Richie Hawtin Teases New DJ Controller

A new DJ/producer controller born from a partnership between Richie Hawtin and ex Allen & Heath engineer Andy Rigby-Jones appears set to hit store this year, under new brand name “PLAYdifferently”.

The controller is currently being teased online having apparently been tested at Glastonbury and Ibiza over the last year, and gives the appearance of, well, a box of knobs (see main pic and video).

Richie Hawtin said at NAMM two weeks ago that he envisages it being useful for “all types” of DJ, and the footage released so far has had both Traktor and Ableton Live gear/software in view, indicating this unit may be for one of both of those platforms. Who knows, maybe it’ll even come with its own software.

Quite how much DJing needs reinventing or how this unit will help us down that path are of course things to be debated/seen, but of course we’re curious to see what it can do, and Richie Hawtin has for a long time innovated in this field. We’ll let you know more when we have it.

Teaser video

What are your thoughts on this controller? Any guesses as to its feature set apart from the knobs? Let us know below.