The DJ scene is neck deep in MIDI controllers of... well I'd like to write all shapes and sizes, but the vast majority fall into the Vestax VCI-alike category - scaling down the 2 decks and mixer format into a handy laptop sized unit. But for me, this has made the market full of me too units that frankly leave little in the way of real choice.
But then EKS came along. Having already made a small but aesthetically pleasing foray into the MIDI controller market with their XP5 and XP10 units, which on their own pushed the design boundaries into new territory, their design team clearly thought a seriously long way outside of the box and came up with OTUS.
Almost everything about OTUS is next level. Design wise, there's nothing like it. The layout and controls largely ignore conventional thinking and the inclusion of touch technology is pretty damned sexy and risky all at the same time. But I think it's a calculated risk that EKS have managed to pull off.
OTUS is a MIDI controller. Not your regular MIDI controller you understand - it looks like a single deck, but is in fact 2 decks in one, complete with a 6 out (4 RCA and 2 digital) Burr Brown sound card plus headphone port. OTUS is USB powered, weighs 2kg and works in Windows, OS X and Linux. As well as having comprehensive software support out of the box, it also supports MIDI learn.
Wow. I think that is the first word that comes to most people's lips when they first handle OTUS. There is NOTHING that looks like this - visually it stands unique in the marketplace, and one of my first thoughts was what could you possibly sit next to it? I have an Ecler HAK360 right net to it, and that now looks positively prehistoric. A Jazz Mutant Lemur is the only visually compatible thing, but a Korg Zero4 may just pull it off. Depending on your needs however, you could do away with a mixer altogether and configure the MIDI controls to do the same job.
Despite what you might think from the photos and renders you've seen, this is away more solid unit than you might think. The based is cast aluminium which adds weight and makes OTUS feel a lot more rigid than many other controllers. This base allows for a very sleek faceplate - all fixing screws are on the underside rather than spoiling the very tactile top surface. OTUS is supported by 4 pointy feet - almost tripod like in effect. It's not as if OTUS has to worry about vibration effecting sound quality, but it does mean it'll sit happier on uneven surfaces and has plenty of space underneath to run cables. And these fit allow it to be sat securely on top of other equipment.
The top face is entirely plastic, with a curious mixture of low profile buttons, touch controls and a handful of rubberised knobs and rotary encoders. The actual face is has an overall dimpled surface, with clear smooth areas that show where the touchy bits are. It also has a curiously monochrome lighting scheme, layer 1 being Green, layer 2 being Orange.
The somewhat strange thing about OTUS is the total lack of wording - except for "CUE" and "SCALE". Now while there is a logical orientation for OTUS on your table, the near absence of markings allows you to have your OTUS (or OTI is you have a pair) any way you please. I especially like this because while the controls have a naturally implied usage, you can reconfigure them any way you see fit, and not be mentally hindered by words telling you what the control should be. In this respect, OTUS becomes a very personal experience, and I certainly felt more comfortable with it.
The actual controls are a big departure from those in the market place. We're all used to 2 sets of everything, simulating the old 2 deck metaphor. But EKS appear to have given the MIDI controller rule book a cursory glance, laughed and applied their own outside the box thinking. What you get is a single platter, surrounded by some familiar controls (Play/Pause/Cue), plus a mixture of tiny low profile buttons, rotary EQ type knobs, 4 corner rotary encoder/buttons as well as the wow feature of OTUS - touch sensitive buttons and pitch control.
The whole top face is dominated by the touch sensitive platter. It's plastic with a smooth piano black surface and nicely weighted, but perhaps a little too smooth if you want to keep a grip in rapid platter movements. Like all other jog wheels, it acts as a pitch bend when touched at the side, but scratch mode is engaged when you touch the top. It runs incredibly smoothly and quietly without free running on backspins, and no amount of heavy handedness saw the platter give anything but a beautiful feel.
But just one platter? Yes indeedy, but OTUS has a split personality, manifested by the button right at the front. OTUS is actually 2 full decks in one, selectable via the button front centre. This can be a momentary hold to give temporary access to deck B or a swift double tap gives you full access. You can tell which deck you're on by the complete colour shift of the LEDS from Amber to Green. This can be a tad confusing at first, but all you need to remember is that A is Amber and you're set. It might have been a good idea to add a simple A/B light on OTUS.
The rest of the controls feel as you might expect. The knobs are smooth to turn, slightly rubbery in hand and have a firm centre click. I feel that these could have been push buttons for even more mappable controls. Not a bad mark you understand - just a missed trick. The small buttons are firm, if a little close together in the heat of the moment.
But it's the touch sensitive controls that capture the most attention from potential users. Built into OTUS is a trackpad complete (with proper mouse buttons), six touch buttons and a touch pitch control. The trackpad is hard to use, tending to adopt a more linear feel i.e. up/down and left/right movements but not so good with any other motion. And it works at an OS level as well. MIDI controller as a mouse replacement anyone? Well not this time. The buttons work extremely well - slight touch and you're set.
The pitch control is the most risky feature here. Knowing how touchy DJs are about their 100mm sliders, making it touch sensitive was always going to be fraught with danger. It comes with a modifier button to adjust the scale of the touch slider, allowing you to adjust the pitch by miniscule amounts if you want, but it's still very much of an acquired taste. This is perhaps reflected in the already teased next generation OTUS that has a physical fader. I'm not saying it doesn't work, just that it's something that you might want spend some time getting used to. Being MIDI though, you can configure pitch control to any other suitable control such as the corner encoders or an rotary knob.
