Digital Core. Analog Roots.

For over 30 years, we have focused on innovating and developing digital audio solutions which continue to inspire users with endless new possibilities. We constantly draw on our roots in analog audio, in order to offer cutting-edge devices, celebrated for their precision and sound quality. From our very first sound card to our latest high-tech mixing controllers, Hercules has built up a level of expertise and know-how widely acknowledged within the audio industry. With the digital audio era still in its early stages (considering analog audio’s more than a century and a half of history), we find ourselves facing a new path whose direction is ours to chart. Acknowledging and respecting where we come from – while at the same time remaining keenly focused on the evolution of audio and DJing – is the philosophy which guides us every day: Digital Core. Analog Roots®.

Guillemot Corporation.

Beat Matching.

DJing Solutions.

Guillemot Corporation is a designer and manufacturer of interactive entertainment hardware and accessories, offering a wide range of diversified products under the Hercules brand name for audio devices, and Thrustmaster for PC and game console accessories. Active in this market since 1984, the Guillemot Corporation Group is currently present in 11 countries – including Germany, France, the UK, the United States, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Romania and Hong Kong – and distributes its products in more than 60 countries worldwide. The Group’s mission is to offer high-performance, ergonomic products which maximize the enjoyment of digital interactive entertainment end users and music fans.

An audio mixing technique used to play 2 music tracks in the same rhythm, with the beats of both tracks played together. Beat-matching is a way to “Synchronize” two audio tracks, letting you link different music tracks together. This is most generally used in techno, house or trance music, but hip hop, rap or R&B can also work as long as the rhythm is sufficiently pronounced. By keeping exactly the same BPM, the same speed and time, beat-matching guarantees a complete mix, whatever the material used be it vinyls, CDs, media players or DJ controllers. History: Beat matching was the first technique used by DJs to create fluid transitions between songs. It was invented by Francis Grasso in the late 1960s to keep people dancing at the end of a song.

Hercules created the first dual-deck mixing controller for computers featuring a built-in audio interface: the original Hercules DJ Console, launched to widespread acclaim in 2003. Since then, Hercules has ranked among the leading manufacturers of portable DJ controllers for computers, and today brings together large and diverse communities of DJs – from beginners to the most advanced artists – thanks to its extensive DJing experience. Hercules has chosen to offer products with particular attention paid to both design and software integration, with its ranges of mixing controllers, DJ headphones and DJ monitoring speakers. With innovation in its DNA, Hercules was honored with a highly-coveted 2014 CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award at CES 2014 in Las Vegas for its DJControlWave, the first totally wireless DJ controller custom-designed for iPad.