French company MWM has announced a new product called Phase that sits on your turntable and allows you to DJ audio files with vinyl, without the use of a needle. Phase wirelessly translates a record’s movements into timecode, which can then be read by Digital Vinyl System (DVS) software like Serato and Traktor.
Debuted at this year’s NAMM show, Phase is a pair of small rectangle-shaped transmitters with sticky bottoms that you affix to the top of a piece of vinyl. As a record plays or is scratched Phase’s sensors send information about these movements to a receiver, which is connected to both the DJ gear and your laptop running the DJ software. This enables you to play and scratch the music loaded in the software using turntables without the use of a needle and tonearm. The company says it is using a proprietary method of wireless communication based upon radio frequency, not Bluetooth as many speculated.
