Novation intros Dicer: Cue point and looping control for the digital DJ

I hold my hands up because this isn’t strictly “synth”, but to be honest DJing is a secret passion of mine (I didn’t say I was good) and I see a lot of crossover between synth and DJing anyway. So here goes.

Novation has just introduced its Dicer solution for DJs. Developed with Serato Scratch Live, Dicer is a palm-sized bit of hardware that sits on the side of turntables, CDJs, mixer or laptop so it’s instantly available in a convenient location when you need it.

The Dicer site describes it:

Plug Dicer in, slot it on your turntable/CDJ, and you can instantly set cue points and use them to trigger ‘Hot Cues’. Or, flip Dicer into ‘Auto-Loop’ or ‘Loop Roll’ modes, to trigger loops, or ‘roll’ sections of the track to create climaxes, drops and glitchy breaks. Each ‘mode’ illuminates Dicer’s pads a different colour, so you can instantly see what mode the pads in, even in dark clubs and venues.

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Dicer’s buttons can also ‘learn’ other software functions. So, you can assign different FX to the pads, or trigger samples over the top of your mix, or even browse tracks in your iTunes library!

Dicer was designed by Novation in collaboration with Ean Golden – DJ and curator of DJ Tech Tools. Ean came up with the concept of a controller that fits on the turntable, and his contribution has been crucial in helping Novation design and develop Dicer.

Good to see Novation continuing to launch innovative products.