13/02/2008 You know, I attempted to cook a Victoria Sponge Cake last Tuesday. I thought “Man, anyone can bake a cake”, that’s some easy friggin’ s**t, right? Wrong! I broke the eggs and the eggshells went in the mix, and then I dropped the flour on my foot; man, it was belly-up from there. It came out the oven like Friday night’s curry… See, some people, like me, have limited ability when it comes to creativity… Stick me in front of a turntable and I’d crumble, the sound of a million banshees would fill the room, everything would go Pete Tong minus the ability. The ‘ol fat person in a pool effect…
Enter the Pacemaker, an appropriately named pocket-sized implement that’ll have even the most tech-shy keeping up the pace with DJ luminaries the world over… Well, so expectations suggest. The Pacemaker’s a sort of glorified iPod; you could put any tune you like on this little baby, with a massive 120GB hard-drive allowing you to mix and mash to your hearts content. How can this be, you may ask? Because the Pacemaker allows you to play two, yes TWO, tracks simultaneously. It’s the future baby, yeah!
Imagine remixing The Stooges, Rolling Stones and Kate Bush… “What, Wuthering Heights?” “It’s possible… It’s possible…” I mean, you could scratch and mix anything from any genre with the Pacemaker. You could even scratch some classic blues, Miles Davis, or Frank Sinatra with Hot Chip or Wu Tang Clan… Anyway, here’s the technical part about all this mixing malarkey. The Pacemaker has the ability to measure the BPM (Beats per Minute) of your uploaded tracks enabling you to mix tracks as simple as one, 1, 2, 3 or A, B, C. The possibilities are endless!
“We’re out to try something different; to bring people closer to the music they love and to let music lovers be creative with their passion,” Inventor of Pacemaker and founder of Tonium, Jonas Norberg explains. “We aim to increase the diversity and reinforce the value of music by offering new means for people like us to creatively engage in what we love!”
The Pacemaker is compatible with PC and MAC and supports all the major audio formats including MP3, WAV, AAC, OGG and FLAC files, which is pretty friggin’ impressive. Furthermore, the quality of sound is “twenty,” yes twenty, “times better than the average iPod”. Oh, and if all this tech-speak wasn’t salivating enough Pacemaker will offer a free download editor for your PC or MAC so you can play about with mouse and key, download new tracks and beats, and upload your creative babies to share the world over. Who knows? You could be the next Armin Van Buuren…? Even if you can’t bake a Victoria Sponge… Words: Dave Dryden www.pacemaker.net
Tech Speak:
IN THE BOX: • Pacemaker® • Quick start guide • Stereo amplifier cables • USB 2.0 cable • Power charger
SIZE AND WEIGHT • Length 164/ Width 69.6/ Height 22.8 mm • Weight: 200 g (approx.)
CAPACITY • 120 GB hard drive
INPUT AND OUTPUT • Mini USB • 2x3.5 mm stereo plug
POWER AND BATTERY • Exchangeable rechargeable battery; full-charge time: 1.5 hrs, fast-charge time: about 1 hr • Music playback time: 18 hrs • DJ operating time: 5 hrs
DISPLAY • Dimensions: ø 45 mm • Resolution: 166 dpi screen resolution (0.153 mm dot pitch) • TFT display with 262 K colours
AUDIO • Frequency response: 20–20.000 Hz (SNR: 103 dB) • Audio formats supported: MP3, AAC, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, WAV
DJ FUNCTIONALITY • Two output channels: headphones and lineout • Two crossfaders: headphones and lineout • Pitch  control: ± 100% • Equalizer: for adjusting treble, mid and bass amplitudes. • Mix saving: continuous caption to
hard drive. • User Input latency: approx. 5 ms
MAC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS • Mac with USB 2.0 port; Pacemaker® Editor installed • Mac OS X v10.3.9 or later
WINDOWS SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS • PC with USB 2.0 port; Pacemaker®
Editor • Windows XP Home or Professional or Windows Vista
ENVIRONMENTAL REQUIREMENTS • Operating temperature: 0–55°C • Storage temperature: -20–55°C
LANGUAGES
All major languages supported |
