inthemix | Lifestyle | Putting the Tonium Pacemaker through its paces

The Tonium Pacemaker is the hugely hyped portable DJ mixing device that’s set to revolutionise the way dance fans interact with their music. Many gadget freaks would have seen the YouTube vids or read about trailblazing techno godfather Richie Hawtin’s vested interests in the technology. But, rather than just giving you the option of listening to your music, it offers you the capability to create mixes of your favourite tracks whenever, wherever. It’s like an iPod on steroids.

One of the most powerful aspects of the unit is that it will allow DJs to work on sets and mixes while they’re on the road; imagine, now when you have an idea for the perfect mix you no longer have to wait to get back to your decks to try it out. With the Pacemaker you can carry all your tracks with you. The unit packs in two virtual decks, a three-band equaliser, four effects, as well as the ability to loop and reverse, and even pitch shift +/- to 100%! This is all squeezed in to a lightweight device that fits comfortably into your hand.

The Pacemakers can store 120GB of music (30,000 tracks) on a solid-state hard disk, which means there are no moving parts – an accidental drop will not ruin your mix. With 120GB of storage space you can rest assured that all your latest tunes will be with you. You’ll never have to dig though your record crates again to find that track, because it’ll be at the tip of your fingers.

Packaging

The Pacemaker comes very well presented in a slick black box, very much akin to Apple’s easy-on-the-eye iPod packaging. It also comes with everything you need to get the unit up and running; Quick Guide – your very helpful and easy to follow guide to using the Pacemaker, Strap – to hang the Pacemaker on neck if you’re so inclined, USB Cable – connect the Pacemaker to your PC/Mac’s USB 2.0 port, Audio Cable – a standard 3.5mm to RCA cable for connecting it to your stereo, DJ mixer, mixing console or amplifier, Adapter/Power Cable – as well charging the Pacemaker using the adapter it will also charge when you connect to your computer via the USB cable. The Pacemaker box itself is also lined with the same rubber that is used on DJ road cases.

The Unit

The Pacemaker features eight buttons, a touch sensitive crossfader, touchpad and the all-important ‘P-switch’ (which is located on the left side of the device). That’s a lot of buttons for such a small and portable device, but it gives you a lot of freedom when using the device. Pushing the P-switch activates extended functions on the Pacemaker, giving all of the buttons a double purpose. Also, the touchpad itself is divided into four sections, so it’s good to think of them along the same lines as the rotary knobs on a mixer. The buttons and screen are brightly lit, and you can modify the settings simply through your profile setup. All of the basic functions are illustrated and explained in the Quick Guide booklet.

Let’s Mix

So now it’s time to take the Pacemaker for a spin. Pun intended… After 5 minutes of use I had the basic functions figured out; the crossfader and three-band equaliser. After half an hour (and a quick look at the guide book, mind you) I was loading tracks, beat mixing and utilising the effects.

The touchpad and crossfader are ultra sensitive; you barley touch them to get a response. By positioning two fingers on the touch pad or fader you can quickly cut the EQ levels or cut to the opposite channel. Navigating though your tracklists and loading up songs are both quite easy. To load a track it’s a only a matter of double tapping the centre of the touchpad, finding the song and moving left or right, depending on the channel. To make finding tracks quicker you can use the P-switch to filter by title, genre, artist, album and BPM. The BPM really comes in handy as all tracks loaded onto the unit are analysed, so it’s not to hard find a song to match the tempo of your mix.

The awesome thing about the Pacemaker is that you can mix using just your headphones, both master and cue line outs can be heard on your headphones in “Advanced” cross fader mode. You can cue a track while listening to the master output, think of it like having a rotary knob on your mixer that controls the sound being sent to your headphones. I tried it out with my iPod headphones on the train coming to work and I could perfectly beat mix my tracks! Also, in “Mixer Mode” you can connect the line outs and headphone out to separate channels on your mixer, meaning you can use the Pacemaker like two CDJs, all the while controlling the pitch on the Pacemaker and using the mixer to control the EQ or effects.

It was unfortunate that at time of writing this review I couldn’t save a mix on the Pacemaker as the firmware had not yet been released. Posts on the Pacemaker support forum suggest that the development it still in testing, so Pacemaker owners will have to wait a little longer for this important feature to be released. It’s expected that future updates will also include a “scratch mode”, which would allow you to – you guessed it – scratch your tracks as you would on a turntable or CDJ.

After several hours of straight usage I did notice that the device is not perfectly stable as I experienced a few software crashes, as well as the inability to turn the device on. This was frustrating, but considering it’s still a very new product owners are advised to update their firmware as soon new versions are released. All the issues I encountered were mentioned on the Pacemaker support forum, so some issues were easily fixed. Others look set to be resolved on the next firmware release.

Pacemaker Editor

Pacemaker Editor software is used to import tracks to your unit. The editor is also used to create mixes with a multi-track interface, much like what you’d find in Pro Tools or MixMeister. Once you’ve created a mix you can publish/upload it to your account at www.pacemaker.net, so you’re able to share it with others or send it on to friends. To load a track onto the Pacemaker you simply drag and drop it onto the editor. The editor automatically analyses the BPM – all tracks need to be analysed before they are imported.

What’s cool about the software is that once you publish a mix it creates a playlist of that tracks you used as well as the actions/effects used throughout. This means listeners can see exactly what you were doing while putting the mix together. Later versions of the software are tipped to allow you to import mixes direct from your Pacemaker, allowing you to mix your tracks on the unit before finetuning them to publish and have the whole world hear.

The Verdict

The Pacemaker won’t be your ticket to DJing superstardom, and it won’t replace CDJs or turntables in the clubs. However it does give music lovers the ability to play and listen to their tracks in a whole new way. It offers you the chance to mix, add effects, scratch and record mixes, then share them with mates or post onto the web for everyone to listen.

The Pacemaker was fun to use. It responded very well as the touch sensitive controls made mixing effortless. I found it very hard to put the unit down once I had the controls all figured out, so the fact that I could use it on the train or at home on the couch meant I could mix whatever I liked, whenever, wherever. Ultimate musical freedom!

Thanks to Tonium we have a shiny new Pacemaker to give away to one lucky ITMer! It’s worth over $1,000 and is endorsed by some of the dance scene’s biggest names, including Richie Hawtin and Axwell. All you have to do is watch one of the first three episodes of our new inthemix.tv show and enter the secret codeword HERE.

Check out the Pacemaker in action, here being used by Australia’s very own Dirty South:

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i_have_ADD says...

on May 20th, 2008

having had the chance to play around with one of these - they are very cool indeed, but i'm struggling to see it as more than just a really expensive toy. it's a toy that's lots of fun though!