Parallel compression: What it is and how to use it
In this in-depth guide, learn about what parallel compression is, how it works, and how you can apply it effectively in your own music.

Appeals court upholds Childish Gambino victory in ‘This Is America’ copyright infringement caseRapper Kidd Wes had copyrighted the sound recording, but not the composition, of his 2016 track 'Made In America'
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PCB Design Review: HDMI To LVDS Sony Vaio LCD DevboardToday, we revisit another board from [Exentio] – a HDMI/DVI to LVDS transmitter for the Sony Vaio P display. This board is cool to review – it has a high-speed serial interface, a parallel interface, a healthy amount of power distribution that can be tricky to route, and many connectors to look over.
I’ve decided to show this review to you all because it demonstrates a PCB improvement concept we haven’t yet touched upon, that you should absolutely know about when doing board layout. Plus, I get a chance to talk about connector choice considerations!
The board is lovely. It integrates the DPI-LVDS circuit we’ve previously reviewed, but also a HDMI to parallel RGB chip from Texas Instruments, TFP401, a chip appreciated enough that even Adafruit has adapters with it. The fun thing about this chip is that it doesn’t even handle EDID like the usual HDMI to RGB/LVDS chips you get on cheap Aliexpress boards. So, there’s no firmware to take care of – it just receives a HDMI/DVI signal, converts it into parallel RGB, then converts that to LVDS, and off to the display it goes. The downside is that you have to provide your own EDID with an EEPROM, but that isn’t that tricky.
Again, this is a two-layer board, and, again, I like this – fitting tracks to the smallest possible space is a respectable and enjoyable challenge. This board has absolutely done well by this challenge. I do see how this board could be routed in an even better way, however, and it could be way way cleaner as a result. For a start, rotating the chip would improve the odds a whole lot.
The Chip Gets Rotated

When doing silicon layout, engineers generally try and make the resulting chip pinout as sensible as possible. There can be exceptions, of course. This rule means that there’s usually a single easy way to lay out a chip, and a few hard ways. You have to look at the pinout, try to notice the pin groups, and see how they align with your peripherals. Ignore this at your own peril.
The TFP401 chip has HDMI on one side and parallel RGB pins on the other. This board, however, currently has the chip rotated in a way that disadvantages the layout. This is an easy mistake to do initially – thankfully, even when the design is already finished, rotating the chip and rerouting it can pay off!

If you reroute this kind of board, not only you are more likely to get a functioning board, considering the high-speed signals, you’re also training yourself to distinguish good and subpar chip rotations as you’d be rerouting. In other words, it’s the kind of refactoring that makes you say “wow, that was way easier than the first time around”.
Lift, Clean Up, Rotate, Behold
To do the reroute, just, take the chip, “lift it up” with M and move it off the board. See the grey thin wires? They’re called ratsnest wires, and using them is the best way you can notice rotation issues. Seriously, the ratsnest wires are underrated in noticing such issues before they bite you. Let’s clean the chip’s surroundings up. First, see those capacitor groups? Move them away too, all the power pins are changing their locations anyway, we’ll reposition them later.
Box select the signal traces that previously went to the chip, and press `Shift+Del` to completely delete them from beginning to end – on this board, this is the quickest way to get to a quickly routable space. Every trace that went to the chip is now gone, and every unrelated trace stays. Make sure there’s a healthy amount of space between the chip and the HDMI port, but also between it and the DPI-LVDS converter – more or less the same center position is fine here.
Look at the picture above. Using the ratsnest wires, you can instantly notice which trace groups you will need to flip and which you won’t. In this case, as you might notice, you will need to flip like, three out of four? No matter, because all of them will be easy, even the HDMI pairs.
Speaking about HDMI, before routing, I will replace the THT signal pin HDMI connector with an SMT signal pin one. They’re way, way nicer to layout – the through-hole staggered pins mean that you have to run two of the diffpairs around the connector shell. Plus, they’re cheaper and easier to source too. [Exentio] picked this connector for expected sturdiness and solderability, and that is a valid choice, I’m just prioritizing ease of layout and easier sourcing.
Reroute Time
With HDMI, not only is the order flipped, but the pair polarity is also flipped. Still, there are multiple things you could do here. You could flip the connector onto the opposite side of the board, or use a HDMI connector that’s flipped (harder to source but not impossible), or try to re-route the diffpairs as they are now. I’ll do the last one, since it’s the most fun one.
Here’s my take. This is draft routing, without any calculated trace impedance, because this is a 2-layer board and we’re winging it. Still, I’m trying to give this routing some love – not that HDMI would ever love me back, I just think that this board working on the first try is a good goal to strive for, and HDMI can be sensitive. Pair length is also kind of matched between the pairs – they’re all 23 mm +- 2 mm, good enough. By the way, KiCad 8 has added a new feature where you can check track length by simply pressing 7 (8 for diffpairs) and then hovering over tracks – inter-pair length matching is now the easiest it’s ever felt!

