In one swift move, Pioneer has answered two important questions in the club scene — what was that track that was playing while I was laying in a pool of my own vomit on the dance floor, and how can I be sure that the artist gets paid for providing the soundtrack for the best/worst night of my life? Pioneer’s KUVO is how. It’s a new system that lets the punter see what track their favourite DJs are playing and equally have played, which in turn ensures that the necessary money reaches the right people.
It’s obviously easier for Pioneer to explain this so here goes:
Get the club connection: Pioneer DJ launches KUVO,
the community that unites clubbers with the best dance music, DJs and venues15th October 2014: Pioneer is launching KUVO: a website and app (iOS/Android) that will transform the way clubbers, DJs and clubs connect with each other. Iconic clubs in locations including Ibiza, London, Los Angeles, Singapore , Dubai and Tokyo have already started to use KUVO, laying the foundations for a next generation club community.
KUVO brings dance music fans live information about which DJs are playing and where, with real-time set lists and the ability to preview, ‘like’ and buy tracks – all via the KUVO smartphone app and website. Clubbers will be able to see what’s trending and what’s happening in clubs near them – helping them to discover new music, DJs and venues.
KUVO will connect clubs to an audience eager to find the best dance music, DJs and events. By installing a KUVO gateway box, clubs will be able to provide real-time information about what’s playing in each of their rooms, with the potential to push promotions and communicate on the fly. Meanwhile DJs can market themselves and their music by updating their profiles, and embedding promotional messages and more in their track information.
“Pioneer pro-DJ equipment is an industry standard for dance clubs all over the world. Now KUVO is creating an ecosystem of networked DJ booths that can share all their track info, creating a rich, interactive experience for clubbers, DJs and clubs,” explains Mark Grotefeld, General Manager for Marketing, Pioneer Europe.
How it works: connecting clubbers in the cloud
Clubs can apply for a free KUVO network gateway,1 which they connect to Pioneer CDJs and mixers in their DJ booths via Pro DJ Link LAN.2 DJs then simply play their set, and live track information will be sent from the booth, via Pioneer’s cloud server, to clubbers using the KUVO website and app.
For the past year Pioneer has been working with clubs to populate KUVO. The network now receives live information from DJ booths in cities including London, New York, Paris, Sydney, Tokyo and Vegas – with sets from the dance floors of Ministry London, Mansion Miami and Space Ibiza. Pioneer will continue to work with the best venues around the world to build a rich store of content for the KUVO community.
KUVO and beyond
While KUVO will initially be exclusive to DJ booths using Pioneer equipment, Pioneer is in advanced conversations with third parties to extend it to non-Pioneer hardware and software.
Pioneer DJ is already collaborating with Richie Hawtin and his RADR.dj technology to create a plug-in that will allow Native Instruments’ Traktor and non-Pioneer users to feed into the KUVO system. This will create opportunities around data sharing and the fair distribution of royalties to dance music producers and labels.
“If we can allow people to know more about what DJs are playing we can actually spread the message of electronic music; then, our whole scene can grow creatively and financially,” Richie Hawtin, DJ, producer, label owner confirms.
Pioneer and RADR are working with the newly-formed Association for Electronic Music to ensure such payments end up in the right hands.
1 The KUVO network gateway is free of charge for a limited time only
2 Pioneer DJ products with Pro DJ Link: CDJ-2000NXS, CDJ-900NXS DJM-2000NXS and DJM-900NXS“We’re in a position to champion underground dance music producers, who are often overlooked by a system that can pay disproportionate amounts of money to other music genres,” says Grotefeld. “We will offer our data to performing rights societies to help them provide a more effective reporting solution for their members, enabling the accurate payment of royalties to dance music producers.”
Highlights of the KUVO website and app
- Live information about DJ sets and dance music trends around the world
- Now playing: provides live set information straight from the decks, with the ability to preview, ‘like’, ‘favourite’ and buy tracks via iTunes (iOS only) or JunoDownload. Plus DJs and clubs can embed messages in track information.
