Richie Hawtin Unveils PLAYdifferently MODEL 1 Mixer For DJs & Electronic Musicians

playdifferently-model-1-mixer

Electronica artist Richie Hawtin (Plastikman) and electronics designer Andy Rigby-Jones have launched the PLAYdifferently MODEL 1, the brand’s debut product. The Model 1 is designed to deliver ‘a new level of uncompromising quality and intuitive functionality combined with hand-crafted British design’.

The Mixer offers 6 full featured stereo channels, 2 stereo Send & Return channels, 2 Mix outputs, and Master & Booth EQ.

Features include a per channel Hybrid Filter EQ & Input overdrive control, Master Resonant Filter (with both HPF and LPF controls), a Dual headphone Cue system, Tascam DB25 connector system, Dual Mixer linking capability and a Dual external PSU option.

“Its time to accept that DJing has come a long long way over the past 25 years and introduce a Mixer that lives up to the expectations of the modern electronic music performer,” says Hawtin. “A mixer more akin to an instrument, with intuitive controls, uncompromising quality and features that can unlock a new wave of creativity.”

Here’s the official MODEL 1 intro video:

Features:

Mix

  • 6 stereo channels
  • 2 stereo sends
  • 2 stereo returns
    3 high performance phono preamps
  • Studio grade faders

Manipulate

  • Precision Sculpting EQ
  • Contouring low & high pass filters
  • Analog overdrive

Collaborate

  • DualCue
  • Mixer Link

Engineer

  • Balanced Mix Bus
  • Master high & low pass resonant filters
  • Three-band master EQ
  • Two-band Booth EQ

Build

  • 100% analogue
  • ZERO Crossing Circuitry
  • Quality Components
  • External Power supply
  • BUILT IN THE UK
  • CONNECTIVITY
  • D-Subs In
  • D-Subs Out
  • Front mounted record Out

Pricing and Availability

The PLAYdifferently MODEL 1 will be available from 30th June 2016, directly from PLAYdifferently, with a limited amount numbered individually, priced at £2,500.

48 thoughts on “Richie Hawtin Unveils PLAYdifferently MODEL 1 Mixer For DJs & Electronic Musicians”

    1. Better, cheaper? You may be right, but what do you know about it? Nothing, like the rest of us.
      If the quality is at the top it might be worth the investment.

  4. For those of who don’t DJ, but rather want a DJ Mixer interface to play our drum machines and synths and stuff, this is an amazing development.

    The whole 20 or 30 DJs buying this misses that whole segment of us who are doing the Live performance thing, but need a mixer that is also an instrument.

    So far my weapon of choice has been the Xone:92, but this is an amazing evolution of that mixer.

    I’m in.

    2. Robo, based on your comment I think we’re on the same wavelength. What kind of stuff do you do? Got any vids or music uploads I could check out?

      1. I posted this comment over at Create Digital Music. Weird how it posted over here.Someone must have cut and paste it here – and then mis-attributed it to “Robotronik”.

        It’s ROBTRONIK.

        that being said: you can see my on going stuff using live gear at my facebook page: facebook.com/robert.pointer

        I definitely need 2 send and returns. 6 channels is awesome. I use s/r for modular effects outboard gear and the second s/r for looping live the output. This mixer is very well thought out for those that use the Xone:92 for those purposes but hate that its only 4 channels and you have to route one of the s/r back to a channel and use it up.

        this mixer solves that problem handily. VERY NICE.

        FYI – the Rane MP2015 is also $3k. So, this is priced correctly against other potential competing products IMO.

        1. oh and I should add, that the instrument/mic channels lack the filter in the Xone:92 which makes them not so great to use in a live context – whereas this Model:1 eliminates that problem (hence my statement about using one of the 4 channels available – rather than just use the 2 return/mic channels).

    3. The Preorders are a lot higher than you think.
      The Sound of the Mixer is really great and it´s a new feel to mix with filters. The Model 1 is very intuitive and a lot of Arguments make sense, like the lack of a Soundcard (every Dj could have the one Soundcard, that he prefers).
      How about the price… This mixer is a fully analogue HighEnd Mixer, that has 6 Filters – HP and LP – in the channels + parametric Mids and 1 in the Master.. and its not produced somewhere in China, but in the UK and not Tens of thousand like an Pioneer or something else.

      If i had the the money i would have ordered it already.

  8. There’s this thing called a Roland MX-1 that was released last year and it’s really nice for the price. If you don’t have AIRA gear don’t worry just ignore those USB host ports on the back. A slightly different animal but makes a great mixer whether your DJ or not. It’s also $600 U.S. and for all it does it’s cheap!

    1. But how do you control all that parameters without external Hardware like Potentiometers? I had the MX-1 in my fingers and would never use it as a Dj Mixer, because of the Lack of Controls and in other cases, where can i connect 2 or 3 Turntables?
      I have a Xone92 for Djing and have all the Controls under my hands…
      The Model1 is expensive, but seems to be very reliable and has all the controls on the Frontplate, no Menus, no mouse etc. It felt very good and sounded really good, even with Vinyl, its a whole new experience to me, to mix with Filters on a Mixer.

      1. Yeah, this, just feel so betrayed by this. I’ll never forget it. Especially having seen him so much back in the Twilo days. This is absolutely the worst thing I’ve ever seen or heard anyone do on a stage. I know, it was a while ago, I know he’s apologised, but it just speaks to a complete lack of understanding of stagecraft – to intentionally attack a FAN and damage equipment. If I ran a club, I would never let a child like that near my equipment. If I ran a company, I would never let a child like that be associated with my product.