Now, what’s left is three bundles of parallel wires (R/G/B) and four individual tracks (EN/CLKIN/HSYNC/VSYNC) going to the DPI-LVDS chip. Since all four individual tracks are on the DPI-LVDS chip corners, I’ve decided that the parallel RGB pairs will go in the middle and the tracks will go around them. The biggest problem is flipping the bundles – you can do that under the HDMI chip or under the LVDS chip, I did it under the HDMI chip because it felt like there was just enough space there.

Here you can see how the three bundles progressed. They’re nice and tight, with some ground fills between the separate bundles and accompanying the wires. I’ve had to move the first bundle once to make room for flipping the last one, but other than that, things fit surprisingly nicely. The bundles don’t intersect each other’s paths, and that helps. If they did, I would probably consider rotating the DPI-LVDS chip together with the LVDS connector.
There are some other small tweaks too. I’ve moved the EDID EEPROM towards the HDMI I2C header at the bottom, only leaving the HPD pullup near the HDMI connector. The near-connector position is also a valid choice, I just wanted to do via-less routing of I2C as much as possible, and moving the EEPROM helped. Oh, and I’ve moved the LVDS connector to the right a bit – that let me route LVDS better, which, in turn, let me actually connect the DPI-LVDS chip’s 3.3 V pins.
Power Pin Routing
This is the thing you might get stuck on, at some point. The chip has whole four different groups of power pins – one direct 3.3 V input, and three separate 3.3 V inputs that you’re supposed to feed through Pi filters, for a cleaner power supply for all your analog needs. Use the “ (~)` key to highlight all four power nets of the chip – here’s how it will look.

I’d describe these as annoying, but they’re still routable. First, break apart the nice cap groups for the four rails – they’re nice visually, but they’re not great for power delivery. Remember – one capacitor per IC power pin is the platonic ideal, and each of these capacitors has to actually be placed close to a power pin, with a short path to ground too.
I started with the 3.3V feed, and then placed a couple of ferrites to nearby power rails. Then, I went through each of the power rails, starting with the simplest, pulling power tracks where it seemed viable. In the end, I could place all the ferrites near the actual 3.3V supply point. A 3.3V power plane could be fun on this board, and would probably be very much called for if we wanted to do FCC testing for this board, but for now, it’s not required.

Long story short, here’s the “rest of the owl” pictures. Remember – for power tracks, wherever you can make them thicker, make them thicker. They will drop all that less voltage, and they will look like dedicated power tracks, too. Also, don’t forget about GND! Highlight the GND net, then make sure that each GND point has a via directly near it, going to the bottom layer ground plane, with ground now even more abundant than before.

After this layout was done, there were only cosmetic fixes left. Things like trace keepout that I’m still maintaining, feeding 3.3 V everywhere it was called for. I suppose I would add a 5 V to 3.3 V linear regulator footprint onto this board, just because it would make bringup much easier, but it’s such a small change that it could even be bodged onto this PCB later with little hassle. This board is, all things considered, wonderfully hackable already.
Closing Statement
Here’s the end result of the board re-layout. It’s even cleaner than before, with improvements to both high-speed tracks and power distribution, and I hope it’s been a fun example about rotating your chips properly, something you could reasonably overlook on a board of yours.

As an outro to this review, here’s some good news. That DPI-LVDS board we’ve reviewed last time? It works! Which means that the DPI and LVDS parts of this HDMI-LVDS board should also work. Nothing is fundamentally broken to the best of our perception, [Exentio] has designed a working RPi config, and, as such, one of the more challenging parts of the Sony Vaio rebuild design is now complete – we only need to tinker with the backlight now.
As usual, if you would like a design review for your board, submit a tip to us with [design review] in the title, linking to your board files. KiCad design files strongly preferred, both repository-stored files (GitHub/GitLab/etc) and shady Google Drive/Dropbox/etc .zip links are accepted.