Being such a unique controller, EKS have done a lot of groundwork in making sure that the most popular MIDI software can work with it out of the box. But as well as being fully compatible with MIDI learn, you can also get geeky and dirty with EKS's own MIDI preset editor. This allows you to address every control on OTUS and directly assign MIDI commands to them and save them out as presets.
In testing with Traktor and Deckadance, OTUS performs exactly as you might expect with their own presets out of the box, and reassigning commands is very easy. And with each software update, EKS have managed to improve the performance of the static platter, taking into account advances in Traktor high speed MIDI support and Deckadance's ever expanding HID support too.
When first writing this review, I had spoken ill of the platter performance. With older versions (and by older I mean last month), the platter performance was iffy. Traktor in particular was an interesting journey in random platter movement. But with the latest versions, Traktor is massively improved and offers solid support for a wide range of DJs. It does stop someway short of full on latency free scratch madness, but simpler tricks are reasonably pulled off. The platter's weight works against more adventurous techniques and overall accuracy, especially those that depend on pin sharp hand to fader co-ordination.
That said, I feel that the target market isn't really looking for turntablist level tricks, and they most certainly shouldn't be expected from a touch sensitive static platter. Would I be fair to mark down OTUS for not being just like vinyl? Not really, but potential customers will see a 7" jog wheel and have heavy expectations of its performance.
On a side note - there appears to be a couple of controls that didn't make it to the final unit. In the EKS MIDI config app, you can see a pair of buttons beneath the top encoders. The space is there on the hardware, but pressing them yields nothing in return. How odd.
The one thing I'm not going to do here is break down how well the presets work with the software. They all seem to work quite well and I was more than able to mix, loop and add effects. The beauty of OTUS is that you can configure it to death to suit your needs, rather than be forced into a fixed way of thinking.
Overall, using OTUS with MIDI is relatively hassle-free. I hate MIDI mapping with an unparalleled passion, but even I was happy enough with setting up and using OTUS. It's a highly responsive device with no fuzziness in pressing or turning controls, but just bear in mind the not quite right but ever improving platter response. Works great for pitch bending and really basic cues, but that's it right now. I feel it'll get better though.
But how do you use it? That depends entirely on your own needs. It has a single deck form factor but with pretensions of being 2 decks at once. It can sit at the side of your existing conventional setup to control a 3rd or 4th virtual deck, drive other MIDI based software, or become your whole setup in on handy sized unit. While testing, I found myself often with OTUS sat in my lap (I was on the whole clothed) pushing, pulling and fondling controls with ease. It's extremely easy to configure 2 decks and mixer in software with 1 OTUS alone, using knobs as faders and put out a solid set.
Usage follows form factor - OTUS positively encourages you to turn your conventional thinking on its head and not necessarily use it in the way it may have been intended. Obviously you can't turn a button into a fader, but there's no reason why the implied usage of EQ knobs has to be that way. The openness of OTUS allows for this kind of free form thinking.
Round the back of OTUS, you'll find more minimalist chic in the shape of unlabelled RCAs a phono socket and a USB port. The RCAs are for the channel outs as well as a digital out for each as well. Yes - OTUS has a full sound card built in that's fully configurable at an OS level. One little wrinkle in configuration though - I couldn't get a peep out of it until EKS told me to open up the Audio MIDI OS X app and change the output format to 48Khz.
The USB port is obviously for communication, but also provides power. One small minus for me - OTUS has no provision for external power.
Approaching OTUS is a bit of a head scratcher. It's neither 1 deck or 2 but both, and you can use it any way you want. And it goes much deeper than just seeing it as a conventional jog wheel with EQ knobs setup as well. The crazy and freestyle design allows you to think outside the common media player metaphor and completely customise the controls to truly suit your own wacky flights of fancy.
EKS obviously knew that people would firstly have a dropped jaw response upon first view of OTUS, then possibly followed by suspicion and cynicism, ending up with dismissing it as a toy. But like so many good things, you need to see beyond the surface gloss and really look at what it might be able to do for you. It's certainly not for everyone, so please don't hate on it just because it's different. It is for some people, and they will love it to bits.
Build Quality
Aluminium with tough rubbers and plastics. Heavy enough to take some hammer but light enough to carry around.
Sound Quality
No complaints from my old ears.
Features & Implementation
Everything presses, slides and spins as it should and the sounds comes out as well. Even high speed MIDI and HID can make the platter act betterthan just a jog wheel..
Value For Money
It's a long way from cheap, but you get 2 or more decks in one highly versatile unit.
I Like...
• The quality
• The image
• Not imposing a preset way of working on the user
• The envelope pushing nature of OTUS
But not so keen on...
• Jog wheel performance
• No eternal power supply
If this is your kind of thing, you might want to check out...
• Denon DN-HS5500 - the only other 2 deck in one hardware solution that comes to mind.
The Bottom Line
It's beautiful, captivating and only limited by your own imagination. If you can get into a schizophrenic way of working, OTUS might just be the safest dose of split personality you've been looking for.
Not a huge shoot this time, but here they are. EKS's own photos are pretty hot anyway.
