This weekend the DJ Expo opened its doors in the RAI in Amsterdam. It was quiet obvious that laptop and computer software are becoming more and more important for the DJ sceme. Stanton’s Finalscratch with Native Instruments Traktor DJ software and Ableton’s Live were shown on many booths.

Allen & Heath
Jochem Paap (Speedy J) gave an impressive demonstration of laptop DJing, using the xone:92 and two Apple PowerBooks, one with Native Instruments Traktor and the other one running Ableton Live 5. He used Live mainly as real-time effect machine. Since both Powerbooks used firewire audio-interfaces, latency was not an issue and the xone:92 supplied the midi-clock for Live.
The new xone:3D was not on display but a beta-version will probably be shown at the Plasa show in London next month. Release date might be december 2005 according to the person I spoke to.

Denon DJ
As expected Denon demonstrated the new DN-S3500 DJ Tabletop CD-Player. Unfortunately only 2 desks made their way over to Europe and you couldn’t really get a hands-on experience. But anyhow, it looks great and has a lot to offer. Thumbs up. For netlabel DJs with their large mp3 collection a good choice if they don’t want to work with the laptop.

Edirol
Contrary to the DJ Expo announcement Edirol was not there, so I could no meet my old friend Conny from Edirol Europe. See you at the IBC next month then.

Ecler
Unfortunately no Ecler products were on the show either. I had been looking forward to see the Nuo 4 and Nuo 5 mixers.

Native Instruments
I spoke to a representative from Native Instruments and she wasn’t really amused about my various problems with Traktor DJ on my PowerBook. Well, next time Traktor DJ crashes I will send my crash log to Berlin and am curious if I get a reaction. Since I saw many people working with Traktor DJ on a Apple PowerBook, I hope that I can improve the situation and actually use the software.

Pioneer
Pioneer showed the new EFX1000 effect unit. A bit weird was their performing DJ on top of a Hummer vehicle. Not really the way to display your gear and skills to the audience in my opinion. Otherwise they presented their DVJ-X1 DVD Video/CD Deck and the CDJ-200 mp3 CD Deck.

Roland
Somewhere hidden the new Roland SP-404 sampler was being presented. I didn’t notice it first when I walked through the booth.

Conclusion
A large music dealer could probably offer the same amount of information and give you a chance to actually try the equipment – but I don’t know such large dealers here in the Netherlands.
Many companies did not participate or where only represented by a (small) dealer or their local distributer. Knowing the Musik Messe trade show in Frankfurt Germany (where I worked twice), I had higher expectations regarding the diversity and quality of the information.

• Photo gallery of the DJ Expo 2005 Amsterdam
• Video impression from the DJ Expo 2005 Amsterdam (Quicktime, 36MB)