Apple just ranked one of Burial’s albums as one of the best records of all timeApple has teased a list of its 100 greatest albums, and one garage classic has made the cut – Burial’s 2007 LP, Untrue.
Just the bottom 10 from the list have been released so far, but the full 100 list will arrive on 22 May. Burial’s album currently sits at #94, ahead of Rage Against the Machine’s landmark self-titled debut, Travis Scott’s Astroworld and Eagles’ Hotel California.

READ MORE: Point Blank Producer Analysis: Learn the Techniques Behind Burial’s Signature Sound

Apple says its top 100 is a “definitive list of the greatest albums ever made. Assembled with the help of artists and experts, it’s a love letter to the records that have shaped the world we live and listen in.”
So, what’s Apple’s reasoning on selecting Untrue? Well, the streaming platform describes the record from Burial (whose real name is William Emmanuel Bevan) as “gritty but still gentle” and “an instant touchstone of UK electronic music”.
It further adds, “The album’s second track, Archangel, is perhaps one of the most recognisable songs in electronic music, with its pitched-down soprano sample consisting of the lines ‘Holding you/Couldn’t be alone/Couldn’t be alone/Couldn’t be alone.’ (Bevan apparently wrote and produced the song in 20 minutes, following the death of his dog.)
“On much of Untrue, Bevan sounds like he’s attempting to triangulate the sound of isolation after dark. He wrote and produced the record nocturnally, insisting on getting to work long after the sun went down. Tracks like In McDonalds and Homeless are indicative of that approach: They evoke something quietly desperate, both in their titles and their spare compositions; the result is electronic music that’s deeply human and affecting.”

Burial has not released any full-length albums since Untrue, but has released a scattering of EPs and singles throughout the years. He has collaborated with the likes of Four Tet, Massive Attack, Thom Yorke and more.
Check out more from Apple’s 100 Best Albums, and look out for the full list on 22 May.
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Arturia unveil Polybrute 12 The PolyBrute 12 doubles the voice count of its predecessor, and boasts an innovative keybed design that offers polyphonic aftertouch across its entire movement range. 

Watch two AIs sing a duet with each other in real timeIs AI getting any closer to reaching a technological singularity and embarking on a quest for world domination and human extinction? Probably not, but it is getting better at having conversations with itself without human input or interaction.
OpenAI – one of the front-running artificial intelligence research companies in the world – has just launched GPT-4o, its new flagship version of the ChatGPT large language model (LLM) which can “reason across audio, vision, and text in real time”.

READ MORE: New earbuds by Teenage Engineering-founded firm Nothing feature ChatGPT integration

So what do you do to test one of the most technologically advanced iterations of artificial intelligence right now? Make it sing, obviously.
In a new demonstration video posted on the OpenAI YouTube channel, two smartphones are placed side by side, one with its camera enabled and one without. The phone without its camera enabled is instructed to ask questions of the one with its camera enabled, in order to make sense of the surrounding world without seeing it.
After some AI-to-AI pleasantries, the first AI begins asking questions of the second AI in order to try to paint a picture of the surrounding space.
“What are we looking at today?” it asks, to which the second replies, accurately: “We’re looking at a person wearing a black leather jacket and a light-coloured shirt. They’re in a room with a modern industrial feel, with exposed concrete or plaster on the ceiling and some interesting lighting.”
The AIs are even able to notice when a new person walks into the camera’s view and places bunny ears over the head of the host.
After interacting with one another for two minutes, both AIs are instructed to create and sing a song about what just happened, during which they once again reveal their penchant for interior design.
“In a room where modern lights peak,” belts out the first AI. “A surprise guest with a playful streak,” replies the second.

