Dave Smith Teams Up With Pioneer DJ To Launch DJ Sampler
‘Father of MIDI’ synthesizer genius Dave Smith has designed a next generation hardware sampler with Pioneer DJ, which synchs perfectly with CDJs as being designed explicitly for making music in the studio.
The TORAIZ SP-16 includes analogue filters based on Dave Smith Instruments’ legendary Prophet-6 synthesiser and has been designed to synch perfectly with Rekordbox beatgrids.
Speaking about the device on Pioneer DJ’s launch video, Dave said “the most important part about this sampler is the synchronisation and the ease of integration.’
“Having a sampler there, and loops there, in hardware, ready to go, is going to make things a lot easier for DJs and give them significantly more options in what they can do with the sounds and looping,” said Dave.
“The analogue filter in there, you just grab a knob, twist it and it sounds good. It works really well with digital sound,” he smiled.
“You can still have it tied in with your CDJs, it’s a way to take how you play one step further without having to rethink your whole rig.”
“Inventing the first polyphonic and microprocessor-controlled synthesizer, the Prophet 5, in 1977 as well as a whole host of equally innovative electronic instruments that helped shape today’s musical landscape,” Dave become known as the ‘Father of MIDI’, though largely resisted exploring the purely digital musical world developed by the likes of Ableton and Native Instruments.
“Software is convenient, it’s nice to have everything in the box but to me it didn’t have the look and feel of a musical instrument. I like to touch a machine and know and feel that in ten or twenty years it will do the same thing,” he explained at Amsterdam Dance Event’s Game-changers panel in 2013.
“People are still using Prophet 5’s 35 years later; its’ a real instrument; to me software feels more disposable somehow.”
