
Like many, we have dabbled with DJing with (we’ll be brutally honest here) truly horrendous results but, in fairness to us, we never had a device such as the staggeringly brilliant Tonium Pacemaker handheld DJ gadget to hand and, besides, there’s a limit as to what can be achieved in attempting to mix Nick Drake’s Northern Skies with the likes of LCD Soundsystem – the results of which still haunt us in a cacophony of mismatched beats.
Let’s be honest here. Any device that has the likes of Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman) involved in beta testing is going to be held in great esteem by us and that’s not even taking into consideration the sheer marvel of this gorgeous device.
Tonium’s Pacemaker, in essence, is a portable media player that comes with a host of inbuilt audio manipulation features allowing for on the fly, professional track mixing between two separate audio channels via a device small enough to pocket.
Hardly sounds like rocket science, does it. But when you consider that this device comes with an integral 120GB hard disk, multiple file format support (MP2, AAC, WMA, WMA Lossless, WAV and even VBR - and the much under rated Ogg format), integral crossfader as well as pitch, bend, loop, split loop and EQ/Gain filters (to name but two) and that it fits all this into a unit measuring a mere 164 x 69 x 23 mm in size you start to realise that this is something very special.
Not enough to get your pulses racing (cheap pun avoided)? How about adding beat matching capabilities into the equation?
Presently available for pre-order for €520 excluding tax and shipping (approximately $742 / £362 at the time of writing), the Tonium Pacemaker is a device we would positively kill to get our hands on (ok, not kill, but definitely slap around a little).




