Is this what DAWLESS sets are missing? // RMX-1000 Builds + Drops 

SOCIALS: ►Discord: discord.gg/xj8J2xJuBP ►Tiktok: www.tiktok.com/@liamkillenmusic ►Instagram: instagram.com/liamkillenmusic ►Text me: (438) 601-2905

As one of the largest players in the DAWless space, I feel like Korg could easily design a competing device like this in the Kaoss Pad line at maybe half the price of an RMX1000. Kaoss products already have many of these FX so they’d basically just need to add a more robust hardware UI to the current KP3 or Quad and it’d fill a big gap for many people to evolve their loops into more dynamic, finished tracks.

Hi mate you didn't mention that the unit also come with an identical vst plugin that can be controlled from the hardware via usb. Every parameter can be controlled and recorded with modulation from the DAW. It also comes with Remixbox which is an editor that allows you to adjust every parameter on the unit. This is a great addition as you can swap between your custom setup up and the default seamlessly via the switch in top right corner. Using Remixbox is only way to add your own sounds to the 4 extra banks. It also has tools to edit and chop the samples you import which is quite useful. If you going to do a review you should of took 5 minutes to add some of your own sounds because this is where the unit really shines. Importing things like Acid stabs or vocal one-shots can sound great , especially with the Isolator or Scene FX used over the top. Adding 4 harmonic bass notes or melodic stabs can also be a great way to make groovy bass lines and melodies. You can then add swing to the timing by tapping the roll button while your loop is playing. Each of the 4 sound can also be muted and soloed by pushing the mute/hold button while its playing. It's cool how you can change between the 5 sample banks smoothly on the fly and the unit holds the timing of whats playing. You didn't explore the other Isolator effects either. I find Cut/Add and Roll can sound really great. Especially when you set the timing to your liking via the Remix box editor. The build quality of the unit is great. After 10 years of heavy use mine still feels and looks the same as when I got it. The only downside is I can only hold 1 bank of 4x4 sample info on each Sd card. I have about 15 cards with various samples in a little wallet next to the unit. I wish Roland would update the firmware so I can consolidate the data from all 15 SD cards all onto the same card, then select which bank I want to load on the unit itself. I agree the current price is far too high. In Australia the RRP was about $500 cheaper when they first came out 10 years ago. Until recently they had been discontinued for years and some what forgotten about. I was shocked at the price when came back on the market. Ive seen techno artists like Marco Bailey, Amelie Lens, Joseph Capriati, Pan Pot and Carl Cox use them to great effect. Lastly it's worth noting that The RMX-1000 is definitely designed to be used with Pioneer mixers via the Send/Return Button. It doesn't play as nice with Allen & Heath Xone mixers. It still works but can be very tricky to set up in a way that doesn't result in getting mild feedback on the master. If you don't have a Pioneer mixer I'd advise to test it out before you buy one to make sure it suits your setup.

Great piece of DJ kit. I know Trovarsi and ALX-106 use this in their modular sets a lot. I’m using the Octatrack (with EZbot’s template) for these exact features since it can act as a mixer (4 mono or 2 stereo inputs), and a live looper that really helps with transitions. Love to see the cross over between live and DJ gear since that’s the world I came from. Great content!

spot on. whenever i see a "table top jam" video i know it isnt ever going anywhere. just adding a sound and maybe later stopping a sound or two. it rarely gets exciting.

Nice review! I got mine last night and Im having a blast!

You missed a feature where you can use the loop roll to create a 1 bar loop and use the x fade knob to mix between the loop and the incoming audio. This is useful for transitioning between tracks if you need to change songs on your hardware.

I've used the RMX-1000 for my dawless setups for years. Currently using the RMX-500 with my Akai Force and Ableton Live hybrid set up.

EZBot has a great template for the Octatrack that turns into an effects machine for exactly that purpose. Its pretty amazing. And you can design your own effects - using the crossfader on the unit to bring them in and out. Its pretty awesome.

