I finally found sometime after working with the Drift Zero team, to install the latest alpha build. Things have been hectic for a while but one night I got some time to play.
It was great, although I didn’t really know all the buttons, so I was just working it out by pressing and playing. Its only today I seen the video explaining it all (although I should have spent more time on the discord group)
Anyway with me feeling around, I was able to create a few mixes but found a problem where some of my tunes were cooked/garbled but I had no idea why. This is obviously the bug and should be fixed pretty soon.
Honestly the device is excellent and I’m looking forward to more time with it, especially now I know what the buttons should do and I can use the recorder. I have a flight to Berlin for Republica 2026 and a series of long trains to Amsterdam for PublicSpaces, so plenty of time to really play.
Being optimistic, I also entered a session into EMFCamp 2026 to potentially DJ live using the Zero or Pacemaker Device as a backup. Considered a DJ hackday at EMFCamp but decided maybe next time.
Its been a while since I created a mix on the Pacemaker device, but a recent trip to Budapest gave me some time to try out a few new tunes in a mix.
This mix is a real banger, with a lot of really great tunes alongside some classic ones to anchor the mix. Weirdly enough, the mp3 recorder ran out of battery just near the end and I had to recreate the last 3 tunes. Sadly the Pacemaker’s digital recorder isn’t reliable enough on the newer firmware’s so I use the recorder just in-case.
Hopefully soon I’ll be using the Drift DJ zero… Especially since I can now access the internal linux terminal.
Its a really good piece about the massive leap the Pacemaker device provided way back in 2008. In short the device was up against smartphones like the iphone. Smartphones turned everything down to software.
…the idea of carrying a dedicated device for DJing felt quaint when your phone could theoretically do the same thing via an app
Theres mentions of Tonium’s attempts with the Blackberry playbook, something I used and absolutely hated after my bad experience. Then the change to software, on the iOS platform with the first to have Spotify integration. But I do like the nod to the community and people like myself who modified their Pacemaker devices with a SSD, new battery and replacing the firmware with unofficial builds. I actually use one of the unofficial ones on one device and the last official one on another for live mixing and stability.
But best of all is the ambition of the Pacemaker device. Its what got me to buy my very first one back in 2007.
Looking back at the Pacemaker now, it feels like a glimpse of a future that never quite materialised. The device represented a genuine attempt to rethink DJing for a mobile-first world, to distil the essence of club culture into something genuinely portable without compromising on functionality. It had vision, ambition, and genuine innovation behind it. The execution was largely solid, the feature set comprehensive, and the user experience thoughtfully designed. In many ways, it was exactly what it promised to be: the world’s first truly portable professional DJ system.
For those who owned one, used one, or simply appreciated what it tried to do, the Pacemaker remains a fascinating piece of music technology history. It’s a reminder that sometimes the most interesting innovations aren’t the ones that achieve mainstream success but rather the ones that push boundaries, challenge assumptions, and show what’s possible when you’re willing to think differently about established conventions.
In the picture, I put the Pacemaker device next to the Drift DJ zero and suggest this could be everything the Pacemaker promised and very almost delivered on. Its clear portable DJ systems are incredible and provide all types of possibilities not realised. Maybe its time for a #DJhackday?
I have been using the Pacemaker device for I believe 17 years now but I have been looking around for the next generation of DJ tools. It was Si who first sent me the Drift DJ zero and I was sold pretty much straight away.
Under a year later, I have have signed up as a alpha tester and today it came in the post from Chicago.
Its quite an incredible device, with the level of quality I expect will last even the most crazy DJ performances. Its small (its just a bit bigger a profile than my Pixel 9 pro, likely same size as the XL one) and its lighter than I expected, not pacemaker device light but easy to carry or host on a tray table on a train or plane. (Can’t wait to see the faces of KLM staff in the near future). All the buttons and nobs are solid and tactile in a way only another DJ would understand. The weighting and feedback is just right, while the screen is just delightful to see. Navigation is pretty intuitive as I haven’t looked at any documentation at all to date.
As this is the alpha, its not got a lot of the features like DJing or library control but the testers have access to a git repo to upload updates via USB. Not played enough yet but I have been told I can SSH into the device for extreme levels of control. When the official build becomes available, I will also receive one for the testing my feedback; which I feel is a fantastic deal.
One thing is for clear, I really need to sort out my music library, because the Pacemaker editor was prehistoric and I never managed it.
