradictions - the trade has seen a decline in fortunes for many companies on the back of a slowing market yet some companies have been busy and bringing out some cool new stuff.

2006 will be a year of big changes, but read on for what 2005 has brought to the (turn)table. Hahahaha... you see what I did there?

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Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday dear Gizmo
Happy birthday to me

So I guess I'm officially an elder statesman of the turntablist scene. So from now on, I'll be acting rather more responsibly as befitting the new era in my life...

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Having just finished for the Christmas break, I'm feeling somewhat relaxed, de-stressed and looking forward to what Christmas, my 40th birthday on the 27th and 2006 have in store. But before I ponder on what is to be, I want to wish all of you a fantastic Christmas and New Year! Thanks for stopping by and making a nice friendly place.

2006 will be a year of big changes for me, but for what's happened in 2005, check back in a few days for my end of year retrospective and perhaps an insight into 2006 as well.

Once again - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! :d:

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A little while back, I reported on some news software coming from the Pioneer camp called DJS - essentially taking a conventional CD setup and converting it into a virtual setup inside your very own PC (yes PC only - no Mac version). And now you can try out a 30 day demo for yourself.

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Just for the holidays mind, but Santa dropped off a shiny black Vestax PMC-08Pro for me to get to know, love, review and ultimately steal.

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DVJ-X1 gets MP3, PAL and NTSC OK? Now I could spell that lot out in full but to be honest, I have no idea what they all mean in long hand - but I think you get the message. Pioneer have joined the rest of the bright young things in the DJ scene and given their flagship player MP3 capability as well as being able to play PAL and NTSC disks.

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What's this? Real instruments? Where's the emcee? Ahhh... it seems my very favouritest Teutonic turntablists Noisy Stylus have done something a little out of the ordinary here. Not content with battling other turntablist crews, the guys have decided to battle it out with a real live band. Ummm... that is what's happening right?

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While we all patiently wait for what seems like an eternity (didn't I post the first story back in the 70's?) for the Rodec Scratchbox, actual honest-to-god footage of one being used in the wild has emerged. On the cut is DJ Crossfingaz. I'm still sceptical myself... you can do anything with video editing and CGI these days. I'll believe it when I see it in the skratchlab. :P

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