Taking cues from recent NI hardware, the Kontrol Z2 features NI’s beautiful coloured button technology and two LED displays good for two characters each, lending svelte good looks and industrial style rugged demeanour respectively. In a few more sessions the paint will be completely gone, which will make it look better than it does now, but still, it’s not ideal for a mixer less than a month old for the faceplate to already be disintegrating (okay, that’s an exaggeration). Because I was so eager to get the Z2 between my decks, I didn’t take photos until after this had happened so you can see what I mean in the gallery. I did uncover a somewhat embarrassing problem though: within what I would estimate at 20 hours scratching, I have worn the paint off from around the crossfader. They feel great, presumably reduce cost, and I’ve never had any issues personally. I’m going to go on record and say that whilst discrete metal pots might be preferable, I’m not concerned about the quality of the nylon shafted pots that NI are using. The Z2 is as big as any other two fader mixer (see NI, no ‘2 channel’ talk here!) and it’s constructed of a metal and plastic combination that’s reassuringly tough, and that tough feel carries through to every part of the mixer. For those of us who’ve been around since vinyl, the compactness of the majority of digital DJ controllers is almost subliminally a bit of a turnoff. I’ve always been happy with the build quality of Native Instruments gear, but it and most other digital DJ equipment manufacturers have definitely created a new era of gear, and with it a new form factor.
#TRAKTOR DJ IPAD KONTROL Z2 PROFESSIONAL#
Actually, no, that’s not quite it the biggest success the Kontrol Z2 has straight out of the box is that it looks and feels like a professional DJ mixer.
The first thing that struck me when I got the Kontrol Z2 out of the box was how well made it felt. It’s a tall order, so I spent a fair bit of time figuring out where they’d succeeded.
It appears that essentially what Native Instruments have done is look at everything they’ve done in the past three or four years, throw it into a cauldron, stir it up with a little eye of newt and see if they could create the definitive hybrid mixer for the digital age. With smaller, ‘battle’ mixers getting thinner on the ground these days, the Kontrol Z2 was a little bit of a surprise release – especially at the price it’s at.
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