Hard to tell if he’s sleeping or in the throws of gear pr0n induced pleasure, but bazillion times world champion DJ Craze just couldn’t contain himself when Native Instruments dropped off their recently teased new thing. Twitter lit up after he posted this on Instagram, and with good reason.

So as you can see, it’s a mixer called the Traktor Kontrol Z2. There’s a whole story about the teaser and trying to keep the name under wraps, but that’s of little interest to anyone outside of the trade and media. But I hereby add a second golden rule for marketeers. The first is not to leave anything on a web server that you don’t want people to find – because they will. The new rule not to put something in a teaser video that you don’t want them to know.

As far as the Kontrol Z2 goes – unmistakably NI. But seeing the whole faceplate laid out like that, does underline to me how Native have gone more for simplicity. This is about offering the basics in a very logical and well spaced manner, and leaving the extras i.e. the things people may or may not want in additional units. It would be easy to cram more buttons in there, but NI already have boxes that do all those extras.

And what of the name? Looking at the industry’s naming convention for products, and NI’s own track record, the logical extension of this is a 4 channel variant. But if or when that will happen is anyone’s guess. I was certainly met with a few grins and evasive subject-changing parries from NI when I asked a couple of weeks ago.

There are still some things that have yet to make it out into the public sphere, but I guess that will appear in a matter of days now. I’m still undecided if this is Craze shooting his load early or if it’s a planned “leak”. Either way, you know a little more than you did before. I’m very much looking forward to handling one for myself. Yes, that’s a hint.