Now, would GPT-4o make it through the audition stage of The X Factor in its current form? Probably not. To be honest, it feels like it has a way to go before it can write authentic-sounding original music that rivals creative human minds. 
That said, what artificial intelligence is able to do is accelerating at a tremendous rate, and the powers that be are clearly teaching LLM’s how to be creative, so without government intervention and legislation, the future may very well spell trouble for the value of human creativity.
Last year, Black Eyed Peas star will.i.am detailed his predictions for the future of artificial intelligence in music, suggesting it’s likely AI will be good enough to replace some human talent at some point.
“You know it’s gonna make better songs than you. It’s Pac-Man right now, we ain’t even got to Halo. We’re in freakin’ Super Mario Bros., we ain’t even got to Call of Duty yet. This thing’s gonna make better songs than you soon, bro.”
Learn more about GPT-4o at OpenAI.
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Sony generated $2.5bn from recorded music and publishing in calendar Q1 2024, up 14.7% YoYSony's corporate music division posted annual revenues of nearly $11 billion in the 12 months to end of March
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Moog announce Spectravox The latest addition to Moog’s range of compact semi-modular instruments has arrived, offering a blend of classic and cutting-edge features.

Moog introduces the Spectravox semi-modular analogue spectral processor for “unparalleled control over tonal shaping”Superbooth 2024: Moog has introduced the Spectravox – a semi-modular analogue spectral processor described as a “groundbreaking tool for auditory exploration”.
Available now globally, the Spectravox hosts a 10-band filter bank paired with an analogue Moog oscillator and a dynamic white noise generator. It offers lively drones and colourful tonal sweeps, according to Moog, and can be used as a standalone synthesiser and an integrative component in Eurorack setups.

READ MORE: Watch “Synth God” Mike Dean play Moog’s highly anticipated new synth, the Muse

Moog isn’t being modest with this new launch, the brand firmly declares it as “more than a synthesiser”, but rather “an exploration and expansion of the traditional vocoder and filter bank topology, engineered to inspire and transform the landscape of modern music production”. In simpler terms, it thinks Spectravox will knock your socks off entirely.
Dual-mode functionality means this new offering is able to transform from a synthesiser voice into a fully-featured 10-band vocoder. Its integrated secondary filter bank analyses the spectral makeup of incoming sounds, and allows users to imprint the timbral characteristics of external sources onto the Spectravox’s analogue tones.
This may all just sound like a lot of big talk, so to showcase how it works, Moog has teamed up with musician Jamie Lidell on track Awake & Alive to put the Spectravox into use. In the track shared on Moog’s YouTube channel, the Spectravox processes every element of the composition, including vocals, drums, pedal steel, and all synthesisers.
Check it out in the video below:

“Spectravox enhances Moog’s modular synthesis legacy by integrating a sophisticated vocoder alongside powerful analogue synthesis capabilities,” says Product Strategist, Max Ravitz at Moog Music. “This instrument is designed to give musicians comprehensive control over their sound, enabling detailed texture shaping and a broad spectrum of sonic experimentation.”
Find out more at Moog.
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Voltage Lab 2 from Pittsburgh Modular Pittsburgh Modular have announced the upcoming launch of the long-awaited follow-up to their popular Voltage Research Laboratory instrument.

Inverted Minilogue XD heads up a trio of product announcements from Korg at Superbooth 2024Superbooth 2024: Korg has revealed three new products, including a limited-edition Minilogue XD synthesiser, now available in a dark and sophisticated version with inverted keyboard colours.
Also landing just in time for Superbooth is the ST1K Synthesiser Tuner plus a new Acoustic Synthesis Prototype from Korg Berlin – the Acoustic Synthesis_phase8 – which despite not being ready to launch just yet, is being shown at this year’s event.

READ MORE: UAD Triple Crown Compressor bundle is now available at 94% discount, saving you $1,120

We’ll take a look at each one here, but let’s start with the well-loved Korg favourite and its exciting new makeover.
Korg Minilogue XD Inverted
Credit: Korg
All the same specifications of the usual Minilogue XD are on board here – a digital multi-engine, on-board effects, a powered-up sequencer, and micro tuning functionality – it’s just suited and booted in a new look. The inverted version is predominantly black with its flat and sharp keys now in a striking white colour. It’s not clear just how limited this new product is, but it’s set to retail for £599, a slightly higher price than its £549 Minilogue XD Standard sibling.
Take a closer look below:

