The Rane Twelve MK2 is a truly special turntable controller, with a full-sized rotating platter with a 12-inch control disc and slipmat. This makes it ideal for DJs who want that authentic vinyl feeling even when playing music digitally – of course, the advantage here is that there are no jumping needles and poorly adjusted tone arms. The Rane Twelce MK2 features all the tools a pro DJ would expect, including a smooth, adjustable pitch fader and a robust start-stop button. With its robust metal housing and a weight over 9kg, it almost reaches the dimensions of a Technics 1200. The Twelve MK2 is compatible with the widely-used DJ software programmes Traktor, Serato DJ Pro, and Virtual DJ.
The die-cast aluminium platter of the Rane Twelve MK2 is driven by a powerful adjustable-torque motor, providing perfect resistance for scratch techniques. The rotation speed can be switched from 33 to 45 RPM. The surface of the 12-inch acrylic control disc has more grip than conventional vinyl records, and timecode transmission problems caused by a poor audio connection between needle, tone arm, and computer are also a thing of the past. Like its predecessor, the Twelve MK2 is of course USB-compatible, but the MK2 can even transmit a self-generated timecode signal via a specially designed stereo RCA output, so in principle it can be used with any DVS system.
Battle mixers like the Rane Seventy or the Numark Scratch are ideal partners for a pair of Rane Twelve MK2 controllers: Simply connected the controllers to the mixer's double USB hub at the back and you're ready to go. A thick white stripe on the easy-to-grip acrylic control disc helps battle DJs keep their cues precise. Where a standard turntable's tonearm would be, Twelve MK2 has a touch strip, allow DJs to control the needle position virtually; in cue mode, it also provides access to up to eight cue points, each with colour-coded LEDs. Whether the deck is set up like an ordinary record player or rotated 90° so it's ready for battle, DJs will have perfect access to all the functions of this groundbreaking controller.
The Rane company was founded in 1981 in Mukilteo, Washington State. The MP 24 mixer, introduced in 1986, was considered the club standard for 20 years. The Bozak-style designed MP 2016 mixer and the accompanying XP 2016 equaliser were launched in 1999, long before rotary mixers became trendy - they are still in high demand today. Their genes live on in the excellent MP 2015 mixer. In 2003, Rane released the Serato Scratch Live, one of the first DVS systems, and even though Serato now operates independently, Rane still makes Serato-optimised hardware, such as the Twelve, a motorised DJ software controller with a twelve-inch control vinyl, which was introduced in 2017. Its technology is also present in the Rane One. Since 2018, Rane has been part of the vast InMusic Brands family, which encompasses Denon DJ, Akai, M-Audio, Numark, Alesis and Stanton, among others.
Even though it's probably most fun to use with a proper battle mixer, the Rane Twelve MK2 is compatible with any DJ software that can handle either USB MIDI data or DVS timecode. And if course it's not strictly necessary to use one controller per channel, because just one Rane Twelve MK2 can control up to four software decks, simply by toggling throught them on the player's interface. The engineers at Rane have even included a BPM display and a detented push knob for scrolling through playlists and loading the selected song.