Back in 2014, Pioneer DJ released KUVO, their DJ focussed sort of social media thing that allows venues, DJs, and clubbers to all gather in an iPhone as a sort of blood of nightlife activity. It’s a symbiotic thing where everyone connects and exists on one big happy Pioneer DJ focussed world. And KUVO has now had an update that lets DJs post mixes and videos, provided they’re actually uploaded to Youtube or Mixcloud first.
Major update for KUVOTM, our club culture entertainment service –
One-stop social network for hearing DJ mixes and searching club events in your local community
13th March 2018: We’ve significantly updated KUVOTM, our free club culture entertainment service, to create a specialised community-based social network for dance music.
Since its launch in 2014, KUVO has provided a web and mobile-based platform for sharing the playlists of club DJs in real time, and assisted with the fair distribution of royalties to electronic music artists all over the world. With the new features in its updated version, KUVO aims to help energise local club communities by matching clubbers and DJs through the power of the music.
DJs can now post their videos and mixes on KUVO*1 and, in turn, use the community-based social network to promote themselves to fans who may be interested in going to their next gig. So, now it’s easy to hear performances by your favourite selectors and find out when and where they’re next playing live. Use the various new filters and map feature to find parties and events you like the sound of, either in your local area or a city you’re planning to visit. The new KUVO provides a one-stop hub for discovering new music.
DJs can also benefit from using KUVO – promoting themselves by sharing their mixes and details of their upcoming performances with local clubbers, their friends, and people who enjoy the genres of music they play.
The easiest way to prepare mixes for sharing on KUVO is to record them via our professional performance software, rekordbox dj (ver 5.2 or later), using the Live Playlist feature that automatically saves playlists with time stamps. This feature is also enabled when using NXS-GW, the network gateway hardware created for KUVO in 2014, which can be installed by nightclubs. The NXS-GW transmits information about the tracks DJs are playing in the venue to performing rights organisations (PROs) to assist with the fair distribution of royalties to artists. Tying in with the Association for Electronic Music’s Get Played, Get Paid campaign, this helps to support electronic music artists with no additional costs for venues, DJs or clubbers.
Watch our introduction video [link] or find out more about KUVO.
The new version of the KUVO app (iOS ver 3.0) is available for free in the App Store from 13th March 2018.
*1 Video and audio that a KUVO-user DJ has posted to YouTube or Mixcloud.
KEY FEATURES OF KUVO (KUVO APP AND KUVO.COM)
- Club Map: filter event information by your favourite genre and check-in information from venues
Use the Club Map, our dedicated map for clubs and event venues, to find places where DJs and friends you follow on KUVO are checking in or events that match your preferred genres. Search for clubs that suit you based on variables such as profiles of DJs who play there and past DJ mixes/playlists from the venue. Even in unfamiliar places, such as holiday destinations, you can find venues that play the music you love.
- Discover: find new music and DJ mixes
Local mode
Find mixes posted by DJs playing in your local area. Or select another city to discover DJs, parties, events and new clubs.
Global mode
Listen to mixes from DJs around the world. Recent posts with high ratings are recommended to you.
My Feed mode
See more personalised information, such as mixes posted by DJs who you follow. When people you follow mark a mix as a favourite, you can share that information and listen to the mix.
When you’re listening to a mix on KUVO, you can see the playlist if it’s been shared by the DJ, plus information about the DJ’s upcoming gigs. This means you can use KUVO to not only discover new music, but also clubs and parties that match your musical tastes.
KUVO App Specifications
Compatible OS iOS 10 or later Compatible Devices iPhone
I like the idea…
… but it’s massively undersubscribed to be useful at this point. For example, there are a tons of clubs, bars, and DJs local to me (Leeds, UK). But only three clubs are on KUVO, and only one DJ, which for a population that ranks as third biggest in the UK outside of London and Birmingham isn’t good at all.
I can’t actually see anything wrong with the idea and the execution, but it does lack interaction. Unlike other social media platforms, there appears to be no way to message or comment. You can follow DJs and venues, but not engage with them. It’s more of a reference guide or notice board right now, and for it to get any traction, it definitely needs to be more… social because that’s what people are used to. And on Android too, which perhaps is a big part of the problem.
So for me, it needs to be on everyone’s mobile, and promoted far more than it is if it’s to be successful. And that’s going to be an uphill struggle when the world is on other far more established social platforms. For example, The Faversham in Leeds (literally in the middle of student central) has currently got 24 followers on KUVO. On Facebook however, is has 11.5K followers. That’s what Pioneer DJ has to contend with.
The biggest issue with Kuvo is that it is only venue-centric and you HAVE to have the Pioneer Kuvo box for it to work. The problem is the approval. process. I’ve talked to multiple venue owners who applied to get Kuvo boxes and have either been turned down or do not get any response at all.
In order for this to pick up, they WILL need a DJ-Centric side of this platform. Sell the damned KUVO boxes for christ’s sake. Or hell, allow Rekordbox to broadcast the info over an internet connection.
Anyway….. that is my rant.
I love the idea of DJ software building in tracklist broadcasting. I’ve run the richie hawtin pluggin RADR a bunch to auto post any songs i play in traktor as an individual twitter post, and it’s awesome because I’m happy to share that info. I’m no programmer, but I can’t imagine it’d be exceptionally difficult to at least get something rudimentary going like that within the software.
