It seems that we've been waiting for the Pacemaker MP3 player for a long time now, and after speaking with some of their founders here at CES, it's finally close to being released.
The Pacemaker MP3 player is a DJ-level music player with a 120GB hard drive, support for MP3, AAC, WMA, OGG Vorbis, FLAC and WAV, and it also includes 18 hours of playback time. What is much cooler is the option for crossfaders for both headphones and a line out, as well as a pitch bend, cue/loop controls.
According to the Pacemaker team, we'll be seeing it in the States within a month (or two), and if it's like anything we saw today in our demo, some music loving DJ's will groove to it with its varied mixing applications, easy tuning, and nice web integration. It appears to have everything to make an impact in the portable music market, except for one thing- the exorbitant price at $700 and change. Please pick your jaw off the ground.
For first impressions, we thought it was really well designed, and it seems tougher than most other MP3's. And while we didn't particularly like the fact it's bigger than most MP3's, it was designed that way because the touch wheel device replicates the DJ-ing experience and anything smaller would have just looked like the same old thing.
For our money, the most interesting part of the demo was the use of the web-based service. It will function like the YouTube social aspect, only that you can create your own mixes, post them on your individual page, and have other DJs (or fans) take a listen and let you know what they think in the comments area. There will also be separate clubs for different musical tastes, and you actually mix your music online. This means that you could trade your landing page with someone and have someone finish off a mix for you.