I love your demo, super clear ❤

For this kind of thing you probably would like my Enjoy electronics Reminder. I think that what is really needed tho is some kind of dedicated system that makes builds and drop noises, risers that give way to white noise reverb trails etc etc. All with a nice count down interface so you can hit a big button and in 4 or 8 bars etc that riser and crash is going to do its cycle. A dedicated synth engine for making build and drop sounds like "The Riser by Air Music" combined with a crash/drop sample system so you can tailor make your own and at least 4 big drop/build buttons with a dedicated sequencing system. That would be my ideal system.

Awesome! Don't forget that Cut/Add and Trans/Roll apply a Cut and Trans effect when rotating the dials to the left.

this device looks cool! great video

There's some dope FX in there! Thanks for sharing my dude could imagine that in my setup too :)

The best deepest and clean demo off this gear.

I'm happy with my Octatrack. Adds a ton of real-time mangling. And cut to a live loop of the master out while you switch to your hardware to set up for the next transition (takes some practice). I've got a Pioneer Toraiz AS-1 though. Love that thing.

I use the rc 505 mk2 . Its great for builds , drops and obviously live audio looping . Just have to make sure you have a mixer with aux send . But this is a great idea also .

Oh man great review. I’m going to get one of theses asap. And I’m checking out the distro site

You got the groove .. always ! ... cheers !

what great crunchy drums and percussions! love this synthwave house jam

Definitely cool to see this so thoroughly explored! With the Kaoss Pad KP3+ being discontinued (?), I wish there were more currently available, DJ-like hardware effects available. I see myself and others using several effects pedals for what might be considered buildups and drops (I hadn’t realized this, before-e.g., J3PO’s Tensor tape stops/starts and Ottobit stutters, etc.)

I had three EFX-500 at some point. EFX is the younger siblings of the RMX series. We used two in a dual live-set. I still have one EFX-500 and love it - especially for the fact that it's one of the few stereo channel units out there with DJ-style three band isolator. And it has a proper build in jack-rca converter. The echo is gold too. There's the EFX-500, EFX-1000, RMX-500 and RMX-1000. The EFX series has a lot of momentary switches, which can be used for scratch-like rythmic effects.

Added one of these to my live rig a few months ago for exactly this purpose! Works great.

Neat. A lot of DJ controllers nowadays (minus Vinyl rigs) already have these features. That makes it ideal for the dawless set up, i.e. artists making an original continuous dance music performance.

Looks good!

"PULL UP!!!!" *Insert all East-Toronto-Mandem Ad-lib one can muster* 👉🏾🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Nice gear! I was looking for similar stuff. My choice was the Rc-202 for some reason: in addition to the effects, looping with dawless can free instruments for other sounds and i can record vocal with some structure. Effects are ok... for now i managed to build a decent workflow... it's all about that at the end... i like the "no menu diving" of the RMX-1000: this is really something i miss with the RC-202 and his 3 digits display!!!

Thanks for sharing your dawless live setup research progressing.

Yep, this is why I'm using a Kaoss Pad 3 in my setup. It's perfect for this kind of stuff.

its like making a curry with the same spice mix from the supermarket that everybody use

Timely, was looking at this today - does look very interesting for the same reasons you were checking it out

Awesome video, a lot of fun to watch as usual! I actually went with a Korg kaos pad as it found a great deal once. You should get one to review because it is so amazing and I am sure you'd find the best ways to use it. And therefore teach me 😄

I am very glad that I stumbled upon your video

I love that distorted dumb kick at 9:43 PHATTT

I use Octatrack with scenes fx template. You can have 64 scenes of custom fx build up or fades or breakdowns. You can achieve with eurorack modules o patching like Erica Synths Black Hole Dsp2 and Fx Aid XL, but as we all know much more expensive. Great video. Thanks for the demo.

Totally digging the grooves used in the video.

