Here’s a neat hardware project seeking funding on Kickstarter. The Djoclate II — NB: Djoclate is pronounced ‘chocolate’ with a Dutch accent — is a portable, near pocket-sized music mixer. The idea is to enable the would-be DJ who brings it to a house party to pull tunes into the mix from any music storage device in the room, whether that’s a laptop, phone, MP3 player or tablet. Every partygoer’s music collection can potentially become part of the audio pool. So no more ‘it’s not in my record box/on my playlist/on Spotify’ excuses.
To act as a virtual record box the Djoclate II has two inputs, where music storage devices that have a 3.5mm jack can be plugged in (it will ship with two 70cm 3.5mm jack cables to connect music players, and also a mini-USB cable to charge the Djoclate itself, with no other power source required). There’s also a third input where headphones can be plugged in so the DJ can pre-listen to the next track before dropping it in. Tracks can be then faded in and out via the two faders on the device. There’s also bass kill on both channels.
The Djoclate II is, as its name suggests, the second iteration of the gadget. New features include the pre-listening feature and also Bluetooth connectivity so it can also integrate with a wireless speaker or sound system. When not being used as a mixer it can double as a Bluetooth sender to get tracks from your portable onto your sound system. The wireless connectivity option is only for outputting audio; inputs devices have to be plugged in via the cables provided.
Djoclate’s creators, Pepperdecks, are seeking $30,000 on Kickstarter to ship the sequel. With 23 days to go on their crowdfunding campaign they’ve raised more than a third of that. The device is expected to retail for $89 but a few early backers can still secure one for $55 or more.
The startup told TechCrunch it has sold around 2,000 of the first Djoclate model since December in The Netherlands, but has now also expanded its availability to Germany and Italy.