October 19, 2006 There's a steadily growing number of digital DJ's out there, and after scouring the resultant mass of dedicated MIDI controllers and digital turntables targeted at the market, we think we've found the sexiest solution yet - especially so for people who already own turntables. The oddly named Ms Pinky's even oddlier named "Interdimensional Wrecked System" claims to be the most realistic virtual vinyl system out there.
The technology at the heart of the system is a technique called Trellis Coded Modulation, developed by Dr. Gottfried Ungerboeck from IBM's Zurich Research Laboratory in Switzerland, and originally used for encoding data for transmission over analog phone lines.
As the record spins, Ms Pinky's software converts the signal into physical location stamps - 155 of them per rotation of the record. Ms Pinky succeeds here where existing timecoded vinyl solutions fail, accurately tracking the position of the needle on the record even when it spins in reverse, or the needle skips.
The included software provides substantial flexibility - the standalone programs allowing digital DJ's and VJ's to mix and scratch audio and video (simultaneously!), and VSTi and AudioUnit versions allowing use in music production applications. The uber-geeks need not feel left out - Max/MSP/Jitter patches are supplied for assimilation into mind-bogglingly complex (or odd) applications.
The records are available in black, pink or ultra-cool half-black/half-pink directly from Ms Pinky - a set of four will set you back US$99.
