So I’m still rocking with my Reloop Elite and 2x Audio Technica 1240XP decks. When the Pioneer DJM-S11 came out, I thought it looked pretty cool, but it wasn’t worth spending $2k to upgrade from my Reloop Elite when the form factor and functionality is pretty much the same. Sure there’s a pretty screen and all that, but other than that and a few other little things it hasn’t changed much from the features my Elite has. I was thinking the other day, “What else can they do with a DJ mixer?”. In 5 years what are the mixers coming out then going to have on them feature wise? We’re still waiting on Serato and Rekordbox to release the next add-on that’s a killer feature. Until that happens, the mixers that are coming out are just going to be re-hashing the same technology. The last thing Serato released was Scratch Bank I believe and that was able to be implemented in current mixers. I think the companies making mixers are going to have to think outside the box in terms of adding features to their upcoming mixers. The DDJ-Rev7 for example has it’s own hardware Scratch Bank where you can trigger scratch sounds that are actually on the DJ controller. It will take things like that to make the mixers coming out in the next few generations to be a worthwhile upgrade from the current mixers. Off the top of my head I can’t think of what they can do to set the next mixers apart, but that’s probably why I’m not on the R&D Team of a DJ gear company. I’m sure if I really sat and pondered on it I could come up with something cool. I will say that I am excited for the future of DJ Gear, but the DJ software companies are also going to have to step their game up and start coming out with new plugins/addons that allow for more creativity which can then be accessed from the next iterations of mixers and controllers. Scratch bank was a great idea and we need more ideas like that. Time will tell where the industry goes and I’m happy to be along for the ride.