Check out the video for the full story, but here are a few of the key features.
Four channel audio interface
The K2 has two stereo outputs: a stereo RCA round the back and a 3.5mm headphone socket in front. In order to ensure the greatest versatility, the 1-2 outputs are actually the headphones. This means that even without the drivers installed the K2 will default to at least being able to be a cueing device.
X Link
Last year’s introduction of X Link on the DB4 remained a puzzle until last weekend and it all became a little clearer. X Link is A&H’s own cable interface which connects with a standard ethernet cable and allows K2s to daisy chain, the DB2 or DB4 to power the K2, MIDI to transfer between the devices… basically it’s a way to make connections whilst also being mindful of USB limitations, and maybe more in future.
Multiple Layers
The controls on the K2 can be split into three layers. The layers can be as simple as pages, but they can also be customised and layers can be set to change only buttons, pots and sliders, top buttons, or combinations. LED feedback can be controlled by software, so layers can show off different LEDs depending on how you have things set up.
The Feel
The K2 feels really nice in action. It’s light, and the included soft case also acts as a riser to bring it up to standard equipment height. The buttons are easy to press, and they’re shallow so that the action is nice and quick. The feel isn’t too dissimilar to the X1 when it comes to buttons, the rotary encoders are lighter and smoother though and the faders are buttery smooth. All in all, the K2 has a lot of blank canvas potential and we’re really looking forward to seeing what we can come up with with them.
We’ll have the K2 in for review soon – keep ’em peeled and let us know what you think!
16 bit soundcard? Come on man, Native instruments has 24 bit 32Okbps and the soundcard thats in the S4 is like no other…their main focus is sound quality, and thats why theyre the best.
@Max George: Maybe my answer comes late, but I was interested in the same question and did a bit of research. According to the mapping tutorial here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svdIrtpbqYo , the K2 does not seem to send hi-res 14bit midi by default. It shows in the video that it sends on only one CC. 14bit midi is achieved by using two CCs simultaneously.
I personally would of been happier with shorter gate faders and a crossfader, but the longer through would be great for loop production in Ableton.
Imagine the the control for ableton for production.
I love the small footprint, just route it to the club intal mixer and it is all you need. I wounder if that headphone out is hot enough for club mixing ? Sold if it is.
I want this and a midifighter pro, I could do some killa sets with this and ableton or traktor.
I have my K2 for about a week now and it’s truly a fantastic device, especially for the price point that it is marketed at. Check out my youtube channel djsetupde as well as a video I made on the pretty cool feature of LED output from Traktor to the K2: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBiQlO7svVk
I have my K2 for about a week now and it’s truly a fantastic device, especially for the price point that it is marketed at.
Check out my youtube channel djsetupde as well as a video I made on the pretty cool feature of LED output from Traktor to the K2: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBiQlO7svVk
I just found out from my retailer that the K2 won’t be delivered before June 2012 by Allen & Heath (Here in Holland, but probably anywhere…)
sure about that? my vendor keeps telling me they will arrive very shortly ^^
I send a mail to Allen & Heath themselves. This is what they said:
______________________________
Hi Martijn,
Unexpected delays are affecting the K2 production. We hope to start shipping in March/April.
For further enquiries and updates, feel free to contact your local distributor, as they are best placed to support you.
Best regards,
Nicola
Allen & Heath
______________________________
I emailed Aleen & Heath about this, this is what they said:
___________
Hi Martijn,
Unexpected delays are affecting the K2 production. We hope to start shipping in March/April.
For further enquiries and updates, feel free to contact your local distributor, as they are best placed to support you.
Nicola
Best Regards
Allen & Heath
_____________
And the local distributor is saying it could take as long as June. I’ll just wait and see 😉
dude the x1 has moulded rubber knobs?? defenately not plastic
Can someone help me?
How do I hookup 2 K2’s side by side for using it in Ableton?
What I cam up with (is this correct?):
K2 Left unit: usb cable to laptop. headphone plugged in on the front of this unit. X Link Out to the In of the K2 Right unit.
Does Ableton now sees both K2’s, like I have one controller?
Can someone help me?
How do I hookup 2 K2’s side by side for using it in Ableton?
What I cam up with (is this correct?):
K2 Left unit: usb cable to laptop. headphone plugged in on the front of this unit. X Link Out to the In of the K2 Right unit.
Does Ableton now sees both K2’s, like I have one controller?
