IDJ2 v. Pacemaker

Last year, in 2006, my wife pre-ordered me an iDJ2 for my birthday. It had only been recently announced and appeared to be a great device for those events where you want to DJ, but don’t want to bring turntables or CDJs. After waiting several months I soon grew tired of the delays and started focusing my attention on Ableton Live.

Now, over a year later, the iDJ2 has been released. However this release has been completely overshadowed by the Pacemaker, a device that has been labeled as the ultimate portable mixer. What affect will these two devices have?

Although I have not had an opportunity to play with either one of these, I do have some first impressions that can be summed up as: Pocket DJ, why? iDJ2, I want.

The pacemaker in its simplest sense is an iPod with DJ controls. It is ultra portable and battery powered. Unfortunately, to make a device so small the users had to compromise on the ability to control the parameters. The user is left with a screen to monitor what is going on and a circular input device to control pitch, EQ, song selection, etc. While this appears to complicated, I am hoping that in practice it is easier than it sounds.

However, no matter how easy it is I don’t think it will be able to compare with the iDJ2’s ease of use. It is based around the concept of combining the controls of a 2-channel DJ mixer and two CDJs into one small package. The parameters are controlled by physical knobs that people are used to and it has a color LCD for song selection. The biggest thing that the iDJ2 has going against it is the iDJ (a device that was really a toy) and the lost of positive hype due to the delays in its release.

So why would you buy a pacemaker? Well, as the ads say, you can DJ on the bus! Although I am not sure when I would be interested in doing that. What does the iDJ2 have going for it? It is an entire DJ package based around the device everyone has, an iPod (with all the ease of use that that device entails).

At roughly the same price which device will be more successful?