Wednesday, August 6, 2008

FRESH Tech: Vestax QFO-LE DX

Vestax Releases their Limited QFO-LE DX (250 World Wide)
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The original QFO was introduced to turntablists, by Vestax and DJ Q-Bert, as the "ultimate on the go, all-in-one mixer turntable instrument" back in 2004. But with mixed reviews on its build quality, Mix DJ unfriendliness, sensitive pitch controls, and overall price, many users have put their used QFO's on ebay and craigslist or opted to stick to more traditional and Serato/Torque ready setups. Don't get me wrong though, scratch DJ's love this. My brother owns one, and loves to just jam on it for hours, as do I, but it certainly has its limitations.



Now to the new QFO-LE DX. They have resolved the issues of price by dropping the QFO's from $1,200 to $899, added features such as assigning different pitch moves, useful with long tones, improved the overall drive train of the system, kept all the usual curve/fader/reverse switches, improved fader, and kept the symmetrical layout that made it so unique.

But really what I want to talk about is the Serato capabilities this thing has. Up until recently, the use of DJ software has basically changed the whole game up, period. The addition of a Serato capable QFO was a smart, but a late move by Vestax for the QFO-LE DX. Here's a description from Vestax.com of how it works:

THRU/VINYL Select Switch
THRU: The vinyl sound is outputted as a LINE signal from THRU OUT. This is used to send the control signals of software control vinyl to computers. The signal from LINE IN 2 is sent to PGM 2.
VINYL: Sound signals of the vinyl played on the QFO LE DX are sent to PGM 2.
What I'm hoping this does is open up the flood gates of a new type of scratch DJ language. Turtablists can flip their routines by putting together their self-produced beats, sounds, and customed sequenced samples, to create their own unique routine and leave the often used battle recs behind, but at the same time add the versatility and advantage the QFO offers. What I see also is that this QFO can now be a more mix DJ friendly tool, well after you get used to the sensitive pitch control.
For example: As 'track 1' plays on the left side or channel 1, change it to INT mode to play it independently from the computer. Load 'track 2' on the right side on your laptop, match it, then mix in channel 2, fade out channel 1. Then repeat. Right? I imagine this how it would be done. I have seen many demos on the new QFO on youtube but I have yet to see it in action with a Serato setup. Hopefully someone posts a tutorial so I can actually see how weird that would be to mix on just one turntable, and if that ever takes off, imagine DJ's rocking a party with just a QFO-LE DX and a laptop. Damn now that would really be streamlining the whole mobile DJ!

In any case, to take closer look on the QFO-LE DX check Vestax.com, and peep all the features I missed on it, and here's an informative Demo on youtube. Here's an old rare demo of Q-Bert fooling around on the prototype in '03, highlighthevideo at 3:50...classic. .
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