I also post all music played on my radio shows on Twitter including buy links to either Traxsource, Bandcamp, or whatever major platform they are sold on. I do not play bootlegs as my network that I broadcast on does not allow them and I am fine with that. Besides showing people what you’re playing how does posting to Twitter in your opinion or possible knowledge benefit the artists. I am just asking as I am a huge proponent of it and really like to drive home to others who ask why I do what I do and the benefits of it.
I’ve actually been doing it as well since before that Twitter posting app. Back when I was at my colleges radio station, I’d usually post the track list to Facebook and tag any artitsts. Similarly, Twitter hashtags the artists as I play on Traktor. With both examples, I’ve actually seen some decent artist engagement from those tagged, and people interested in finding those artists need only click on the tag or hashtag to find more of that artists’ work.
What Twitter posting app. are you referring to? I do it manually.
RADR by Richie Hawtin. Use traktors broadcasting features and it’ll automatically make a new post for any song that’s played for more than 30 seconds or so. Also works for Ableton and Serato now apparently.
are you “discovering” music, by being spoon fed songs that someone is is playing? i don’t think so.
and how long would it take the whole thing to turn into payola…?…immediately
Gawd, are they still trying to make this Kuvo thing work? Give up already. People don’t want to choose where to go party by cross referencing playlists or analyzing musical statistics lol.
This Kuvo thing really needs to die already.
It was a poor attempt by Pioneer at wedging itself between clubs and royalty collecting agencies and this is just another rebranding of the thing as a “social platform”.
Yeah, right. sigh
Kuvo is actually a good thing. We use it in our radio station, as we only really play underground music it’s the only way these artists get paid royalties. As the info from kuvo gets sent to APRA.
There is no conspiracy, this is a great step forward for music producers to be able to make a living off their music.
Glad to see you acknowledge the fact that’s it’s all about royalties.
Considering the fact that Pioneer has been abusing the dj gear market leader position for years, do we really need to let them do the same with royalty collection just because your DJs are too lazy to deliver the tracklist themselves?
Anything that helps artists get paid is a good thing right?
What are you doing to help underground artists get their due?
How is this a bad thing?
I DJ 8-10 hour sets, there is no way I could remember all the songs I play, so how could I hand in a tracklist?
Are you actually a full-time DJ, where do you perform. Or are you just an online DJ?
How does that helps artists? Do they get paid more compared to you doing your part and making a history tracklist of your set and delivering it to APRA? Does that mean you didn’t pay for performing licence/royalites before you installed the Kuvo box?
I help by playing their music, paying my share and not getting middle-men like Pioneer grab a piece of that cake. Nice that you think you’re helping underground by going with Pioneer.
Obviously you have no idea how’s this works or how royalties are collected. An APRA licence doesn’t mean that you get paid. It means we are allowed to play music in our venue.
Without services like Kuvo & RADR money is split up by algorithms where more commercially successful song get a higher split. Because only commercial radio stations have their information collected by APRA, this does not happen with any community radio stations, none.
Say, DJ Sfmzg has a new single called “Just Trolling”. He sends me a link as part of his release campaign. I play the song on the radio. Kuvo register’s that the song has been played. DJ Sfmzg receives a payment in his bank account, because APRA knows what song was actually played.
If kuvo wasn’t installed payment would have been split between Bruno Mars, Migos, Ed Sheeran & Rihanna because the robots would have assumed there was a higher percentage chance that one of those artists would have been played over some nobody named DJ Sfmzg.
Pioneer takes no percentage of the royalties and the kuvo box is free from APRA.
Basically before you installed the Kuvo box you didn’t deliver the playlist to your agency, gottcha ;)
And now you pat yourself on the back because you don’t have to do that. Good for you.
Wow, you’re a real positive person. You must be fun to hang around with.
And don’t act like you hand in all these mythical tracksheets because you are not even a working DJ. You have no website with no gig guides no mixes online, you don’t even have a profile picture.
You’re just and angry person who hates their day job, so they go online and spreads their negativity on forums.
I should know by now to never feed the trolls.
Yeah, sorry that my experience of decade and a half of dealing with corporations and agencies in question have made me a more realistic person. You will understand one day that numbers of likes, shares and other metrics you mentioned (do you really measure your own success based on that?) does not translate well to…actually anything. Especially nowdays.
I’m an average DJ by any standard but I still perform regulary (thankfully, my day job covers my needs more than enough). And when I do, I do my part and hand those “mythical” tracksheets, without the Kuvo box. You should try it too. Because one day, you may find that Kuvo box will require subscription on your part or that artists will get less royalties because of it (or both). Usually people start caring only when it’s money out of their pocket.
I DJ all around my city and have my residencies. Only my radio station has kuvo. I hand my tracksheets every quarter and get paid my fair share of royalties.
You assume a lot, but know nothing.
LMAO @ Pio thinking that anyone else besides their own marketing team would want to throw money at this thing
It’s free
There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Some people still don’t understand that.
So I just attempted to upload one of my Mixcloud sets to this platform. While the port over is a direct link they make you input the track listing again which is already on the Mixcloud set. This is counterproductive. The link should push the set and automatically populate the track listing if the set has one. This would require way too much time to do this :-(.