ST1K Synth Tuner
Image: Korg
Korg says this new tool has been “designed with the unique needs of synth players in mind”, and describes it as compact and precise, offering high visibility so you can make sure your synth is “accurately tuned the way you want every time”.
The ST1K is a handheld, small device weighing just 83 grams. It has the capability of ultra-precise tuning to ±0.1 cents, and features a large CMD LCD display for a clear readout of your tuning status. It also includes a built-in high-sensitivity microphone, so you can also use it with a broader range of instruments.
It utilises three types of metre display mode, which can be selected to suit your preference. The metre has a 3D appearance, and in addition to the standard ‘Regular Mode’, there’s also a ‘Strobe Mode’ and ‘Half Strobe Mode’ to indicate pitch changes by the direction and speed of metre flow, “making it easy to see even the smallest errors”.
Acoustic Synthesis_phase8
Credit: Korg
This work-in-progress is an acoustic instrument that is part melodic synthesiser, and part drum machine. It has eight independent electromechanical voices, a sequencer with polyrhythmic shifting, plus waveshaping, tremolo and EG control.
It has replaceable and tunable resonators, and users can mute, pluck or interfere with these to sculpt the sound. At last year’s Superbooth, Korg showcased the Acoustic Synthesis_phase5 – this was a technical demonstration of Acoustic Synthesis as a technology, whereas this prototype sees the brand introducing that technology as a product.
At Superbooth 2024, the prototypes of Acoustic Synthesis_phase8 will all look different. Korg says this is because it wants to “celebrate the individuality and creativity in customising an instrument to make it yours”. It explains, “We encouraged all five developers to soup-up their prototypes as they please. Instruments are more cared for, last longer and more lovable when a part of you is imparted to them.”
If you fancy checking it out in person, you can do so at stand Z440 from 16-18 of May. Members of the Korg Berlin team will also be talking all things Acoustic Synthesis at a special Gesprächskonzert on 17 May at 5:50pm in the Auditorium.

For more information on any of the new releases, visit Korg.
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7 music production techniques you can learn from Four Tet’s ‘Three’Kieran Hebden has been pushing the boundaries of electronic music production for more than two decades. In that time, he’s developed a unique style of drum production, among other distinct musical traits. Although clearly inspired by the big-room beats of genres like house, breaks and UK garage, his rhythms are less in-your-face and softer, designed to support the track’s main melody rather than carry the whole show on their own.

READ MORE: How to create Justice-style distorted synths

This is particularly true on Hebden’s latest album as Four Tet, Three. Pared down to the essentials, the record mainly uses dance floor-inspired rhythms to buoy the harmonic content of the songs. Hebden employs some clever production tricks, from judicious sample selection to lo-fi processing to mix down techniques like EQ and volume.
Curious how he does it? Read on.
Here’s a finished beat in the style of Four Tet with added melodic content:

Sound selection
When putting together a Four Tet-style beat, start with a selection of drum sounds that complement the melodic elements of the track — or at least don’t distract from them. Four Tet favours sounds that trend towards the small. Think short kicks, snares, claps and hats without much low-end weight. He also avoids over-used samples from trendy machines like the TR-808 that clutter up big-room tracks. Whether taken from an analogue or digital source, go for something characterful instead of the same old sounds that even your Gran canes.
Feel free to adjust the start point of sounds to change their character and make them more unique. Your kick may not need such a pronounced transient, for example. You can also further fine-tune with parameters like cutoff and resonance in the sample player.

Pitch up drums
If you like the character of a sample but feel like it’s not quite working, instead of throwing it out and wasting hours trawling through sample folders, try pitching the sound up a few semitones. Sometimes just moving it up the piano roll a note or two will be enough fit it into the mix better, as with the clap in this example.

Swing and groove
Although clearly inspired by the rhythms of dance floor bangers, Four Tet has always taken a more organic approach to rhythm programming. One big part of that is swing. You can hear it especially in his UK garage-styled beats like in Daydream Repeat, the chief inspiration for the rhythm in this tutorial.
Swing in DAWs and drum machines, as invented by Roger Linn, nudges drum sounds out of time by a chosen amount. While applying swing to kicks and snares sitting directly on the downbeats won’t have any effect, it will definitely be heard on 16th-note elements like closed hi-hats. There are many ways to apply swing. In Ableton Live, go into the Grooves category and drag and drop an appropriate amount onto the piano roll. Swing 8ths 54 works well in this beat.

For additional variation, try nudging the placement of certain drum sounds forward or back on the timeline. Humans don’t play perfectly, after all. Moving a sound forward is called rushing, while going in the opposite is dragging. Mix them up for an unusual feel. Be careful not to overdo it though (unless you want a specifically wonky J Dilla feel).

