The company wants to take laptops away from the DJ booth.

Roberto Baldwin | 8/16/16 | Engadget

Roughly four years ago, Thud Rumble -- a company that's the brainchild of legendary DJ QBert (Richard Quitevis) and Yogafrog (Ritche Desuasido) -- was having an open house. Developer and DJ Rich Johnson (aka DJ Hard Rich) wandered in to talk to the co-founders. During a conversation with Quitevis, Johnson said, "I want to make a mixer for you guys." Quitevis had long wanted a mixer with an embedded computer so he wouldn't have to drag a laptop and mixer to gigs. "Can you make something like this?" he asked. Johnson said he could. Finally they're showing it off.

At today's Intel IDF keynote, DJs Qbert and Killa-Jewel (Julie Fainer) showed off prototype versions of that four-year-old promise. It's called "the Invader" and houses a touchscreen display running Windows 10. During today's presentation, both turntablers were spinning with the popular Traktor mixing software -- but they could be using any DJ app that runs on Microsoft's operating system. It's an evolution both for mixers and for the company that built it.

Thud Rumble has been designing mixers and other DJ products for third parties like Vestax (which shuttered in 2014) and Sony as well as for itself since 1996. But the Invader will be different. Instead of just ordering a mixer in one of a few different variations, buyers will be able to customize their order with laser-etching options, various colors and a choice of rubber or old-school arcade buttons. Co-founder Desuasido told Engadget, "We're doing the Tesla business model."

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