Pioneer is teasing us with a new version of Rekordbox that seems to be fully featured DJ software, along the lines of Traktor and Serato. If this is correct, it could be the biggest move into the digital DJ market yet for the company, as it could also mean a set of bran new DJ controllers to accompany it. Are Pioneer set to take on Tracktors dominance?
Pioneer teased the new version of the software in a short, one minuet video posted on YouTube yesterday evening. It seems to show many features that would take it directly into the firing line of it’s closest rivals, such as Traktor by Native Instruments, as it appears to have software FX, a sampler and slicing alongside the standard things like loops and hot cues. This would be quite a departure from the softwares current form, which is preparing tracks to use on Pioneer’s club gear.
This new features set could be used with controllers Pioneer already have on the market, but we strongly feel that a newer set of controller (or range of controllers) will be released alongside this new software, making it more easily controllable and accessible. It would seem that (even though they have arrived later than most in the world of the software orientated DJ), Pioneer are hoping for the same kind of worldwide dominance they’ve enjoyed in the mixer and CDJ markets over the last one and half decades. Some rumours even suggest that there’s a chance the software will plug directly from a laptop into Pioneer’s pro DJ gear (the way Traktor, Serato etc. can) in HID mode. The big selling point for Pioneer would be that the same loops, library, cue points, saved loops etc. would potentially work across everything they make, via Rekordbox.
At the moment, information is sketchy, so nothing can be said for sure. Please stay tuned to Gearjunkies and our DJ2DJ sister site for more information as we have it.