Humanisation with automation
Kieran made several experimental albums with legendary jazz drummer Steve Reid. You can’t spend that much time with someone like Reid and not pick up a few things.
Accordingly, Four Tet’s beats tend to move around in subtle ways. To mimic the playing of a human while still keeping an electronic feel, try using automation to lengthen the decay of an open hat in the middle of a bar.

For a more subtle feel, use variation to affect the attack of a sample. This will move the sample playhead start point around, mimicking how a human drummer will hit different places on the drum — and at different velocities — every time.

Layer in texture
Texture is important in Four Tet’s rhythm tracks. You can create textures with processing (as in the next step) or by layering in some rhythmic noise. Anything can work, as long as it adds to the rhythm, such as vinyl crackle as he’s here.
Import a sample, find a section that is rhythmically interesting, and loop it under the beat.

Soft and smudgy processing
A big part of Four Tet’s drums is the processing. Compression is important, of course, as are things like reverb but this is the time to get creative. Break out your lo-fi plugins like XLN Audio’s RC-20, use saturators and mild distortion, and give everything a nice patina of grit.
You can also be more adventurous — try running percussion through heavier effects like ring modulators. Here, the open hat is processed by Kilohearts’ kHs Ring Mod to add an electronic element to the acoustic sound. Chorus and phaser effects further smear it out.

Push the drums back with EQ and volume
Lastly, use EQ and gain to help set the whole rhythm track back in the mix. Cut a lot of the bass and the highs from the sounds to give it a warm (and slightly thin) vibe, reducing presence.
You can also place all of the drum tracks onto a single bus and lower the volume more than you would normally on an electronic track. This may feel counterintuitive if you’ve been making dance music for a while, but Four Te tends to mix his songs like 60s pop records, with the drums taking a backseat to the melodic elements.

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AlphaTheta’s OMNIS-DUO all-in-one DJ controller makes a big statement£1,369, alphatheta.com
When AlphaTheta Corporation, the parent company of Pioneer DJ, announced it had created a new brand to sit alongside Pioneer DJ, also called AlphaTheta, it raised a few eyebrows and a ton of confusion. Through the haze of that confusion came AlphaTheta’s first two products — the WAVE-EIGHT wireless speaker and the subject of this review, the OMNIS-DUO. Both units are designed for portability and DJing-on-the-go, complementing each other and attempting to pave enough of a differentiating path that justified such a turbulent brand switch-up.

READ MORE: Why the Euphonia is AlphaTheta and Rupert Neve Designs’ dream collaboration

