Welcome back old friend, and my, how you’ve changed. One of M-Audio‘s most iconic controllers, the Trigger Finger, breathes new life today at the 2014 NAMM press preview as the fully redesigned Trigger Finger Pro. It looks to be one of the early favorites for new products at NAMM spanning the DJing and music production spaces.
From the jump, the most noticeable changes to the Trigger Finger Pro include:
- 16 illuminated, hard buttons for the integrated step sequencer, which includes time divisions for 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 and triplet notes.
- The 16 drum pads include RGB backlighting and light feedback, and from our brief initial tryout, they felt firm to the touch and very responsive.
A 3-line display across the top changes the functionality for the corresponding buttons, knobs and sliders. If the display reminds you a bit of the Maschine controllers, that’s no coincidence. M-Audio plans on appealing to producers who are intrigued with Maschine, but the company designed the Trigger Finger Pro to do an even better job of integrating with DAWs, according to the M-Audio rep we talked to on the show floor.
SOFTWARE AND SOUND LIBRARY
Trigger Finger Pro uses M-Audio’s Arsenal software, which opens in any DAW as an AAX, AU, or VST plug-in, and can create tracks directly, and not having to fly in audio or MIDI files from the plug-in to be mixed. Arsenal also hosts AAX, AU and VST plug-ins, for you to create beats and sequences with the hardware.
To get you started, Trigger Finger Pro will also include an 8GB library of drum and instrument loops and one-shots and the Air Hybrid 3 High Definition Synth plug-in. More than 2,000 of the Hybrid 3 presets and Prime Loops drum loops were artist-created by producers such as Black Anomaly, Tocadisco and other ToolRoom Records artists. Many of the loop cover current styles in the genres of Trap, Nudisco, Dubstep, Drum ‘n’ Bass, Progressive, Electro and Deep House.
OUR THOUGHTS & PRICING
Our first impression was that the Trigger Finger Pro feels a bit more robust than its predecessor; it includes an aluminum faceplate and a detachable, 3-position metal stand for angled use.
You can expect to see the Trigger Finger Pro on sale sometime this spring at a price of $399. With the Arsenal software, sound library, and Hybrid 3 plug-in, which sells for $149 on its own, we think this will be a popular piece at a decent price. What do you think?
See more NAMM 2014 news here – and get the latest NAMM news by watching the DJTT Twitter – we’ll be posting new products, videos, and photos straight from the NAMM convention floor all week.