- Follow: users can follow clubs and DJs to get all the latest information.
- Discover: collates ‘likes’, ‘favourites’ and ‘follows’ to identify trends, and help users discover new tracks.
- Playlist: allows clubbers to review sets played by their favourite DJs, search fortracks played at club nights they’ve been to in the past, and post comments for the DJ or club.
- Club Map helps clubbers discover club nights they’ll love
The Club Map shows users where tracks and DJs can be found, and guides them to clubs playing the music they want to hear, both on demand and live. Users can discover new clubs, preview tracks that are playing live, and use the map to get there.- Photo Album to share the experience
The KUVO app lets clubbers stamp photos taken in a club with information about the track playing, DJ and club. Photos can be shared with friends via social media, capturing a vivid picture of the best club nights.- An opportunity for clubs and DJs to raise their profiles
DJs and clubs can update their KUVO profiles with links to their websites and social media feeds, as well as push promotional messages to clubbers. Using Pioneer’s rekordbox software, DJs can even add messages to each track they’ve played – for example, links to their social media pages – opening up a whole new level of interactivity between clubs, DJs and their fans.To find out more, watch the KUVO video
How to get KUVO
Clubbers: Find out more and get the app at kuvo.com
Clubs: Get information about applying and installing KUVO network gateway at kuvo.com/about
DJs: Create a profile at kuvo.com/connect
KUVO — your friendly neighbourhood bobby*
* Or cop. But I’m English don’t you know.
Let’s break this down. KUVO is a network of clubs, with installed KUVO black boxes that feeds played track metadata back to the cloud. From there, it’s aggregated into a clubber and DJ friendly interface that allows you to discover the music that DJs play all over the world, and buy it instantly from iTunes or Junodownload. How very helpful — your friendly neighbourhood bobby just pointed you in the right direction and is telling you about everything going on where you live.
So from this perspective, via the medium of mobile technology, KUVO hooks DJs and clubbers together in one big hive mind/social network.
The other purpose is to make sure that the artists are getting paid when their music is getting played in the clubs. The Association for Electronic Music aims to be the central hub for all of this, and will ensure that the right people get the money that they are due. So this is the same friendly bobby enforcing the law.
The upside is amazing. DJs and clubbers are connecting like never before via the common medium of music, and the artists get paid. Result.
The Black Box of DJing
This all has to managed, and the KUVO hardware is the gateway that feeds the necessary metadata back to the KUVO servers. It only works with Pioneer networked equipment right now, but if successful, I imagine that Pioneer will work hard to see it working with all hardware. Well… I would like to think that they would. But knowing how proprietary the DJ world is, this could be a way for Pioneer gear to be more or less mandatory. Hell, it could even go as far as being a legal requirement should the system actually sort out the mess that is performing rights payments.
I’m trying to focus on the plusses but I cannot help but see some obvious concerns. KUVO has all the hallmarks of Pioneer quite literally controlling the club scene from hardware to music. Because of the social media aspect of KUVO, DJs will turn down gigs because they’re not KUVO clubs. Artists will have concerns because DJs are playing their music but not getting paid unless it’s in a KUVO club, and thus not making the inevitable KUVO charts.
There’s also the other aspect of DJs and secrecy. It is common for DJs to cover up record labels, and the new AM mode in Serato DJ hides track names. But suddenly via KUVO that’s all out the window, as full track listings will be published, and I suspect DJs won’t be able to opt out. I foresee a number of DJs using bogus metadata that only they understand, unless of course KUVO becomes a system where only KUVO approved tracks can be used.
