Ean Golden


Ean Golden is a San Francisco, California-based DJ, controllerist, designer of DJ equipment, and founder of the digital DJ blog, DJ TechTools.

Life and career

Golden started as a DJ in 1996 in Salt Lake City, Utah at the age of 16, and moved to San Francisco in 1999 to DJ full-time in a number of residencies and collaborative groups. In 2003, he switched equipment from traditional turntables to a MIDI controller, and developed a DJ performance style that focused around such controllers. This style would later come to be known as controllerism.
In 2005, Golden began writing a digital DJ column for the now-defunct Remix Magazine, during which he popularized the term and concept behind controllerism. He founded DJ Techtools in 2006 as an extension of his Remix column, with content focused towards educating digital DJs and now runs the organization today.
Golden has played a notable role in developing and designing controllerist-based DJ equipment, with lead design credits on the VCI-100 Ean Golden Edition, Midi Fighter, Midi Fighter 3D, Traktor Kontrol S4, the Novation Dicer, Chroma Caps and the Midi Fighter Pro. Golden continues to work to bring his own versions of controllers to market, having announced in January 2012 that Vestax would be releasing an Ean Golden-branded edition of their flagship controller, the VCI-400.