Richie Hawtin Just Launched a DJ Technology Venture Called Play Differently

January might be a slow time for electronic music parties that aren't called BPM Festival, but it's busy season for pro audio companies as they descend upon Anaheim, CA for NAMM, the annual gathering of the world's biggest music instrument and production manufacturers. The biggest news to come from the convention center so far came from Richie Hawtin, who announced a new brand of DJ technology, Play Differently, which promises to "magnify the individuality and expand the creativity of today's generation of electronic music artists, producers and DJs," according to a press release.

But while details are slim on what Play Differently plans to bring to market, Hawtin's decades-long reputation for shepherding game-changing DJ technology to market indicates that the company is well worth watching. Before he became a sake-slinging Ibiza party god, Hawtin has always been a tech geek. He got in on the ground floor of digital DJing, acting as tester, investor, and ambassador for the world's first digital-vinyl DJing hybrid, Final Scratch. Soon after, he approached Allen & Heath engineer Andy Rigby-Jones from Allen & Heath with a proposal to create a DJ mixer with MIDI. Unheard of at the time, this became the catalyst for the company's highly successful Xone:92 DJ mixer and a prescient indicator of the laptop performance and press-play era of electronic music. Hawtin was also an early investor in the world's largest dance music MP3 retailer, Beatport, and a co-founder of the Liine line of music production and performance systems.

Play Differently sees Hawtin rekindle his collaboration with Rigby-Jones, with Allen & Heath and its parent company Audiotonix onboard as well. We'll try to wrestle additional information from Hawtin when he performs in Los Angeles this weekend at Pete Tong's inaugural Essential Mix Live event.