The OMNIS-DUO definitely does that, on the surface at least. Its striking all-blue design is a departure from Pioneer DJ’s usual black and grey colourway. It’s also much smaller than Pioneer DJ’s recent all-in-ones, such as the XDJ-RR and RX3. In fact, it’s only 18mm wider than their uber-popular DDJ-400 controller, which gives you a sense of how much AlphaTheta has packed into the OMNIS-DUO form factor.
The OMNIS-DUO
OMNIS-DUO setup
On unboxing the unit, you’ll first notice the weight. At 4.6kg, it’s a lot heavier than controllers of the same size. But that’s to be expected, not least because of the added audio I/O and touchscreen, but the six-hour-plus battery that’s been introduced. More on that later.
The OMNIS-DUO feels good. Very good. It’s sturdy and solid – the channel faders glide with a satisfying resistance; its cue buttons respond with an affirming click, and the knobs don’t feel loose under the chassis. This feels like a pro unit — and so it should, with its price tag of €1,369.
Switching the unit on – no plug initially required thanks to the battery – the screen is impressive; bright and with a rich resolution. The screen can also be inverted if you’re DJing outside in the sunlight, which is a nice touch.
Once you select your Source, it’s a familiar story of scrolling through playlists, artists, albums, tracks, and so on. One of our favourite things about the OMNIS is also one of the simplest: it’s powered over USB-C. This means it supports the standard MacBook Pro USB-C plug which may sound inconsequential but being able to hot swap between laptop and controller, or only bringing one plug with you, on a trip is a joy and a lifesaver.
The OMNIS-DUO in use
How do you play music from the OMNIS-DUO?
Media-wise, there’s a USB-A slot and an SD card option, or you can connect to rekordbox via wireless LINK. Oddly, you can’t connect to a laptop and rekordbox library via USB-C, despite there being a USB-C port for using the unit as a controller. You can only connect to rekordbox LINK via wi-fi. This is, again, convenient for home use, though we had several crashes doing this on firmware 1.0.0. When we updated to 1.0.1, we couldn’t re-create the problem. Ultimately, we would have felt more comfortable with a wired cable.
There aren’t yet any streaming services on the OMNIS, which is a major disappointment. Beatport Streaming and TIDAL at the very least would have been welcome, although we’d be shocked if they were on the way in a future update. Its main competitor, the DENON Prime GO, has had these available for years.
The screen is small at seven inches but responds pretty well to poking around and scrolling through cramped playlists. You can browse either by scrolling with your finger or using the dedicated 360 Browse encoder. Pressing down on the encoder enters a category, Shift-clicking it moves backwards out of that category — all very obvious and intuitive. Select the track you want to play, press either the 1 or 2 button to load it to the appropriate deck and you’re up and running.
The OMNIS-DUO
How do you use the OMNIS-DUO?
Once you’re in the mix, the DUO is pretty straightforward. The eight performance buttons on each deck only operate as hot cues so there are no modes to worry about. Each channel has the usual three-band EQ and trim with a Colour FX knob per channel and there’s a global mixer Beat FX section similar to the DJM range. The effects section only has two buttons, but they don’t let you cycle through effects, only the beat delay time and other parameters.
Effects are highly personal so it’s impossible to please everyone, plus the DUO is working within a tight footprint. Still, we wish we could assign effects to each deck, or change the selected effect with a physical button. Having to use the screen every time you want to alternate between what channel the effect is assigned to is frustrating. This is where FX Pads could come in handy – all of this is fixable via firmware updates so maybe AlphaTheta will switch up how effects work in the future. This was our biggest frustration using the OMNIS-DUO.
One of the unique features of the DUO is the ability to ‘stream’ from a Bluetooth device. The implementation is fairly unique in that it caches audio live from a Bluetooth source into a deck in real-time, with the waveform being built before your eyes. Theoretically, you could then ‘DJ’ from any audio source including Spotify or YouTube. The device doesn’t save the recording so you can’t build up a library this way, and you have a max of 10mins of memory per deck when caching. This could have been a very cool feature if you could then assign what you cached to sampler pads and replayed the incoming audio like a sampler. As it stands, it’s still cool but feels like it’s a middle-man solution until streaming sources land on the device.
AlphaTheta suggests using this to take requests by allowing punters to send music to your DUO. We’ll let you decide if you want to open that particular Pandora’s box.
The unit also has Bluetooth output but the usual latency caveats apply.
Input/output on the OMNIS-DUO
Should you buy the OMNIS-DUO?
We’ve talked a lot about what the OMNIS could be, and what it might be in the future, but it also deserves a lot of credit.
It’s sleek and feels intuitive, it sounds excellent and it’s exceptionally fun. The battery might seem like an afterthought to most users, but you’ll find yourself going cable-free more often than not. The ability to record on the device means you can do mixes with no cables at all, on the sofa with the unit on your lap, and music over Wi-Fi. We recorded multiple two-hour sets using only the battery, directly to the device, and everything worked a charm.
Yes, Denon DJ did this first – though the jogwheels are a world apart – but the reality is Denon DJ is not the industry standard, so there’s less incentive to adopt their ecosystem if you intend to play regularly in clubs. The pros and cons of AlphaTheta’s dominance in clubs are beyond the scope of this review but suffice to say this is an excellent option for a home setup for touring, semi-pro and hobbyist DJs.
If you’re already in the rekordbox ecosystem, the OMNIS-DUO is just effortless to use. It’s not cheap, at all, but don’t let the monotone blue fool you – this is a pro unit and AlphaTheta is off to a fantastic start with their new range of products. With a few firmware tweaks, we dare say this could become a classic.
Key Features

Battery and USB-C-powered portable DJ controller
Up to 5 hours play time on battery
Two-deck layout with familiar mixer
Touchscreen operation
Navy blue finish
Eight performance pads per deck, plus Beat Loop and Beat Jump buttons
Six Sound Color FX, eight Beat FX
Native compatibility with rekordbox and Serato DJ
USB-A, SD card, USB-C, wi-fi and Bluetooth connectivity
2x mic inputs, 1x line input

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