Audio Innovate AEM-100 DJ Mixer Review

Audio Innovate AEM-100 DJ Mixer Review (Continued)

Effects

Audio Innovate AEM-100 Faceplate The mixer’s real capabilities lie in its sound-manipulation abilities, gathered into two neat, parallel groups, one for each channel. The effects aren’t what you’ve come to expect from many mixers: there’s no delay, no reverb, and no time-controlled filters. (Audio Innovate claims it has left these out to keep the analog signal pure.) The most familiar effect will be the filter, which can be switched to either band cut or band pass (or, of course, off), with gain controls for both high and low. I don’t find the filter as muscular as on the Allen & Heath Xone mixers, but then few are. It would be nice to be able to control resonance, but with a bit of practice you can wring impressive effects out of the filters: By twisting both high-pass and low-pass knobs at once, for instance, you can accomplish lovely phasing effects. One notable exclusion is a time-based filter sweep, but presumably Audio Innovate left that out in order to keep the effects analog. (And anyway, auto-modulating filter sweeps is pretty played, right?)

Above the filters, five more effects (per channel) reveal the true creative potential of this mixer. The Phaser is the most obvious of these, requiring the least explanation: a toggle switch punches it in or out, and you vary its parameters by sweeping a pot back and forth from + to - positions. Again, being able to modulate the phaser with an LFO would be nice, but it’s not necessary.

The Stutter knob, controlling a square-wave LFO that’s applied to its respective channel’s amplitude, offers a stuttering transform effect: In its lowest position, it clocks at about 125bpm, and with a bit of effort you can achieve impressive 16th-note or even triplet effects. It’s very, very cool. At its highest setting, it gives the record the sound of a high-powered ring modulator; breakcore DJs will go apeshit for it.

The Digitize knob performs bit reduction (although how this remains an “analog” effect is beyond me), crushing the sound into a pulverized whine. A little goes a long way, but by carefully tweaking and using the wet/dry faders, you can create some pretty effects, including ghostly harmonics and overtones. If all this isn’t chaotic enough for you, the Noise knob throws white noise into the mix—perfect for when you’re opening for Wolf Eyes and that Whitehouse record you brought just isn’t getting the crowd riled up enough.

By far the coolest effect, though, is the Oscillator. Just like its name suggests, it’s a sound-generating sinewave whose pitch runs from a gravelly pulse to a high-pitched whine only your dog could hear. By playing with the Oscillator’s pitch and gain pots, you can easily create ostinato sub-bass accompaniments, rising or falling squeals— with a little practice, you can even play along with the melody. The oscillator is routed through the same filter as the audio channel, so the filters can take the edge off the sound. If you’re feeling really ambitious, you can even “play” the oscillator on one channel, routed through whichever effects you please, with no other audio input, using faders and cut buttons to mix it with your other record.

Finally, the linchpin of the effects section is an ingenious cueing system that allows you to monitor the signal either “wet,” with effects added, or completely “dry,” without them—allowing you to preview and fine-tune your effects in the headphones before bringing them into the final mix. I can’t stress what an advantage this system is, after years of crossing having to drop in effects to a mix sound-unheard, as it were. Each channel’s effects unit is similarly driven by a wet/dry vertical fader, allowing you an impressive degree of precision in applying effects, even letting you slap them rhythmically as percussive additions. It might take a bit of getting used to the dual Cue buttons, but once you understand them, they’ll be your best friend in a live setup.