Can Of Worms
In the KUVO equation, clubbers and artists absolutely win, but DJs less so. While they will have to give up some of their secrecy and almost feel obligated to be part of the KUVO ecosystem to survive, they do get to be part of a huge global Pioneer powered network of DJs, clubbers, promotors, labels, and just about everyone connected to the music industry, and everything that offers. For me, it’s a real mixture of pros and cons, and having only just really dug into the information, I have very conflicted feelings about just how much power a small group of companies are getting right now. I hope KUVO doesn’t become a way for Pioneer to have all the power, and is a genuine system for the greater good. The greater good.
Your thoughts on KUVO
Is KUVO the central hub that will sort out much that is wrong in the club scene? Will it enable artists to get paid and for DJs to raise their profiles on a global level? Did we just witness a historic change to the DJ scene?
Pice of sh*t. I will never use it. All my performance is uniqe and I want to stay this way. And playing my own tracks, samples and loops is my secret. I will never let it go public. Only the mixed up end effect can go throu speakers to public. Nothing else.
They can Kuvo me up, they won’t make any sense of my Ableton set!
KUVO app “requires iOS 7 or later”. That’s me out then.
Given that I met my wife because she came up to ask what tune I was playing, I’d say the downside to this device is rather larger than some of the mystique being taken out of the job…
Ha, brilliant!!
I understand the sentiment of getting artists paid for having their songs played… but can’t that be the primary use and I can opt out of sharing the set lists? I don’t mind telling people what I played (I encourage DJs to do it) but I know there are a lot of people who disagree.
Oh dear, didn’t anyone tell Pioneer that #the-future-of-DJing is live on the fly remix producing and not playing original tracks? :D
Something here doesn’t smell right. It’s this statement in particular that people should be very worries about: “Pioneer’s KUVO……ensures that the necessary money reaches the right people”. This is way too “big bother-ish” for me.
Who’s going to ensure (or should I say enforce?) money reaching the “right people” and who’s paying the “right people” (the DJs, clubs?) AND who exactly are these “right people” anyway? Are they talking about the artists, the record labels, Time Warner, Capitol Records, etc.??
Are major labels going to start going after club DJs for dropping a tracks? They’re already going after Soundcloud users by pulling sets down with unlicensed music. Is this what’s to come of DJing? Major labels and music industry giants going after DJs for playing their music at clubs? I can see it know, the day after your big gig at “club awesome” you get an email from “The Music Police” that you own “the right people” half your pay for playing X and X tracks?! Whoa there!!
Call me paranoid, but this looks like a way to screw the DJs out of money and disguised as a “new way for DJs to interact with their blah blah blah.”
Something is seriously fishy about this!
In my last job, the bosses introduced a card based entry system, aimed at making the building more secure, and so that managers could make sure that employees took lunch breaks. It was for “employee welfare”. I leant back in my chair, and after a moment of silence I said “that’s bullshit – it’s nothing more than a clocking-in system to keep tabs on staff movements”. I wasn’t invited to meetings after that, especially as it turned out to be true.
At this point, we can only hope that the intentions are good and that they really will work hard to distribute royalties to the people who deserve it. I think it will be a matter of being transparent, especially as the playlists will be available. If someone is getting a lot of plays but no royalties, then the stories will soon become public.
A good friend of mine has some great points on all this. Here’s what he had to say:
“I also disagree with the surreptitious methods here, but its not Pioneer’s involvement that confuses me, its this AFEM thing. Is it s Performance Rights Organization? Apparently not, it’s more like a union. P.R.O.s like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC etc. have been responsible for collecting money from businesses for artists, labels and publishers for ages. Its basic entertainment and copyright law. If a business makes its money while, or because of, playing music then that business must pay fees to those organizations that represent the owners of those recordings. The DJs aren’t responsible for those fees being paid, but the businesses are. Theoretically, if a nightclub is all paid up (and its not that expensive) then they have nothing to worry about. If they’re not paying up, they’re not really supporting the artists and labels that create the content upon which they rely, and they’re risking large fines. I have a problem with PROs, how long they take to pay artists and how much they keep for themselves. But musicians sure as hell aren’t seeing any of that club money. So if this were reporting to those PROs, I would kinda get it.But it’s not. AFEM is almost like a union trying to wedge itself in between artists and P.R.O.s. Its ambitious but redundant. And its culturally tone deaf. The club world is one of the last open frontiers in music, and music playback has yet to be accurately measured there. There’s something so great about that. I think packaging it as a social platform is a cynical way to go about measuring that playback and clubs should think twice before letting this into their systems. I do think these boxes could end up informing actual P.R.O.s, which would probably cause a problem for the existing nightclub industry model and could usher in a wave of excessive fines and litigation. Considering it’s the club’s responsibility to pay P.R.O. fees, I doubt operators will be quick to install these”.
