It’s very nice to see that Novation planned ahead when they created this controller noting that each of the pad buttons has two LEDs (one Green, one Red) which can combine to make at least 4 discernible colors (with various levels of brightness) for each pad (this behavior is not locked to one color per bank either), each button can be assigned any color (in the available pallet). Within Itch, the Twitch is a 2 channel mixer, but within Traktor Pro, the Twitch is a virtual 4 channel mixer (meaning that each side can toggle decks via a single button push).

If you’re looking for buttons, it’s important to note that (in Traktor Pro), there are 8 buttons per each of the 4 modes per each of the 4 decks (that’s 128 assignable buttons).

Many people will simply dismiss this as a toy but when you compare a jog wheel to the touch strips, you’ll find that the touch strips are more capable (A Jog wheel cannot make the pinch/expand expressions that the touch strips can). The amount of energy poured into this controller clearly shows through it’s tight integration with Itch, Traktor and Ableton. This controller is so very powerful and yet under-sung. Here’s Novation’s official intro video for Twitch: MIDI Compatible – controls any DJ software, such as Traktor or Ableton Live.1-to-1 Control In ITCH – Dedicated controls for all ITCH performance functions.Built in audio interface – the Twitch has a 2 in, 4 out USB audio interface and a headphone amp.Slicer Mode – lets you chop tracks into slices and rearrange them on the fly, while staying in sync.Two 8-pad banks of trigger pads let you trigger cues, loops, etc.Twin touchstrips let you ‘grab hold’ of your tracks and swipe them back and forth, like touchscreen scratching.

And, instead of turntable-style scratch controls, the Twitch features 8 trigger pads and a touchstrip controller on each channel. Instead of focusing on mixing two turntables or analog tracks, the Twitch is designed for live remixing and controllerism. The Novation Twitch, aka ‘The Touchstrip Controller’, is one of the latest examples of this trend towards controllers designed for ‘digital native’ DJing. ‘The world of the DJ and controllerist are colliding,” is how Novation puts it and they’ve come up with a new DJ controller with that collision in mind. It’s been interesting to watch the evolution of DJ controllers over the last 10 years.Īs more and more DJs become ‘digital natives’, DJ software and DJ controllers are breaking away from the two turntable interface tradition and are exploring the possibilities of two digital audio channels.

Novation twitch dj controller