        1. Just let it go already, he was drunk, he made a mistake and he apologised for it. People aren’t perfect and this is the biggest incident that Richie had in 20+ years of his career.

          1. fuck that, you don’t push pa gear onto to people, that shit could seriously injure someone.

            “he was drunk”

            Wow really dude…

  10. You get what you pay for and for most home producers this would be overkill. This mixing rig would be expected to work night after night in clubs for decades without issue (and also be easily repairable/future proof if issues did come up).

    The two stereo sends and two cues are a treat and the overall layout is very clean. It would be easy to learn the layout by heart I beleive. Having an analog overdrive trim per channel could also make the mix sound warm and fat.

    Still, when you can get an equally-pro level and all analogue Allen Heath Xone 92 for $1300 one does wonder if this unit brings enough extra to justify the cost?

    1. All good points. The one I’d worry about at this price (if I were the target market) is ‘night after night for decades’. I agree that that level of performance is fair to expect from something like this but that sort of reliability takes machining and experience that I’m not convinced a product #1 would have. Plus, they’re betting the ‘decades’ part on people adopting this. I really hope them all the best because the thing looks incredible but that’s not a bet I would take.

      1. @will RE: reliability: It is my understanding that an allen heath employee helped design the unit and that allen heath company will be making the actual units to be sold under this new label.

  11. Way over priced for a mixer that is labeled Akin to an instrument…. which lacks many features of todays mixers like the Allan and heath or presonus I guess this is something good for being bolted down to a dj booth , no 1/4 jacks , no midi , no internal effects aside form some basic filters and eqs. nothing revolutionary except for the price thats jacked up way the hell up there. I dont see this mixer being used by producers who actually perform live on stage with synths and drum machines.. reminds me of the oldskool mixer design that is good for spinnin vinyl and cd djs . for that price you can get something thats way better .Sure Dj has come a long way but this is not where electronic music is going.. everything is moving towards fully blown live performance with actual instruments and synths . This mixer was needed 10 yrs ago but today with many better quality mixers its just another line of product that will end up collecting dust at store shelves

  12. PLAYdifferently is a sh*t name for a brand, wouldn’t want that on any of my gear..

    There’s my contibution to the debate..

  13. Finally I´ll have a quality mixer to connect my brand new Toraiz… oh, damn I fall asleep at work… again!

  15. It is a pretty good product for a particular niche of well paid Live PA music producers, the ones who can carry their own mixer to gigs such as Gui Boratto, Richie Hawtin himself and so on.
    I think they are not aiming to be a music industry standard for Dj mixers like Pioneer; they are different beasts. BTW, I am not sure how long those pretty faders will last after a couple of gigs. Ps: Please DON’T change the colour of the VU meters again, it should be Green, Yellow and Red! A Red VU looks like it is clipping all the way, all the time!

  16. A few years ago I would have bought one of these. Now it’s just another limited interface that will just collect dust. I moved on and prefer to create my own mixing environment with AUM, a soundcard and a controller…

  17. If it looks like a DJ mixer, and sounds like a DJ mixer, then it’s a DJ mixer! A very expensive one at that.. And yeah, the name of the company 😀 Sounds like some kind of Chinese plastic toy

  18. So, why wouldn’t you just spend like half as much and get a presonus studiolive? It’s got more sends, more inputs, more control. I guess it misses the boat on having a crossfader but I guess you could do that manually with buses. 6 channels wouldn’t be enough for me. :/

  19. Looks like a good quality mixer but it’s still just a DJ mixer that hasn’t brought anything new to the table.

  20. To everyone who said it beings nothing new to the table, how about the 2 stereo sends. How about the 2 filters ans 1 parametric eq (with variable frequency) per channel. How about the D-sub connectors for in and outputs. How about the (stupid) overdrive function. How about the dual cue system.
    It’s ok if you don’t like it, but don’t say it bring nothing new, because it does and pushes the envelope for dj mixers

    1. Why do you think the overdrive feature is stupid?

      I think it would be very useful if you’re piping in a synth or guitar loop to a channel or if you had a beat going you wanted to fatten up without having to go louder. A little bit of overdrive can be magic.

  22. Interesting. Andy was intimately involved with all the A&H Xone stuff so there’s definitely some credibility there. Also if you look closely it uses the same enclosure as the A&H Xone:DB4 and it says “built by Allen & Heath” on the back, so there’s some association there. Think of it as a high end A&H Xone product. $3600 is way up there though. I don’t like the panel, too much black no contrast and hard to to see anything. To be fair the current A&H mixers are similar and I hate those too and use an original Xone:92.

  25. One point some are missing on these DJ mixers vs standard mixers: stereo channels.

    You’d need a 12 channel regular mixer to run 6 stereo lines in. You need stereo channels when you mix tracks and modern synths with stereo outputs.

    There are different kinds of mixers for different uses. This would not be a good choice for a recording studio although it could handle it in a pinch. This mixer is geard toward live DJ/Synthbox performance mixing.

  26. I wonder how the sound quality of this mixer will compare to the Rane Mp2015?

    I like the idea of this mixer being fully analog and the filters seem like a great idea but I can’t help but think that the 1 sculpt EQ per channel will not be enough, what if a track needs boosted in more than 1 band and the filters only stay flat, seems a bit of a fiddle to have to use the master EQ and then hope that there are no other scenario’s on other channels!

    I’d have liked to have seen a 4 band traditional EQ per channel in addition to the 2 new filters.
    I’d also love to hear some tracks ran through this overdrive to see if it can really sex shit up and make an already dirty sound source fat as fuck!

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