Ahead of the Musikmesse 2016 show this week, Pioneer DJ just announced the Toraiz SP-16 hardware sampler. It's a standalone unit that comes with an onboard step sequencer, 16 velocity-sensitive drum pads, knobs, analogue filters, a touch strip, and a hi-res touchscreen.

It's got a USB slot as well as an 8GB hard drive onboard so you can load your own samples and arrange them in the drum sequencer or trigger them as one shots or loops using the 4x4 pad grid. It's also got Pioneer PRO DJ Link connectivity, meaning you can hook this up to a CDJ / XDJ with Pro DJ Link and you can perform all these sequencing and triggering in a synced, quantised fashion.

This is big news for digital DJing and producing because Pioneer DJ has beat just about everyone to the punch as regards natively syncing up a drum machine / step sequencer with CDJs, and it does this through Pro DJ Link connectivity.

This means that you can "improvise" and build your own tracks on the fly in the DJ booth without a laptop or other Midi hardware, and more importantly syncing via Pro DJ Link greatly simplifies the process of mixing in a track you're spinning on a CDJ with a drum loop that you've just built on the Toraiz SP-16.

Traktor users have been clamouring for years for Native to come up with stable, proper Traktor and Maschine integration, and so far it hasn't arrived (you can sync them up via Midi clock, and if you've tried it you know how much of a pain it can be).

The Toraiz SP-16 will further blur the lines between DJing and studio production. Since it'll work with Pro DJ Link-equipped CDJ / XDJ gear, it'll be easier to integrate into a club set-up as well.

Check out the promo video and photo gallery below.

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2016/04/musikmesse-2016-pioneer-dj-toraiz-sp-16-sampler/