Keeping up with low-end audio gear maker Behringer is getting harder, with their “87 products in 2005” promise. Here’s the latest:
The B-Control Nano BCN44 is a box with four knobs and four buttons, plus an LED. That’s it. It’s just a simple, programmable MIDI box, but it’s dirt cheap: US$64.99 /39 GBP, available now in Europe. (US availability soon.)
More interesting, though also infinitely more ugly, is the new Tweakalizer DFX69 DJ effects box. Aside from real-time scratch capabilities, the box has a BPM counter, transposition, full filter and EQ sections, and even LFO-driven delay and flanger effects. My personal favorite copy writing moment: “you can adjust track speed using the virtually inaudible Pitch Transposer.” Wow — did you say inaudible effects? Is it more like the digital silence of the Dead Quietenator, or the analog warmth of the Moogerfooger silence effect. (Sarcasm mode off)
Anyway, I have no idea what this thing sounds like as it’s also Europe-only at the moment, but it’s got that Behringer-low price: US$149.99 / 86 GBP. Behringer’s been awfully hit-or-miss, with some great kit (fantastic foot pedal box and motorized control surface) and some crap (mixers ranging from so-so to lousy), as readers have discussed at length here on CDM. We’ll wait and see. In the meantime, do you have a preferred real-time scratch system? Let us know.
Hold on! Thanks to the fact that I don’t reprint press releases, we’ve gotten through this whole story without any breathless PR prose! Here goes, in regards to the BCN44. Sure, it’s a box with four knobs on it, but remember, its “miniscule size doesn’t stop it from being a formidable contender for both studio and pure controller applications.” Its ability to run on a power adapter OR a battery gives you “the ultimate in ease of operation and mobility.” (This new “battery” thing is exciting, no?) Why, I’d say it’s “compact to the max and a price that simply blows you away!”
There, don’t you feel better now? Tune in tomorrow, same hype time, same hype channel.