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The future of DJing just took a BIG step in the right direction – the days of cable messes and confusing changeovers in the DJ Booth are quickly coming to an end, and Allen & Heath are making it happen with the new Xone DB4 mixer. With this progressive new mixer Allen & Heath took the #1 sounding DJ mixer in the world and put their own Audio interface directly into hardware so that Traktor & Ableton DJs can plug their computer directly into the DJ Mixer and be completely set up and ready to rock!

Check out this demo of the Xone DB4 from Xone’s Design Manager Andy Rigby-Jones

Allen & Heath has already got a lot of their superstar DJs using this new piece of gear. DJ’s like Sasha, Dubfire and Pete Tong are now using the Xone DB4 live at their gigs due to its superior sound quality and easy setup. My first experience with the Xone DB4 was at Dubfire’s studio in Washington, DC. He had just gotten it in the mail and he wanted me to learn the mixer and teach it to him. I was amazed by its plug and play abilities with Traktor. After reading the manual and learning the mixer inside out I was amazed by what it could do.

In my opinion the Xone DB4 will probably be the most innovative DJ Mixer of 2011 by a long shot. Here are some of my favorite features of the Xone DB4:

Plug and Play with Traktor or Ableton Live

The Xone DB4 has its own soundcard built in, so if you’re using Traktor or Ableton Live, you can plug your laptop directly into the Mixer with a USB cable and be able to have all four decks in Traktor routed to all four channels of the Mixer. So the days of using RCA Cables is quickly coming to an end. Also if you’re using Ableton Live you can route your audio to any of the four channels on the mixer as well without using any cables.

Superior sound quality

The first time I heard this mixer on a proper sound system was when Dubfire played at Club Fur in Washington DC, and the following night at Guvernment in Toronto. When I was on the dancefloor at both clubs I felt something I haven’t felt since DJs were primarily using vinyl. The bass in the room took my breath away. I remember when I first started clubbing, the sound systems would suffocate my lungs when there was lots of sub bass, and you could really FEEL the music. Ever since the digital age began and people started using MP3’s, I lost that sensation. I was beginning to worry if it was my hearing fading away or my body being desensitized to the bass. All of these thoughts went away when I heard the Xone DB4 in action. Since the mixer is completely digital, I am guessing that the digital to analog converters are doing something magical to the sound. There is no mixer that has ever sounded this good to me besides maybe Club Stereo’s custom Steve Dash UREI mixer.

The Mixer Receives MIDI clock from Traktor

One thing I discovered when messing around with the Xone DB4 settings is that the mixer can actually receive MIDI clock from Traktor. This makes it so all of your loops and tempo-based effects are going to be perfectly on beat. While this is a great option, the DB4 has an amazing BPM detection algorithm so the effects and loops will usually be spot on, even if your not using MIDI clock.

New Effects that are specifically designed for Dance Music

The Effects in the Xone DB4 are not to be reckoned with. Their studio quality effects have been specifically designed to cater to Dance Music and club DJs but will work great with any other type of music as well. There are 5 different types or “Groups” of effects built in to the mixer that can all be applied separately to each channel. Each effect group contains many different effect variations, and the effects can actually be chained so each effect has its own dedicated filter.

The 5 Different Effects Groups are:

Delay (DLY) – The Delay times are BPM Conscious and are displayed as a beat fraction, which is locked to the BPM detector on each channel. You can also switch the delay effects to “ms” or “milliseconds” mode where the delay is not quantized. If you turn the Effect knob all the way up, the delay effects go into “Kill/Send” mode, which act as a send effect allowing you to “freeze” the track and leave a delay tail. Some of the delays include Fat-Q, Sweep, Ping Pong, and Scatter.

Reverb (RVB) – There are 4 acoustic reverb models: Plate, Hall, Room and EMT emulation. Each of these models create different early / late reflections and spectral delay patterns to create accurate models of these sound spaces and reverbs. If you turn the effect rotary knob all the way up you can go into “Kill/Send” mode and create reverb tails. Some of the reverbs include the EMT 250, Hall 480, Arena, Plt Snare, and HallMasif.

Resonators – Beat Conscious Resonators (RES) – This Effect group is based on various gated resonator algorithms. The resonator envelope is divided into predelay, attack, sustain and decay phases. The total time period of the envelope is controlled by the channels BPM. The BPM conscious beat fraction time controls the resonator time envelope, creating BPM conscious resonator sounds. Some of the resonators include Power-Q, Gritter, Reverse, Decay, Tronic,

Modulators (MOD) – This group consists of a Rotary speaker, Flangers, Phasers and a Ring-Modulator. The rotary speaker is driven by a cross-over so the user can determine what frequency spectrum goes through the rotary speaker. There are 3 different flanger models and 3,6,12 stage phaser models. Some of the modulators include RotaryXO, Flnge Hard, PhaseV6, Phaser and RingMod.

