Having anticipated Pioneer’s big announcement, hinted at NAMM, DJs around the world are excited to see a new teaser video for the new Rekordbox software. The video, released 30th July, is just over a minute long and has caused a massive surge in online discussion over what Pioneer are about to announce.
Rekordbox is a software that allows DJs to prepare and organise their tracks. From it songs are export ed to USB sticks for Pioneer’s CDJs. That is all it has done in the past.
Until now…
Titled “get ready for new perfomance horizons”, this video is hot news. It teases some new features not present before. For example, there are increasing similarities now with software such as Serato, there are beatpad operated controls laid out exactly like Pioneer’s latest controllers.
There is also FX controls, seemingly assignable to numbers 1 through to 4, presumably for up to four decks. The FX have very similar features to Serato’s FX as there are three effects in a row, likely assignable to three knobs on a controller, but it can be changed to one effect with three controllable parameters.
The sampler, common to every DJing software, is present of course, showing 8 samples per deck, with 16 in view at once. This is a massive step up from Serato which is very limiting on the amount of samples a DJ can use (assuming Rekordbox allows you to use them all).
A record feature is also in view, possibly for recording mixes but, and this is my own personal speculation, could it be a feature similar to Serato’s Flip? My justification for this is that next to the record control, is a drop-down menu saying “Seq 1.”
This screenshot from the video reveals a lot upon close inspection!
So could this be the best DJ software out there? Pioneer already dominate the pro club gear market with their CDJs and Mixers and their high end controllers absolutely hands down are the ones to buy if you can afford them. Now could it be that they are taking over the software market too?
From the very narrow glimpse the video provides, it certainly seems to be a software closely resembling Serato and so does this mean bad luck for the New Zealand company?
HID mode for CDJs in Serato will surely be available in Rekordbox too since Pioneer make the CDJs, meaning Serato may not be the choice software of club “plug and play” DJs.
Hopefully this will spark a panic in Serato HQ that means they push their software to new limits to try and keep their handhold in the market. As long as Pioneer doesn’t wipe Serato out, I imagine the presence of a new competitor will push the industry as a whole.
Traktor, while resembling the new Rekordbox less, will undoubtedly also be at threat, however it has its own niche of controllers and tricks that haven’t shown up in this teaser video so perhaps it may not be as affected.
The more I write, the more thoughts and realisations occur. This new development provides an incredibly easy transition for controller DJs to go on to use CDJs in clubs. No more will they need to have Serato/Traktor for their controller and Rekordbox for CDJs in clubs. It will all be combined in one, requiring no extra work. Surely this is the software to move to if you do both controller and CDJ mixing.
All I can say right now is it is a very bold move that many have not expected and I am very excited to see where this takes digital DJing in the future!
