AlphaTheta RMX-Ignite DJ Effects Unit Review

Video Review

First Impressions / Setting up

This is a well-built unit. The metal chassis gives it real heft at 2.3kg, and everything about it says professional durability – the kind of thing that’s designed to survive years of touring and club installations. The top section has a gloss finish while the bottom is matte black, with orange accents that tie into the “Ignite” branding. Those three large Isolate FX knobs and three lever controls dominate the layout, and they feel properly chunky and satisfying to use.

The multicolour screen at the top is the most immediately obvious upgrade from the old unit. Where the RMX-1000 required you to memorise every parameter and setting, you can now see what you’re doing – sample names, effect parameters, BPM, input levels, sync status. It’s not a huge screen, but it shows everything you need at a glance. Below it sit the sample trigger pads with white LEDs, and the whole layout is logical once you understand the three main zones: sampler on the left, 3-band effects in the middle, and the Release Echo section on the right.

Setting this up with a DJM-A9 mixer couldn’t have been simpler. I plugged in a single USB-C cable to the Multi I/O port, hit the insert button on the mixer, selected USB, and chose which channel to route through the unit. That was it – digital audio, no quality loss, no messing about with four separate quarter-inch cables and wondering if you’ve got them in the right order. The unit also takes power via USB-C, and there’s a cable hook on the back to stop everything getting accidentally yanked out mid-set. Digital Send/Return is currently supported on the DJM-A9 and DJM-V10 only.

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If you’re using this with an older mixer without digital send/return, you’ve still got the traditional quarter-inch TS inputs and outputs on the back, plus a switch to select between CDJ, send/return, and master output modes. There’s also a LAN port for Pro DJ Link, which gives you tight beat sync with analysed tracks from your CDJs and lets you load samples directly from USB drives plugged into your players.

In Use

The effects here are split into two main types: Isolate FX controlled by those three big knobs, and Lever FX controlled by the paddles. Both work across low, mid, and high frequency bands independently – so you can, say, add reverb to just the highs while leaving the kick drum untouched. This frequency-selective approach is what makes the RMX-Ignite more interesting than the effects built into most mixers (although the A9 also has frequency separation, for the record).

The Isolate FX include Tape Echo, Reverb, Drive, Filter, Ducker, and Rhythm. Each knob has a centre detent – turn it right to add the effect to that frequency band, turn it left to isolate (reduce) that frequency. I found myself reaching for Tape Echo and Reverb most naturally, adding subtle echo to vocal frequencies or splashing reverb across the highs.

The Drive effect is more situational – it works nicely on techno but sounds a bit aggressive on anything with more delicate production. Each effect also has a sub-parameter knob for fine-tuning things like feedback amount or decay time.

The Lever FX are designed for more immediate, dramatic interventions. Push a lever down and it snaps back when you release – good for quick splashes. Push it up and it holds in place, leaving your hands free. Effects here include Echo, Reverb, Juggle (a half-beat delay), Reverse, Solo, and Stretch. The Stretch effect in particular takes some getting used to – it time-stretches the selected frequencies over a one-bar cycle, which frankly sounds bizarre until you find a context where it works. Solo is more immediately useful, letting you isolate frequencies while the rest echoes away.

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The get-out-of-jail button

What makes this useful for dabbling with is the Release Echo button. Press and hold it, and everything you’ve got going on – all your layered effects, your samples, everything – echoes out smoothly while the unit resets.

There are now two modes here: Dry and Mute. In Dry mode, only your added effects fade out with the echo while the music continues playing underneath – perfect for when you’ve gone too far and need to pull back without creating a gap. In Mute mode, everything cuts to the echo including the music, creating a dramatic break before the track comes back when you release. I used Mute mode constantly as a get-out-of-jail button while learning the unit – it feels much safer when you’re experimenting live.

The sampler section

The sampler section has had a significant overhaul. You get four trigger pads – now larger rubber units at 17.5mm square that won’t hurt your fingers during intense playing – with 20 built-in samples across five banks (909, 808, 707, 606, plus a “Loop and Play” bank). These samples are provided by Loopmasters, and you can load your own via USB or Pro DJ Link.

The free RMX-Ignite Sample Manager software lets you prepare custom sample banks on your computer, with up to 15 banks and a maximum of 16 seconds per bank, then export them to a USB stick for use in the unit. The Overdub function lets you record a four-beat loop of your pad triggers and build up layered patterns. I particularly liked the new Groove Roll feature – pressing multiple roll buttons simultaneously creates velocity variations by combining different beat divisions, working like a synth arpeggiator to give your drum patterns a more organic, human feel rather than the rigid machine-gun rolls of the old unit.

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The sampler also gets its own dedicated effects section called Sampler Color FX, with Echo, Space, Filter, Pitch, Decay, and Swing. These only affect your programmed samples, not the main audio, which means you can process your drum builds independently. Adding swing to hi-hats or manipulating the decay of a snare roll during a build-up works brilliantly – it’s the kind of detail that helps avoid that generic “RMX sound” that the old unit was sometimes criticised for.

Sound quality and connectivity

Sound quality is noticeably improved. The unit runs at 96kHz with 32-bit ESS Technology converters delivering a 115dB signal-to-noise ratio, and AlphaTheta has apparently tuned it for a neutral sound character – neither warm nor bright, just clean and transparent. In my testing, it all sounded fantastic – the effects add character when engaged, but the dry signal passes through clean. The difference compared to the 14-year-old RMX-1000 is substantial.

One limitation worth noting: the analogue inputs and outputs are unbalanced quarter-inch TS connections only. If you want to run this on a master output from a high-end mixer with balanced connections, you’re losing that benefit. For a unit at this price point aimed at professional use, balanced I/O would have been welcome. That said, most people will be using it via the send/return loop or the digital USB connection anyway, where this isn’t an issue.

The Pro DJ Link integration works exactly as you’d hope when connected to CDJs with analysed tracks. Beat sync locks tightly to the grid information, which makes the rhythmic effects and sample timing rock solid. If you’re working with unanalysed tracks or vinyl, you can use Auto mode (which guesses the BPM from the audio) or tap the tempo manually.

As a bonus, registering your RMX-Ignite gets you a three-month free subscription to Loopcloud, the sample library service, which is a nice way to start building a collection of custom sounds to load into the unit.

Conclusion

The RMX-Ignite does what it needed to do: bring a 14-year-old product concept into the modern era without losing what made it popular in the first place. The digital connectivity with compatible mixers eliminates cable hassle and signal degradation, the screen transforms usability, and the improved sampler section with Groove Roll and Color FX addresses the main creative limitations of its predecessor. The effects sound excellent, the build quality is impressive, and the whole thing is designed for immediate results while offering real depth for those who want to develop a signature sound.

At €1,199, this isn’t an impulse purchase – but then it never was. The target audience is professional touring DJs who have units like this on their rider, big club residents who want to add something extra to their sets, and well-heeled enthusiasts with high-end home set-ups. If you’re in one of those camps and you’ve been waiting for the RMX-1000 to be updated, this delivers.

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For everyone else, the effects built into modern DJ mixers and software may well be sufficient, or you might look at something like the myriad effects boxes out there nowadays offering studio-grade effects processing in a more compact format. The lack of balanced analogue I/O is a minor disappointment at this price, but it won’t matter for the majority of use cases.

The RMX-Ignite is a thoroughly modern update to a product that professional DJs have relied on for over a decade, finally adding the screen, connectivity, and creative features the format deserved.