Expect updates and who knows a mix or two in the near future…
Conference season is pretty much over and my last event was the excellent Mozilla Festival, this time in Barcelona. I took a KLM flight via Amsterdam on the way and created the base of a interesting mix. On the way back I flew via Heathrow on BA (a reminder how much I don’t like Heathrow, and use to fly from Gatwick when I could).
On my BA flight, I re-did the mix with a few tweaks and the resulting mix was created. Created using the very ageing Pacemaker device on KLM and remix/raised on BA? as such?
Its a strange one because there is a bit of reusing of the same tunes, which isn’t a thing you do when DJing, but it kind of worked. Also maybe the early mornings, 4 hours of sleep and climbing what felt like 100 steps to the festival, had gotten to me?
What ever it is, I have been enjoying this longer mix, as it includes new tunes, especially Bring back the techno which I also heard DJ B Jones playing on the Saturday night party.
About a month ago I was in Helsinki for the Mydata conference, one of the things I like to do is find new places. A guy I knew from Manchester suggested a really amazing speakeasy place to me, while I complained about the sugar-horrific gin & lemon in a can one night.
So I checked it out and thought it was a fantastic bar, although having your phone locked away when you needed to know the last train is quite something. However I met a stranger at the bar and we talked for a while and even walked back to the train station. Then on a second night after going to the theme park in Helsinki, he was there again. Although not a familiar stranger, it was some inspiration for this mix.
I flew to Amsterdam and travelled around the Netherlands via trains recently. As usual I started a new mix slowly building on it with new tunes as I went around the Netherlands. There are quite a few new tunes added but the final mix was done on a KLM flight back to Manchester.
During that flight, a flight assistant asked me about the Pacemaker device. Its not the first and won’t be the last, as I have had not only flight assistants but even fellow passengers ask about it. I still remember when a KLM flight assistant mistaken the Pacemaker device for a walkie talkie? Honestly our conversation was really good, and who knows maybe she will read this and have a smile on her face.
Also reminds me I need to have cards just for Digital Italic and my mixes (Moo cards I got a order for you!)
Anyway about the mix… This long worded mix is longer than usual but keeps the pace of about 140bpm. This mix is a real back and forth with some vocal trance alongside tech trance. I have been listening to this mix quite a lot since coming back and still find it great.
Recently I found myself in rural southern France and of course, my Pacemaker device and headphones came with me. It was weird being surrounded by nothing but grapevines. Certainly wine country.
I took a nice shot with a very rare dark sky. With a bit of tweaking, you got the cover for a storm in a french grapevine.
The tunes are certainly not safe for work, and I just doubled down on the nsfw tunes with a uplift in bpm too. I do like mix, its got a good selection of old and new mixed together. Considered going longer but it didn’t need more.
My Yunohost is a bit broken still, so its only on my Peertube channel right now. Remember to enable Sensitive content in the filter to see it in the list of mixes.
On my last trip to Europe, I flew to Amsterdam to get a train to Brussels and flew back from the awful Brussels South airport. I won’t be doing that again if I can help it. During that time I got time to another Pacemaker device mix. The self hosted mixing site is still broken, its a thing I am trying to fix as its a bigger problem with Yunohost and the bookworm update. So its peertube again. (I noticed the mix points links include the domain, which means I can add them here too)
Recorded in two parts on a plane and on the coach to the airport, then stitched together because of the short flight and being bounced around on the Flibco bus. This mix has a lot of the tunes I’m loving at the moment but also a bit of throw back too. It truly is a mix across 2 different countries.
Enjoy the mix and see if you can work out which half is Dutch and Belgian?
00:00:00 – You got the love (Sonny Noto remix) – Florence + The machine
I mentioned in the last post which was another mix. I have been out and about quite a lot, with time for creating more mixes. My self hosted mixing site is a little broken at the moment, so I’m relying on peertube again.
This mix was recorded as you can guess in Berlin during Republica in late May. I had some time before heading back to the UK and decided Berlin needed something a little lighter from the previous ones I did on the Berlin ring.
Walking across Oberbaumbrücke, I was reminded of my time at Watergate club in the early 00’s, which is now closed down. This mix is a combination of tunes, starting dark and moving into something lighter. Delirium and encounter is certainly something I experienced at Watergate and many of the other clubs in Berlin.