I use a Deluge with Faderfox MX12 and Oxygen Pro Mini. So that gives me 28 knobs and 16 faders - I have unique builds for every song that requires them, and they’re assigned to faders. FM controls on the Deluge, I don’t use much else for builds. I’m not purely a DJ though, I’m straddling a bunch of styles doing all original compositions and improvisations. But I highly recommend the Deluge, it’s super portable and so powerful.

I have one of these collecting dust in the closet. I've dusted it off.. and been inspired to play with it. Thanks.!

Thank you , now i must buy this shit in my setup !!! 😆 thx for introducting :) 😉

i'm using the ipad app of rmx-1000. It works generlly speaking perfect connected via lighting to the usb slot to my pioneer djm-450 mixer switched to the internal return path of the djm. 20 dollars, this is extreme value compared to the 700$ of hardware. The ipad app delivers all. And it works with my old ipad air 2, over 8 years old. And the djm-450 inputs are feeded with my maschine+ outputs. Dreamteam M+ and DJM together with the rmx-1000 ipad.

Neat little device for the job. I’m using the Analog Heat as a master filter and the DT + DN internal FX for build ups / drops but that’s a lot more knob tweaking (with potential messing up) obviously. Sure it’s nice and convenient to have a „function per knob“ (that is, several parameters effects being tweaked by just a single knob).

Ngl some of these effects are pretty cool!

I’ve been djing for a while … and been using these types of effects pedals. Only issue today (or something to be aware of) with them is that you need to connect them to the mixer inserts meaning the effect is across your whole mix. Ie they are not effective using your send and returns unless your mixer has a proper wet/dry capability. The issue this causes is the send/return combines both the original sound and combines it with the effect. So an effect where you would want to sweep the whole frequency … you won’t hear it. For synth gear you might need to choose which instrument you want the effects pedal to be in line with. My issue is that I use my inserts for external processing … and I still prefer different effects on each channel when mixing. If your a synth person … other option is to use a dj mixer with onboard effects to hook up your gear. I use the xone px5 and the effects on that suit synths better than dj mixing. It also has a midi clock out and play/stop which is very handy to run my synths that don’t have a clock

Dude i had this thing while my DJ years and let me tell you it's a coolest thing ever! Some FX too over the top but hey there's always second version... which we never got

Yes! Finally some love for these rmx units in a live setup. I think the real key with these is to have them routed as a pre-fader send on your mixer (or I have mine set to the sun group on tascam model 16) so you can pick and choose which elements you run through it.. keep the kick unaffected whilst semding the percussion off into echoey filtered oblivion. Great video. Try the rmx 500 if you can too, in theory it’s the inferior model but for this kind of dawless application I actually prefer it

I really miss the Korg Kaoss Pad Quad. That was my absolute favorite back in the day for my Dawless setup. Not nearly as featured as this Pioneer unit but enough to make a meaningful difference. Would recommend it!

love the 90s aesthetic on this thing

Djs from deep house to techno have been using this lil bad boy to spice up there tracks while mixing for years. I haven't seen another DJ effects unit on top of mixer units for the last 10 years.

Cool video, thanks. A nice alternative is Sugarbytes Turnado which is available on IOS so you can run it on iPhone and iPad. You get 8 slots for effects and can chop and change them as you like, they also order themselves sequentially depending on the order you adjust them. It's dead easy to control from the screen as it's designed with performance in mind or it's easy to map any midi controller with a few knobs.

I heard Sasha was using an eventide H9 in his sets a while back. Have you tried?

2:42 the korg chaos pad quad is good for build ups and drops to :)

...im using my roland mx1 for that purpose😄 thought i could use this device instead,but honestly my mx1 sounds cleaner and has more possibilities...together with my kaosspad 3 the poss drives me nuts😅 Nice video btw!! Thanks!

Using it for some years now in hardware setups. Indeed great for builds and drops. Like you said it’s a popular (techno) DJ device so it has the “DJ price” issue. Same reason “DJ mixers” are so expensive compared to “studio mixers”. Cool video!

