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.

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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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