August is here – which means DJ gear companies come out of their slumber and finally start teasing new equipment for DJ Expo, Musikmesse, and other industry events. What’s happened to Rane DJ after the company was suddenly bought by InMusic last year? DJs will find out later this month with a new product release on the horizon. Keep reading to get our speculation!
Rane DJ Is Officially Back
We got the good news about the much-awaited relaunch of the Rane DJ brand via a press release from InMusic. Here’s the highlights:
[Rane] will introduce two important and exciting new products to the professional DJ
market at this year’s DJ Expo in Atlantic City. The new models mark a dramatic and impressive move for Rane DJ to the forefront of the DJ stage.Over the past 12 months Rane’s Seattle Washington based engineering team has been hard at work bringing this amazing new gear to life. The same engineering team that set the standards for Rane’s rock-solid performance-based mixers has been collaborating with world-class DJs and their crews to develop new DJ performance tools, the likes of which the industry has never been seen before. Rane calls these unprecedented new products Battle Ready.
DJ Expo is in the middle of the month, starting on the 14th. However, we expect to get a full reveal of Rane’s new mixers (yes, keep reading) before that.
Our Hint: DJ Fatfingaz?
Interestingly enough the press release does have one odd aside in it – about a new Brand Manager being brought on board for the company. It’s a hip hop DJ, JP Mathurin – known as DJ Fatfingaz. The press release is pretty specific about his relevance to the upcoming products:
“Mathurin is a seasoned, enthusiastic DJ veteran
whose experience and skills are a perfect complement to Rane’s upcoming product lineup.”
This almost guarantees that the first products from the new Rane company will be battle-friendly mixers designed for DVS users. It seems very unlikely that we’ll see this new Rane start out with a refresh of their rotary mixers or a new type of product like a DJ controller.
Take a peek at a video of DJ Fatfingaz on Hot 97 earlier this year and check his style – and then think about what types of products he’d be brought in to represent:
Taking On The Pioneer DJ DJM-S9?
Here’s something fascinating: the biggest professional DJ mixer on US industry sales reports has continued to be the DJM-S9. It’s on a streak – having been the top unit for a several months now.
This Pioneer DJ battle mixer should absolutely be public enemy number one for a relaunched Rane DJ. After all, the two channel battle mixer was their bread and butter for years, with the iconic TTM-56/57 units having brought intuitive Serato Scratch Live control early in the days of digital DJing.