Damage (DMG) – This group of effects contains different kinds of distortions, drive, harmonic modifiers and AM choppers. Some of the effects include Distortion, Overdrive, Bitbash, Dicer, Slice & Dice, Fundmentl, and Stutter.

The EQ knobs can be used as EQs, Filters, and Isolaters

One of coolest features of the Xone DB4 is that you can change the function of the EQ knobs, and you can use them either as standard EQ’s (Bass, Mid, Hi) or you can use them as Isolators so you can completely cut each frequency (Bass, Mid, Hi), or you can use the EQ Knobs as Filters where the Hi and Low knobs are Hi-pass and Low-Pass Filters and the Mid knob acts as a resonance knob (aka Mild/Wild). There is a metal switch in the EQ section where you can toggle between the three different modes, and the knobs will change color depending on what mode you’re in.

Built In Filters From The Xone 92 Mixer

One thing that Xone mixers are famous for are their filters. Most DJs will agree that the sound of the Xone 92 filters is better than any other DJ mixer on the market. The Xone DB4 has adopted these same filters and they can be found at the bottom of the mixer.

Separate Aux Channel

One thing I love about the Xone DB4 mixer is that it has a separate Line (or Mic) aux channel. The way I use this channel is for Maschine. I would run 4 decks of Traktor through the Xone DB4 audio interface and then use a separate audio interface such as the Audio 2 DJ for Maschine, and plug the RCA from the Audio 2 DJ into the Aux channel. That way I can have four decks in Traktor and one channel from Maschine all running on the same computer and be able to have a separate volume control for Maschine. There is also a handy switch where you can route the Aux channel to a channel of the mixer to add effects over the aux channel, so I can add effects to Maschine.

Loop Buttons

One of my favorite features of the Xone DB4 Mixer is that each channel has its own dedicated loop knob. You can turn this knob to select the length of the loop, and then you can push it to engage a loop. With the DB4’s super accurate BPM detection, you can get perfectly accurate loops from your tracks. To take this a step further, you can actually take this loop and route it to a separate channel on the mixer using the built in Input Matrix, while letting the track play out on its own channel, similar to Traktors Loop Recorder and Sample Decks.

Flexibile for using with any DJ Setup

The Xone DB4 is designed to work with any DJ Setup. Traktor DJs can plug their USB cable directly into the DJ Mixer and use the “USB” inputs. Pioneer CDJ users can plug their CDJ’s in Digitally to the DB4’s “Digital” inputs, and Serato or Vinyl DJs can plug into the “Analog” inputs on the mixer. There is a metal switch on the top of the mixer where you can switch easily between each input quickly and easily.

The Mixer can be transformed into a MIDI controller with one button

On top of being one of the most powerful DJ Mixers, the Xone DB4 can also be used as a MIDI controller to control any software of your choice. All you would do is click on the “MIDI Shift” button and you will transform the entire mixer into a full on MIDI controller.

Customizable Settings

The Xone DB4 has a very customizable settings menu where you can customize things such as your Audio Output routing, BPM Range, LED Brightness, USB Routing, Headphone settings, Recording Settings, and more. You can save all these settings to a USB Thumb Drive, so when you show up at a gig, all you have to do is load your settings and everything on the mixer will be configured the way you want it.  You can even update the Mixer’s firmware right from your Thumb drive.

These are all just a few of the things I love about the new Allen & Heath Xone DB4 mixer. Finally my dream of being able to plug my laptop into a DJ Mixer and have everything set up for me has become a reality thanks to Allen & Heath. I hope that clubs all over the world embrace this mixer and pick one up so that DJs can show up and plug and play.  Cheers to evolution!

In this video you can see Dubfire is using the new Xone DB4 mixer with Traktor Pro. The soundcard is built in directly into the mixer saving him from having to plug in 4 extra RCA Cables for each deck. You can also see he has Ableton Sync’d to Traktor on the same computer, using Maschine as a Plugin in Ableton. Each drum bank of Maschine is running through its own audio channel in Ableton for extra volume control and he is using the iPad to add effects for each drum bank of Maschine inside of Ableton. Although he is using Traktor, Ableton and Maschine all on the same computer, he is using the Xone DB4 as his soundcard for Traktor, and the Audio 8 DJ as the soundcard for Ableton/Maschine. So he has one RCA cable going from his Audio 8 DJ into the Aux in of the Xone DB4, allowing him to use all four decks in Traktor, and also have an extra channel to use for Maschine. He can also take this aux input and route it to a channel of the Xone DB4 using the DB4’s input matrix and add the DB4’s powerful effects over his Ableton Maschine setup.

For more info on how to Sync Ableton and Maschine on the same computer, check out my tutorial here. For more info on how to Sync Ableton Live and Traktor on the same computer, check out my tutorial here.