Hi, can I use this K2 for mixing 4 tracks together on Traktor or similar software when having just one piece? thanks for answering
Mike
Two X1s and a ?Xone:K2 may be my new set-up.
anyone know if this supports 14 bit (high-res) MIDI?
According to the mapping tutorial here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svdIrtpbqYo , it seems to send midi on just one CC by default, which is standard. 14-bit hi-res midi is sent by using two CCs simultaneously.
Not interested sorry a&h. Love the work though. I still haven’t found my golden controller. And I can’t make a digital turntable. I’ll still keep my Tt and cdj combo.
Xcellent.
Before you A&H actually build it, It may have:
1-Iluminated rotary knobs. No need for extra power draw. Just add an internal 12 led torch (not unlike those chineese ones at 2 US$). Only with dedicated cabling up to each location and placing each lead close to acrilyc transparent rings (with a I mark) below the rubber knobs. And the two AAA batteries plastic casing placed somewhere inside with an accesible plastic door.
… Uhmm I might add it myself later.
2-For a real 4 way out mixer. Make the phones out optional by adding a selectable switch and place a doble RCA output at the back… The RCA impedance is actually much lower than the existing headphones out and so it uses up less power and so the extra out power need is negligible.
3-An optional i-link power source, would help those without DB2 or DB4 that want to better K2 power (and many times bettering sound quality from isolating dirty Laptop power source)
I’ll also vote for the release of a K2 MIDI only (no soundcard) option with iluminated rotary knobs ‘course.
Xcellent.
Before you A&H actually build it, It may have:
1-Iluminated rotary knobs. No need for extra power draw. Just add an internal 12 led torch (not unlike those chineese ones at 2 US$). Only with dedicated cabling up to each location and placing each lead close to acrilyc transparent rings (with a I mark) below the rubber knobs. And the two AAA batteries plastic casing placed somewhere inside with an accesible plastic door.
… Uhmm I might add it myself later.
2-For a real 4 way out mixer. Make the phones out optional by adding a selectable switch and place a doble RCA output at the back… The RCA impedance is actually much lower than the existing headphones out and so it uses up less power and so the extra out power need is negligible.
3-An optional i-link power source, would help those without DB2 or DB4 that want to better K2 power (and many times bettering sound quality from isolating dirty Laptop power source)
I’ll also vote for the release of a K2 MIDI only (no soundcard) option with iluminated rotary knobs ‘course.
For the price, I agree the sound card is just an optional bonus. This thing looks like the best controller out so far.
For the price, I agree the sound card is just an optional bonus. This thing looks like the best controller out so far.
16bit sound card??? wtf. This is 2011.
I have a 2010 MacBook Pro and can’t use 24-bit without getting drop-outs in TSP2. All music on Beatport, MIK, iTunes and the like, are in 16-bit format. (yes WAV is 16-bit). So unless you’re a producer and playing raw 24-bit .aif files the K2 is in line with current media formats. A&H has the DB4 for 96kHz sound processing.
I cant wait this sucks. I’m thinking with the built in sound card I could run ableton twice out of my comp 4 tracks each with 2 sound cards to a mixer. this would solve my ableton cross-fade issue and just be versatile.
I really wish A&H included a crossfader. The layout just screams “mixer” to me!
finally a advanced in-depth video of a new product.. would like to see more specific videos instead of the usual stuff everybody can look up the web..
why are people complaining about the soundcard? It costs the SAME as an X1+case, so AFAIK, the soundcard is a bonus.
Hard to pick holes at, maybe a fully featured controller editor application? I love my X1 but in the time I’ve owned it some of the pots indents have lost there nice feel to be replaced by a gritty texture, plastic pots don’t belong on supposed professional equipment, simple.
For the price I don’t get the soundcard complaints, yes we’ve all got interfaces all ready but how much money do you think you’ll actually save by making a passive K2, 40, 60? For what ya getting it’s easily the best value controller of it’s type, by a long way and ya get the added bonus of a A&H soundcard for a similar price as a Vestax VFX1. God knows what they’ve done to be able to sell it for that, but at least they didn’t resort to Native Instrument price saving tactics of plastic pots. Besides it’s still early days, there may be soundcard-less K2 in the future, who knows.
A visit to the A&H stand makes BPM all the better, many manufactures at the show are fronted by half decent dance dj’s pretending to be promo guys who must of spent a couple weeks cramming product manuals, But with Xone you get to pick the brains of the tech’s responsible for the new shiny shiny, but be warned, the force is strong with Richard Brace, after a couple of questions at BPM he guessed who I was simply from the shit I spout on here and Skratchworx.
