EKS OTUS RAW released.
EKS OTUS RAW released. Posted on: 18.08.2010 by Hanna Ridenbaugh Hi guy'sbeing an otus owner I've been anticipating the raw's release. Here it is. http://eks.fi/product.php?p=products&id=70 looking forward to some videos soon. ciao ciao | |
| Herma Buschelman 18.10.2010 |
Originally Posted by nem0nic
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| Hanna Ridenbaugh 18.10.2012 | Anyone got one these yet? If so how you finding it? I miss my old otus and it was great to mix back to back with another dj. |
| Herma Buschelman 18.10.2010 |
Originally Posted by nem0nic
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| Dj LsEx 18.10.2010 | We're led to assume it will finally be on the market within the month? Apparently EKS were at BPM recently, but I've not read a single account of it being seen or played yet. I'm looking forward to some first impressions of it. |
| Hanna Ridenbaugh 18.10.2010 | Anyone had a play on the new Otus Raw? what are the mpc pads like? and the pitch faders? cheers |
| Ernie Stieglitz 20.08.2010 | I believe the biggest issue for me is the 3+ deck problem. Layout for two deck mixing is great if you are using an external mixer, leaving you plenty of knobs to fiddle with. If you want add one or two decks in the software to function as sample/loop decks (with Launchpad or Midifighter for example), you would need another 2 stereo out soundcard (unless I'm not understanding the audio routing?). Of course you could use lose the mixer, but then you run out of knobs for effects, or you will have to add modifiers. To give some scale EKS and the engineering company behind the OTUS both seem to have 5 or less employees... |
| Joan Kollmorgen 19.08.2010 |
This still doesn't address using sync, and the fact that the physical control on the Raw can be out of sync with the virtual deck. Even though there are 2 faders (which attempts to address the deck switching issue), this doesn't fix the problem.
The same issue would exist with ANY function in Traktor which the user doesn't exclusively control. Another example would be the GAIN knob if auto gain is enabled. Every song load would result in the hardware getting out of sync with the software.
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| Hanna Ridenbaugh 19.08.2010 | PartyMcFly qoutes Sorry to rant and be a squeaking fanboy about it, but I ride hard for EKS and have a lot of respect for their unwillingness to make the copycat products other companies do.[/QUOTE] nicely put |
| Antonetta Wikel 19.08.2010 | Don't get me wrong, i believe the Otus is a great concept and I love the big jog. There's just a lot to consider. With the Otus you have a 2 in 1 controller but need to switch between them and I'm not sure if I like that. I know I can get comfortable with it but I'm coming from controlling vinyl or 2 CDJ's so I've always had 2 independent sets of controls. I really wish I could find one locally to play with. |
| Diogo Dj Dragão 19.08.2010 |
...Obviously you would run into the problem you mentioned if using 4 decks but with just 2 you should be fine.
The same issue would exist with ANY function in Traktor which the user doesn't exclusively control. Another example would be the GAIN knob if auto gain is enabled. Every song load would result in the hardware getting out of sync with the software. |
| Dj LsEx 19.08.2010 | I believe at the time, the original Otus was a fantastic controller. A lot of great ideas went into designing it. The cloved feet which sit atop most turntables turntable and even some cdjs was pure genius. I'm sure EKS is too small a group to provide the kind of support some of the major manufacturers do. I also feel that they don't believe their users would need as much hand-holding as it turned out they did. Notice we heard nothing from them while the Raw was in development. Very busy and hard-working, that small group of people. They're the indie in a world where Vestax/Numark/Stanton/NI/et al are the majors. My view is that anyone who was ripping badly on the Otus either had unrealistic expectations or was not in the target market for the controller. Shame I couldn't keep mine. I actually liked the trackpad for its inability to track diagonal movement well, since it made it great for accurate and detailed effects knob control. Yes, it was completely useless as a mouse/cursor trackpad, though. The touch pitch strip was a cool concept but a failed experiment. I hope we don't see it again. My only true criticism of the controller was price vs. build quality. It was good, but not $700USD good. I'll probably be looking into the RAW once the economy gets moving again and I start making my normal income. I believe the Otus series is perfect for DJs like me, who primarily like to play turntables/timecode but need a portable gig solution with a similar tactile feel. Sorry to rant and be a squeaking fanboy about it, but I ride hard for EKS and have a lot of respect for their unwillingness to make the copycat products other companies do. |