Cool video. Neat tech. Groovy channel. Cheers.

I saw some dude rocking this live at a Dawless jam in Berlin once, I thought it was same alien tech he stole from a spaceship - very cool

Thanks for making me aware about this - I might get the iPad version of it, if that's kinda usable as well.

I (try to) do some live looping and the boss rc 505 has quite an extensive effects section which is fun

I’d love to see you try out the Pioneer RMX-500 as well! Technically it’s the “little brother” but, it was released afterwards and has some neat features that the 1000 doesn’t have. I’d say it is definitely worth trying out the 500 before you commit

That reese in the intro music is really nice.

thanks for the video! :) Im wondering if the RMX 1000 can also do a simple LPF and HPF without the echo?

Reminds of my old Behringer Tweakalizer. It has delay, filter and can sync to tempo.

seems pretty neat. im always trying to get better a live performance even if its just me running around my studio

This could be interesting with a looper like the rc505. Buildups are quite limited in looping besides filters and access to the lfo on one knob is super handy

I have my studio going through a pioneer S9 DJ mixer, for similar reasons 😉😁🙌

You may want to check out the Roland MX-1 Aria… which works well with the boutique synths, has a 16 step sequencer that can add beatFX, and multiple combos of simultaneous effects. I got one a few weeks ago & I love it. Dropped 10 tracks mixed with it on my IG…

Happy for you

It‘s very nice to learn about an alternative to the Octatrack for DJ-style performance. It seems a lot more straightforward to use for the use cases that it supports. And the price tag is a lot lower than the Octatrack‘s. I wonder why is it that there haven‘t been any new developments in the performance hardware area in the last ten years?

the main problem is not that you dont have the fx already in your setup. You just need a seperate midi controller which is fully dedicated to the master fx. meaning great quality knobs, easy to acces. its a more a mental and physical seperation to switch context.

If you want something nice on the cheap > Korg kaossilator mini... Just stereo FX and a X/Y touchpad. Nothing Hi-Fi but simple and efficient.

That's funny. Ive got this problem more with DAWS. When i work with groovebox (op-z and polyend tracker especially) some of its effects make wonderful drops very easily. They don't manipulate the audio though, which is why I bought rc-505mk2 which can do things similar to rmx-1000 and many more. Rc-505mk2 has still some bugs but is is really usable in dawless setup right now,.

I have the rmx 500 and I couldn't live without it

Yesterday: DAWless Liam Today: DJ Killen

I've been using a Kaoss Pad KP3 for something like 10+ years now, and it is a cornerstone for enhancing live performance experience. I think the major benefit of the KP3 is that can be managed completely one-handed and (nearly) without looking, freeing up your eyes and spare hand to manage your live gear still (we all know how much of a pain it can be to managed buildup/drop patterns DAWless). Definitely worth giving a shot. That being said, I've always wanted one of these. Pioneer really makes some excellent sounding effects and this one is basically its own instrument. :D

First thing that came to mind were the old Pioneer EFX-500/1000's. Didn't realize this is Pioneer as well. It's basically the successor to those.

Korg Kaoss Pad? A machine that can do alot of these stuff and more if I am not mistaken. Especially the later ones mk3 or mk4.

I have a very old Behringer device which essentially does the same thing but has a scratch platter. Had a lot of fun with that thing

U can do buildups and transistions using reverb/chorus/phaser/delay pedals. Also you can check out Pioneer DJS 1000. Then again if you want interesting fx you could build yourself one with few fx pedals chained together

I am glad you reviewed this 99%You are likely doing Electron "mothering" as the start whilst yerboi is the Polyending"*".

Hey great video. I had this unit for a couple year. I actually just sold it this year. It was great but I found myself only using a couple of the effects … the echo types were my favorite. The reason why I sold is because I couldn’t justify having a $700 unit just sit around. My train of though was my SP404 could be used for some of the same types of FX And the SP 404 did other things as well. The other FX box that I actually have now and use for breakdowns and transitions is the Ninja Tune ZEN DELAY! So long story short …I sold the RMX and kept the Zen delay and my SP. As far as FX goes I felt like the three were too similar the RMX was the most expensive, so I sold it. Love to see what you do with RMX If you have an opportunity also check out the Zen Delay.

