If you ventured into a club during the late 80’s, the chances are the DJ was using a rotary mixer. Rotary style mixers have been a mainstay amongst quality conscious selectors since the dawn of DJing and for good reason, rotaries are renowned for their warm analogue sound, smooth mixing style and often artisanal build quality.
Despite their early popularity, rotary DJ mixers gave way to linear fader style mixers in the early nineties as the demands on DJ’s and genre preferences shifted. However, rotary style DJ mixers have seen a resurgence over the last few years with an extensive list of high profile touring DJ’s choosing a more traditional approach as their mixer of choice. The analogue nature of rotary DJ mixers has previously meant that there were no options when it came to integrated digital effects and connectivity on a rotary - until now…
Introducing the all new AlphaTheta Euphonia. The Euphonia is the perfect combination of rotary analogue tradition paired with the digital power of today's club standard mixers which understandably got everyone here at Westend DJ very excited when it was announced in early March 2024. The Euphonia is a 4 channel rotary style mixer that lands with a whole host of new features including an integrated digital effects section all running through two custom analogue transformers from Rupert Neve Designs.
While the rotary style fader design is new for AlphaTheta, the layout is minimalistic and functional which will feel familiar, it's clearly been designed carefully to help put non-rotary users at ease when first approaching the Euphonia. As the Euphonia features both analogue and digital components the mixer comes loaded with digital inputs for CDJ’s and a Rekordbox/Serato capable soundcard to enable DVS control as well as standard line/phono inputs for more traditional turntable/CDJ setups. The master isolator features a never before seen send/return functionality that enables the user to send and boost particular frequency ranges through the effects section. On testing we found this new isolator design particularly interesting and unlike anything else on the market so it will be great to see how our favourite touring DJ’s use this feature creatively on the fly.
Although rotaries have fallen out of favour since their heyday in the early days of club culture, there has undoubtedly been a resurgence in recent years thanks to a plethora of well respected selectors choosing them as part of their touring rider.
Whilst they may not be for everyone the introduction of a rotary mixer from one of the world's largest DJ brands will no doubt help bring more rotaries back into the booth, it may also give some DJ’s who have never had an opportunity to use a rotary style mixer a chance to give one a test run. Although the rotary format seems like old tech to some, the digital integration on the Euphonia is a real game changer making it the perfect combination of tradition and innovation.