| Hanna Ridenbaugh 19.08.2010 | i am quite happy with my otus, there were a few issues getting it mapped, but that was just my noobness. lol. I did not buy mine brand new so for the price i paid i believe it was a bargain. considering the midi mapper software it has this is a highly configureable controller. As with all other controllers i see people having problems to getting them going. Practice also helps with the pitch touch strip and there is a way to make it work properly. The 2 faders on the otus raw i would put on a global setting so they remain the same control on each channel for 2 decks. 4 decks would be a headache although beatmaching all 4 decks during a mix sounds like a headache, i would use sync then. |
| Joan Kollmorgen 19.08.2010 |
Originally Posted by nem0nic
Obviously you would run into the problem you mentioned if using 4 decks but with just 2 you should be fine. |
| Roselle Mcnaul 19.08.2010 | Oh yeah, EKS support licks balls - go on their community and you'll see me and other people ripping them a new ass left and right lol. |
| Antonetta Wikel 19.08.2010 | Yeah, if you notice, EKS now has OTUS+ which is an updated Otus "fixing" the things you mentioned above. After all this waiting, I'm still not sure I want to give my money to a company with little to no support for its products. Their customer service seems non existent. TBH I'm weighing the Otus Raw against the NI S4 & the DN-MC6000 and I know NI & Denon are pretty solid. I guess I'll continue to wait until they're all released and I can actually play around with them. |
| Roselle Mcnaul 19.08.2010 | Well, won't know until we try, but in all honesty this product was aimed at people who prefer the manual method to DJ, not with a sync button (no offense to people who use it). I don't foresee tempo differential between the software and controller being an issue for those who use it the way it was intended. The original Otus was a huge bomb in my opinion (I owned one), I ended up returning it because: 1.) The mouse pad was junky as all hell (couldn't detect diagonal movement at all). This is noted on the review at Skratchworx. 2.) The touch strip for the pitch control had a surface which was not friendly at all (not to mention cheaply applied, it was not appended to the actual surface of the controller). Way too glossy for fingers, alot of drag and stutter for those who use the traditional see-saw method to match beats like you could on a turntable or CDJ. 3.) The build quality suffered a bit too around the area which had the rotary encoders (on the corners), you could plainly see the circuit board between the chassis and encoder, which to me doesn't sit well considering it was a $799 controller. 4.) The jog wheel also had major issues grasping the waveform during quick movements of the platter. This is also noted on Skratchworx review. 5.) Heavy dependency on USB power with no option for external power sources. They had their fair share of issues with the original, otherwise they wouldn't have also made the Otus Plus which is the exact same thing as the original, minus all the stuff they know they fucked up on with the original lol. |
| Diogo Dj Dragão 19.08.2010 | The sad fact is that this controller will seem like a good idea until someone gets it home and starts using it with Traktor. The reason the (superior) original Otus has a touch based pitch slider was to handle pitch changes from sync and deck switching in an elegant way. Having a touch based slider gives you a way to control pitch that is never out of sync with the software, while also offering superior pitch resolution. Because the Raw uses a physical pitch fader, you run into situations where the position of the physical pitch fader does not reflect the pitch on the virtual deck. Soft takeover can be used, but this results in a situation where you can move the pitch slider and not have any result in the virtual deck because the soft takeover threshold hasn't been crossed. You'll also get jumps in pitch, because the soft takeover threshold must be crossed before the pitch fader will work. Unfortunately, this is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. The original Otus was an amazing product, but people didn't understand the touch element. The Raw will probably have better initial sales, but will see more returns because it uses an inferior system to handle pitch control. Users will complain about it, and in the long run it will do a little brand damage. |
| Adrien Hochstrasser 18.08.2010 | Oh wow, hadn't seen the details of this before. Kind of expensive, but I might actually buy this... Dammit guys, I'm gonna be blowing all my money on DJ stuff. I love the big jog wheel+pads. |
| Jessika Kienast 18.08.2010 | Ahhh, conventional faders instead of that touch sensitive finger slides. Lovely! |
| Roselle Mcnaul 18.08.2010 | It's not going to be released until September at the soonest, theres a thread on their community discussing it. Last I talked to their PR guy, he said it would be $799 |
| Danae Dumler 18.08.2010 | Where's the porn link? The photos are too small to drool over.... But this does look nice. |
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