Great to use in your DAW as well ..... Should one ever use a DAW of course 😂

Nice overview, I have been thinking about this unit also for live use for non DJ use, but I haven't had a chance to get hold of one. There is a RMX-1000 Ipad app version also, I wonder if this would work with external soundcard to get the similar result. Then again you are not limited with just the RMX app and could use any effects apps on the ipad.

I use Korg kaosspads to the same effect almost . The big ones, not the Minis. I even have it midi controlled at times. Interesting nevertheless really ! Might have a look at the pioneer too.

this piece of gear looks amazing for a live hip hop production capturing style. it definitely snuck past a lot of people and thats a good thing in terms of a secret weapon

I'd love a video showing the main differences and pros and cons to this unit vs the rmx-500

Msot would assume that you need to be in stereo in a venue, but the reality is that almost none are in stereo. I used a simple mono setup and it was much simpler managing channels.

I explored the idea of getting one of these for the same reason but my mx1 overlaps with too many features to justify it. A lot of people also use a chaos pad in a similar way for their build ups. I figured if you were going to do an elektron song mode video. That new feature alone should solve your drop problem. You could also use a dedicated sampler like the 1010 blackbox and sequence in build ups ramps and percussive drops into long sequences to follow playing along to.

Such a coincidence I was looking into one of these recently. Then I checked the price and immediately started looking for something else. I know its supposed to be DAWless, but I could buy Ableton and a multitrack usb mixer for the same price and have way more.

I added my RMX500 with my Akai Force and MPC Live. Definitely a must have for performance

Check out the Modbap per4mer, I think it works nicely for adding some spice/ variation to live performance and jamming. It’s got delay/reverb/glitch/tape stop punch in effects via arcade buttons, colorizer for redux/distortion type sound and a compressor with side chain capabilities. It’s eurorack but thrown into a mini 20hp case along with their transit stereo mixer module gives you a powerful little end of chain effects box.

Another thought: might not be exactly what you're looking for, but if all you need is drops, you might want to look at the Korg Kaoss DJ controller. It's got two inputs, so you can switch between them using the fader. There's a video on here by a guy named Matt Greer where he puts it to good use, and you can pick them up for a couple hundred bucks used.

I like to use it on the output of which ever device is on melodic duties rather than the whole mix, so you can effect the melodic elements and not the drums.

I've been using the rmx-500 in live sets for a little while now and its a really fun and amazing peice of gear. Koasillaters can also help with doing these type of builds.

You asked for comparisons, and I’m not sure they’re overlapping quite enough to compare but…Korg Kaoss Pad KP3 has some similar effects. And it’s a tool partly for DJs to add live effect. It takes its own skill-building to learn things like builds and drops (not really what I use mine for mostly)

Every setup could benefit from a decent live 2 track effect. Whether it be this, the pioneer efx, or the korg kaos pad they will glue everything together if used tastefully.

i use Octatrack as my FX and mixer. But if i did use the DJ efx, it works great on the master-insert like the 16 channel Mackie, too bad so few studio type mixers have a master-insert.

A friend of mine uses Jomox T Resonator for this purpose but this looks more versatile

Octatrack can do it all! An external controller is very usefull, though. You can check out my setup here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dhGt6NSnqxs.html

I think you can make transitions with drum machine only if you can be fast enough.like put some channels on mute make something like sweep up or down with FM,filter,and volume ,then unmute some tracks.

Yeah, I've been on the fence about this one for some time. It's great for what it's designed for, and there's nothing similar, but it's expensive, so IDK.

Check out the Eventide H9 (Max preferably) if you can. Takes a bit of preparation but the effects are spectacular and you have a whole lot of customization when you hook it up to a computer.