If music follows you everywhere you go and you have to have it so that it never stops, chances are you’re into the constantly mixed music stream, and if you are, there’s an accessory to help you get it out into the real world.
Add it to the long growing list of appcessories, Pioneer is throwing its hand into the enthusiast DJ world with the WeGo2, a digital disc jockey system you can take with you that relies on a connection to a recent iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen Pioneer DJ gear and it surely won’t be the last, but it is the first time we’ve seen Pioneer embrace the Lightning dock connector used on the iPad Mini, iPad Air, iPhone 5/5S/5C, and even that insanely thin iPod Touch, with a small Lightning cable connecting the iDevice to the Pioneer WeGo2, allowing budding DJs to load up software already designed for mixing, and providing hardware controls.
Algoriddim’s popular “djay” software is supported natively, with the hardware built by Pioneer offering more than just the touch-based vinyl controller you get in the app. Rather, you’ll find two separate large jog wheels — for track A and track B — as well as several sample buttons, a cross fader, FX buttons, tempo changing, and the ability to change the LED colours pushed out by the wheel quickly and easily, effectively making the WeGo2 controller both a portable mixer and some sort of a light-up disco ball.
It does require power, but it can run off USB battery packs like the sort you recharge phones and tablets from, meaning it’s portable, provided you have one of these small packs in your backpack.
Pioneer hasn’t just equipped this for one ecosystem, though.
No, that would be silly, and has made it compatible over USB with Windows PCs or Macs, with “Virtual DJ Limited Edition” included in the box, making it possible for laptops to get in on the fun.
We suspect Pioneer has also made this compatible with the other range of DJ friendly software out there, such as Traktor, but if you have an iOS device, ultimately, it seems that’s where Pioneer is aiming this portable music maker.
Australians will be able to find the Pioneer WeGo2 in stores from this month for $449, with the white edition available only from Apple Online.