“the force is strong with Richard Brace”
Too right!.. I was just about to describe him as the Allen & Heath Yoda when I saw your comment.
Seriously though, when trying to sell products at trade shows, other manufacturers should not underestimate the value of having someone on hand who knows the product inside out from the development stage upwards and who can provide us punters with concise, accurate answers. It sure beats the “junior salesman who doesn’t even understand the question” approach deployed on some of the other stands.
(Also, props to the guy from Decksaver who pulled one of the nearest controller and jumped up and down on it for me – crude, but it worked cos I bought one!)
“the force is strong with Richard Brace”
Too right!.. I was just about to describe him as the Allen & Heath Yoda when I saw your comment.
Seriously though, when trying to sell products at trade shows, other manufacturers should not underestimate the value of having someone on hand who knows the product inside out from the development stage upwards and who can provide us punters with concise, accurate answers. It sure beats the “junior salesman who doesn’t even understand the question” approach deployed on some of the other stands.
(Also, props to the guy from Decksaver who pulled one of the nearest controller and jumped up and down on it for me – crude, but it worked cos I bought one!)
If you are colourblind, I think you may struggle to see the difference between the Red and Amber, much like with the APC40 which was rendered useless to me as I couldn’t see what was active! Why can’t they use colours that are obviously very different? i.e. Blue. Red. White!
Those LEDs are much more expensive. We’re talking about adding $100s to the retail price.
wtf? really? I have no idea but my X1 has red white and blue LEDs and it’s even cheaper than the K2.
they only have 2 leds in each. green and red make orange. saves production cost.
I’ve been busting my butt off trying to get my mapping down perfect on the X1 when I could just buy this and save a bunch of time ><. Want bad.
I think many will have a hang-up over using an unbalanced Mini-jack going into a mixer via RCA. One main problem is that it’s easier for the mini-jack to unplug in the ‘heat of the moment’ so to speak. The other factor is impedance and will the audio suffer. The quick answer is as long as there is not difference between the output quality of unbalance RCA and a mini-jack then there should not be a problem using Two K2 controllers which would give the user up to 4 Stereo 48Khz/16-bit channels.
For those who still cannot bare to give up their Xone:92 or any other analog mixer for that matter and are now getting sick of lugging an Audio-8 around with them, as they don’t use a 96kHz output, the K2 could be the perfect solution…
” All in all, the X2 has a lot of blank canvas potential ” lol, I guess you mean K2 Chris.
Boy that upcoming NI X2 has some serious competition. The more i look at this device the more I like it. Xlinking 2 of them with my Xone is giving me second thoughts about my vci/audio 8 setup.
I hope you guys are going to thourougly test the soudcard, also in aggregated mode, wonder what the latency will be like.
Thanks for the review.
Ahem. Oops. Fixed, thanks for the heads up 😉
there’s not gonna be an X2
Why a soundcard?
Or better why not a version with out soundcard?
soundcard enables you to use this with any analogue mixer, like the db4 or db2
And what if I already have a better sound card and don’t need another one? There must be a version without the audio interface.
And what if I already have a better sound card and don’t need another one? There must be a version without the audio interface.
This would make a perfect dedicated 4 channel FX controller.
Is it correct, that you would need four of these to route the decks of Traktor to a four-channel mixer?
I think that if you don’t want to use an headphone output to go to your input mixer (like me), then, yes.
looks very nice, seems perfect to be a “midi-mixer”, this one in the middle of 2 X1s and you’ve got a nice combo =D
As I understand it you have a stereo out at the back and a stereo out at the front. So you have phones out and one stereo cable to be connected to the club’s mixer. But since it is intended that you use the fader to control your decks there is no need to use 4 channels on the club’s mixer, unless you need a crossfader. In this case 2 devices were enough, because every of them would have 2 stereo outs. But surely you CAN have 4 of them and control whatever you want per deck and then send 8 channels to the mixer.
No, because it has 4 outputs (2 stereo). 2 on the back and 2 on the font.
every K2 device has 2 stereo channel output. So two K2 devices gives you 4 decks of audio, then cue from an external mixer.
As i am not very keen on making my own mappings i’m really looking forward to see som mappings on here. Eventually from A&H or Ean?
Yep, there will be mappings included. Maybe we’ll make some, too – seems like a ton of potential there.