DJ TechTools

Behringer says it can sell DJs a four-channel standalone DJ system for $300 to $400 USD. On Tuesday night, they posted prototype photos on its Facebook page today with a pitch built on open hardware and “no proprietary lock-in”. If price makes it to actual retail release, it’s under a sixth of what Denon charges for the Prime 4 G2 ($2,599), and under an eighth of the AlphaTheta XDJ-AZ ($3,449). These are bare prototypes at a factory.

On October 4th, a third deck showed up at Technobase, a techno night in Amsterdam. It sat beside the club’s two CDJs and Xone mixer on a spare channel, with an Ethernet cable running into the same Pro DJ Link network as the Pioneer DJ gear. Samuel Prevost built it himself around a Raspberry Pi 4 and a jog wheel pulled out of a CDJ-1000MK3, and posted it to r/DJsetups this week. I couldn’t resist writing it up here on DJTT.

Disclosure: DJ TechTools sells AlphaTheta gear in our store, including the HDJ-F10 and DJM-V5. AlphaTheta just announced the HDJ-F9, a $349 on-ear version of its SonicLink wireless DJ headphones. It’s the second SonicLink pair after the over-ear HDJ-F10 from October 2024. They’re also the first set to pair by tapping the headphones against a compatible mixer. If you’ve missed the details, SonicLink is AlphaTheta’s own 2.4 GHz wireless link, separate from Bluetooth, with a 9ms claimed latency.

Our new 2026 Chroma Drive is on sale today, redesigned with input from our community. Both the USB-A and USB-C ends now sit under rotating metal covers that lock shut, so there’s no cap to lose. Five colors (Void Black, Cloud White, Luminous Blue, Energy Orange, Pop Pink), four capacities from 128GB to 1TB, and the same flash memory and USB 3.2 interface that made our first Chroma Drive quick out of Rekordbox.

AlphaTheta is rolling out the XDJ-AN, a 2-channel all-in-one system priced at $1,200 (preorder units available in the DJTT store). It aims to be the “bridge” between home controllers like a DDJ-FLX4 to a club-style booth without spending CDJ money. The XDJ-AN also still withholds enough features that some DJs will skip right by the release. The XDJ-RR is a deliberate reference point: it’s the last time AlphaTheta (then still Pioneer DJ) made a 2-channel all-in-one at this size and price.

AlphaTheta announced the CDJ-1500X today, its first budget-minded, heavily featured media player since the XDJ-1000MK2 launched back in September 2016(!!). At $1,699 retail, it undercuts the CDJ-3000X flagship by roughly $1,300, and it carries over most of the CDJ-3000X’s screen and cloud features, in a design built for 2026 rather than a decade-old body style. It also ships alongside CoBeat, a new AlphaTheta service that puts crowd song requests directly on the CDJ’s screen.

Midi Fighter Utility 2.91 dropped this morning, and it is a big release, no simple bug patches here. New firmware for the Twister, 64, Spectra, and 3D shipped alongside it, which makes this probably the biggest simultaneous update across the whole Midi Fighter lineup we’ve ever done. The short version: if you own any Midi Fighter, you should update today and share some feedback with our team! The Midi Fighter Utility itself got a serious overhaul.

Engine DJ 5.0 from Denon DJ went live today. The headline feature: on-board stems rendering. It’s exclusive to the Rane System 1, which now becomes the first piece of standalone DJ hardware that can split a track into 4-part stems without an external computer in the chain. If you don’t own a System 1, the update still has plenty for you.

The Devious Pocket is a standalone Digital Vinyl System out of a small Amsterdam studio called NAP Works, and the headline feature is that it works without a laptop anywhere in the chain. Plug it in between your turntable and your mixer, drop a USB stick into the side, put on a timecode record, and you’re playing digital files through actual records with no library software and no operating system to babysit.

Native Instruments has been sold. InMusic Brands, the U.S. parent of Akai Professional, Denon DJ, Numark, Rane, M-Audio, Moog, and Engine DJ, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire NI in full. That includes Traktor, Maschine, Komplete, Kontakt, Reaktor, and the broader iZotope, Plugin Alliance, and Brainworx stack that NI absorbed over the last few years. The deal was signed at Superbooth in Berlin and announced this morning by NI CEO Nick Williams.