Personally, I think Pioneer/KKR is deeply involved in all this and will definitely profit from this in some way. Otherwise they wouldn’t be giving free Kuvo boxes.
Adding to the conspiracy, we all know Pioneer just sold for half a billion dollars to the private US Equity firm KKR, right? Well guess what? “KKR has a wealth of experience in the technology and media industry globally, and we are confident it has the expertise to drive Pioneer DJ forward.” – Mr Kotani, President of Pioneer. Taken from a press release posted to BBC.
Interesting, don’t you think? Pioneer sells for half a billion dollars and a month later, they come out with a -free- device to “create an ecosystem of networked DJ booths that can share all their track info, creating a rich, interactive experience for clubbers, DJs and clubs.”
Nothing is free, so who’s paying for all this and how connected is KKR, and their other “assets”, with AFEM and everything else?
Curiouser and Curiouser. Interesting times ahead.
Tough questions that I’m guessing no one from Pioneer is going to want to explain.
This smells of complete BS as Concerned DJ said.
What I’d like to know is where Pioneer is making their money? Its not from selling these Kuvo boxes to clubs and its not from selling the free Kuvo app so….. where is the money coming from to make this beneficial for Pioneer??
This is obviously another “eat the red pill” marketing scheme to get us to look elsewhere while we get f*cked.
It sounds like this is indeed going to manifest into us DJs getting billed for playing tracks that we’ve already purchased.
Also.. I’m guessing Pioneer will get their hands in the profit made from people buying tracks they just heard their favorite DJ play by way of marking up the tracks’ cost on Juno and/or iTunes.
How else is Pioneer going to make money here?
As far as finding tracks that your favorite DJ is playing? Its called Shazam. Nothing new.
Its extremely irritating that the wool is obviously being attempted to pull over our eyes here. I don’t trust this as far as I can throw that Kuvo box.
Good time to re-evalute where your money is going. Pioneer = corporate, all for profit, conglomerate.
And lets question this “Association for Electronic Music”.
Who are these people and how are they going to make sure the money made off of the sales of music is actually going where it should be going.. to the artist??
All of this smell like sh*t in my opinion. If I see that Kuvo box at any club I play at I will surely be unplugging it asap.
and shame on Richie! I know he’s smart enough to see where this is heading.
Kuvo de basura. Kan of trash. :}
Subtlety and nuance are pretty absent in these comments. A clear feeling is emerging. It’ll be interesting to see what ADE has to say about it, and to pick up on feeling elsewhere.
Hell no!
So after doing some research about this ‘pay to play’ campaign I’m wondering why a club would benefit from having a Kuvo box in their club? Surely they would be the ones having to pay royalties on the tracks played every night.
I’m also curious how these royalties would get back to the original artist.
Surely the record label would also be taking a piece of the pie.
Read more on ‘pay to play’ here — http://www.completemusicupdate.com/article/association-for-electronic-music-campaign-highlights-100-million-missing-performance-royalties/
It would appear that even if a club has KUVO installed, your participation is optional. Thus the potential secrecy issue isn’t an issue after all.
no, even if you don’t use rekord box or have an account, it will still track your plays and your name is on the club playlist. Read the terms and conditions.
That contradicts what someone in the know told me. I need to dig deeper.