Hands On with the Rane ONE MKII Motorized DJ Controller

The Rane ONE MKII is a Serato machine.

It’s supported by a couple of other niche DJ software platforms (Virtual DJ and Algoriddim djay Pro), but most of those who use it will be Serato DJs or at least open to the platform.

It’s also not a standalone device — there are no USB-C inputs to plug in a thumb drive and just play. It requires a laptop that is running the latest version of Serato. In other words: it’s a closed box, and if you’re not already a user of Serato or willing to become one, you won’t be able to use it.

… but if you are? The Rane ONE MKII is a DJ controller with a lot of interesting (and several brilliant) features that could make a huge difference in how you DJ.

Disclosure Statement: This post is not sponsored. Neither the reviewer or 5 Mag were compensated or reimbursed by the manufacturer or anyone associated with RANE or Serato. Links in this post are not sponsored or affiliate links.

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Getting Started

There is a QR code for setting up the Rane ONE MKII on the side of the box itself. Scanning this leads to a short YouTube video that provides instructions for properly installing the platters, but unfortunately not for anything else.

After getting the platters unwrapped and installed and the controller powered up, my laptop would not connect. If you’ve been through this before, you know the routine: you Google, you search, you hunt through the manufacturer’s website for download pages for drivers and firmware updates and install them one-by-one.

Then I updated to the latest version of Serato. That did the trick: the platters lit up in Serato and the Rane ONE MKII came to life.

In Sync

It took a minute to get going, but once it was sync’d up to the laptop, it was fast and easy to explore just what this little machine could do.

The faceplate of the Rane ONE MKII is compact but well-organized. At first it felt a bit precarious — like it was inevitable that I was going to bump the wrong button with a finger or the side of my hand. That never happened, though. After about 20 minutes, DJing with the Rane ONE MKII felt comfortable. The buttons and pads that see the most traffic are larger and positioned to make accidental contact unlikely.

One issue that Rane’s engineers didn’t solve as adeptly was the unfortunate positioning of a row of knobs for mics, the sampler level, headphone jacks and other controls on the front of the controller, resting right up against your belly. While every club and bar should position their DJ equipment in the center of a large table with adequate space between you and the front of the machine, we do not yet live in this world of Platonic ideals. You’re more likely to have too little room than too much at any random gig. Unlike the unfounded anxiety over the position of the buttons on the faceplate, bumping these controls or catching your clothes on them is probably inevitable.

Manipulate Everything

The original RANE ONE has a huge fanbase among open-format and turntablist DJs and after getting hands-on with the MKII it’s easy to understand why. There’s an embarrassment of effects and tools for crowd-pleasing tricks and performances.

The platters are motorized and have adjustable torque settings; it gives you a real hands-on, tactile feeling when you’re working with them. Rane sacrificed a little to give up so much room to the platters — 7.2 inches each — but it pays off when you really start to mix with these at your fingertips. The faders and especially the crossfader are loose by design, which is useful for hotmixing or doing tricks like scratching.

The onboard stem controls are one of the highlights of the controller. There are dedicated acapella and instrumental buttons, and secondary pad buttons to isolate vocals, melodies, bass and drum stems. The Stem FX and Stem Roll pad modes enable you to do incredible things, manipulating not just tracks but granular, atomized bits of tracks. Aside from performance, you could find yourself spending hours just remixing (and that’s what it feels like you’re doing, on the fly and in real time).

Equally impressive are the effects that you can apply. The Rane ONE MKII is equipped with 29 internal effects which you can scroll through on a small but bright OLED display. Beneath the display is a Channel FX knob for each deck, giving tight control over Filter, Filter Roll, Flanger and Noise FX and enabling you to tweak the effects in real time. It was really easy to pick up on this and really fun to fuck around with it.

There are also 8 oversized MPC-style pads on each deck, each providing 10 performance modes for triggering samples and effects, and backlit with RGB lights. The lighting of these and all of the buttons and pads on the Rane ONE MKII are helpful visual cues — the light patterns help to differentiate one button from another and guide you to what you’re looking for, particularly when you’re DJing in the dark. They look cool, but they’re not just for decoration.

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Serato, Uninterrupted

Are there DJs who are willing to switch their preferred software based on the turntable they’re using? I might just be in a bubble, but most DJs I know are pretty set in their ways on this. But if you’re a Serato DJ or willing to jump ship, the Rane ONE MKII offers an incredible set of features, particularly its use of stems and effects. And if you are a Serato user that also wants to showcase tricks or effects in your set or value on-the-spot creativity in performances, this might be the best deck you can get your hands on.

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