Back at BPM, we broke news of EKS’s foray into the software world. The spinoff company – Audio Artery – decided to properly break cover at NAMM 2012 and give live demos of their new “The One” software. We were on hand, along with much show noise and a shiny screen to capture The One in all its singular and modular glory.

Despite the hysteria exhibited in some parts, people need more than a pocket to carry their DJ life around. But digital DJing has seen that DJ life be more taxi or flight based than battered white van. Thus luggage is more important than ever, and UDG have been a leading exponent in this field for years. They sent me a SlingBag Trolley Set Deluxe for review, so I dutifully loaded it up and bashed it around the office for a while, and then sent it out to the lucky winner in the 12 days of Skratchmas.

Audio Innovate’s Elliot Marx has a mission, and that is to make his ever popular Innofader fit everything from old school Bozaks to new school Kenwoods. But in doing so, he’s made what should be a straightforward installation appear less than a plug and play affair. So having examined what are the most popular installs, he’s radically simplified the classic Innofader, and distilled it into a new product. No, I’m not talking about the mini Innofader that we broke a few weeks ago – this is the Innofader PNP.

Hear ye hear ye hear ye. Native Instruments, despite me already announcing it on Facebook, would have it know that they’re doing one of their fire sales. This one is a serious slice off of the retail price of the only recently announced Traktor Kontrol S2. Just a few months in and £150 off? What’s that all about?

While I have a heap of NAMM footage to get through, I’m actually tired of seeing the same video that 10 other people shot. So I’m cherry picking the things that I don’t think you’ll see elsewhere. Just before NAMM, Serato announced Serato Video – the cross platform (well ITCH and SSL) plugin that brings video to ITCH controllers. Aroha from Serato braved the loud NAMM show floor to give us a quick walkthrough the real basics.

In an industry that seems constantly drifting toward more of the same, it takes some effort to dig in and find unique and useful controllers. The difficulty of further perfecting the workflow around two decks and a mixer is being realized by bother manufacturers and consumers as more modular setups and touch based controllers enter the market. While neither of those options have been perfected, they are being toyed with in more interesting ways than the past few years have shown us.

The interesting thing to me about DJing these days is the ability to craft my own workflow. It is, in fact, what I spend the majority of my time focusing on when I get a new controller or software. Molding a new method with a standardized set of decks (two platters, two or four faders, and a bunch of buttons and knobs) can be interesting, but eventually they all just seem to feel the same. Enter the QuNeo.

One of the heavily rumoured and accidentally leaked launched at NAMM 2012 were the new Rane mixers. Yes mixers plural as the baby Sixty-One and Sixty-Two 2 channel mixers were properly uncovered, rather than accidentally appearing on Instagram. We surrounded DJ Big Wiz as he gave us a complete walkthrough both mixers. Video after the jump.

Numark and Akai seem to have finally got that the iPad is a useful tool for DJing, provided it has some matching hardware. We’ve seen the iDJ Pro earlier this week, but the Akai MPC Fly was finally seen at NAMM. I was simply a non-functioning prototype kept in a glass cage, but we happened to be in the right place at the right time to get a demo of the actual app from the developers at Retronyms.

I know I have a heap of NAMM stuff to get through, but taxes come first. This story however is just too hot to miss. You know that Simon Cowell? Well he’s decided to turn his attention from singers, acrobats and dancing dogs and try to find the next logical star. Yes, he’s on the lookout for DJs. God help us.