Novation Dicer – Serato controller and more
By Paul Dakeyne
| Posted in DJ
The Novation Dicer Serato Scratch Live controller has landed. Just a week ago, a mysterious countdown timer appeared on the Novation website which suggested a ‘game changer’ was about to arrive in the DJ world – and my goodness, has it just!
Dicer is a plug-and-play, optimised controller primarily for Serato Scratch Live, although it will function via templates or MIDI mapping with other software such as Traktor and Ableton Live. Its feature set consists of entering, instant playback (and even deletion) of ‘hot cue’ points, an ‘auto loop’ layer and a multi-trigger function called ‘loop roll’. In addition, two ‘user mode’ layers allow ten custom MIDI mappings of any desired control (i.e: crate selection, track loading, effects on/off, play/pause etc).
Consisting of five main ‘Dice’ buttons and three mode layer selectors, this pair of control devices drop straight into the 45rpm adaptor hole on a Technics SL1200. Alternativey, using Novation’s aptly named ‘DJ putty’, Dicer attaches firmly to a CDJ, laptop or any other hardware. This new DJ tool also needs no driver installation – it connects via USB to the first Dicer, then via a mini-jack to the second unit.
DVS based, Serato Scratch Live users make their use of timecoded vinyl or CD – a main control focus of using the system. If also using a dedicated controller, perhaps as a luxury item, this currently requires time-consuming MIDI mapping and along with everything else to lug around adds bulk and expense in cost and time. Novation Dicer has now changed all of that.
It’s very affordable, extremely versatile, drops straight into a laptop bag (taking hardly any room up) and – smooth fader transitions aside – has addressed pretty much most of the digital DJ’s main needs for creative performance control, expressed through dynamic hot cue playback, easy to use auto-looping and tempo locked, multi-triggering.
Serato users aside, Novation provide a Native Instruments Traktor Pro template (with more to come I believe) and, as mentioned earlier, Dicer is wide open for custom user MIDI mapping to other software like Ableton Live and, if the need arose, to certain DAW functionality too. I’d predict that Dicer will be of monumental interest to those DJ’s (at whatever level) that have yet to move their laptop control options past a mouse and computer keyboard: Novation’s new product here is gonna literally rock their world! Oh, and lest I forget the forthcoming Serato/Ableton hook up we all now know as ‘The Bridge’. Novation are making no mention of this right now, but I can only speculate at how Dicer may integrate with that particular set-up.
I guess I can count myself as one lucky son of a gun, because I’m headed into the studio now to run the Novation Dicer Serato Scratch Live controller through its paces and will report back here at DV247′s blog very soon with a full product review. To say I’m looking forward to this would be a gross understatement. Check below on this post for our exclusive DV247 video introduction to the Novation Dicer.
Tags: Dicer, dj putty, novation, novation controller, novation dj controller, serato scratch live