There’s no need to retread the long and fractious relationship between Serato and Pioneer DJ. As partners, and as yesterday’s INTERFACE 2 announcement demonstrates, competitors, the space that they occupy in the market is becoming very similar indeed.
So when the DJM-S9 arrived on the scene at a time when other Pioneer DJ mixers were rekordbox DVS ready out of the box, it came as some surprise to many that it wouldn’t work out of the box as a rekordbox DVS mixer. I suspected that contractually rather than technically it was deliberately disabled from opening up rekordbox DVS to the people who had dropped a couple of kidneys on what is (outside of boutique rotaries) the most expensive two channel mixer on the market.
Now over time, it has been shown that rekordbox DVS will unofficially work with more or less any audio interface enabled mixer you cared to connect up to it. “Unofficially” is the key word here, as it means that you did it without a smidgeon of support from Pioneer DJ if things didn’t work. But given that Pioneer’s newer mixers (including their entry-level DJM-250 MKII) work with rekordbox DVS, it’s a bit weird that the DJM-S9 (you know… their killer DVS scratch mixer) doesn’t officially work with rekordbox DVS. Until now that is.
Our fellow industry hack Mojaxx posted a link on Facebook to the rekordbox v5 public beta release that was put out today, and in it is the following tasty snippet:
[ For DJM-S9 users ]
- rekordbox dj now supports DJM-S9. Please download the beta version of the firmware from the links below and update its firmware for optimized integration.
- Please see the firmware update guide for update instructions.
- Please see the hardware diagram regarding function assignment.
Now there is a nagging voice in my head that reminds me that it doesn’t explicitly mention DVS. But I cannot think of reason outside of full DVS support for making this happen, or indeed one that would require a firmware update. And on that subject, it’s also not clear if this firmware makes it a rekordbox only mixer and essentially closes the door to Serato DJ. If it does, I trust there’s a way back from that.
Will it make a difference?
Well it won’t hurt. Serato still gets paid for every licence that continues to be sold, and can probably shrug its shoulders if a user has an issue after putting Pioneer’s firmware on it. And the ability for owners to have a rekordboxed and fully supported DJM-S9 can only be good for Pioneer DJ to get people to try to hopefully stick with it.
If you fancy trying it out with your DJM-S9, check out this Pioneer DJ forums thread. We’d love to hear your experiences.
Next chapter in the book war of the DJ ecosystems:
InMusic snatches Serato.
Mark my words.
And some years later (probably):
The release of Traktor Pro 3 and a Native Instruments modular jog wheel controller 😄
inMusic buying up Serato would make a lot of sense indeed.
But for some reason I can’t shake the (admittedly crazy) idea that they make a play and buy Atomix instead. They have the past relationship with Cue and merging Engine Prime with Virtual to have both prep and performance modes that work on pretty much all of their current and legacy hardware…
But why didn’t buy it at Rane’s adquisition? InMusic has some many at their own and could be work on standalone solution ala MpcLive… (almost something was in the process at that win8 demo)
http://djworx.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ns7-ii-windows-embedded-2.jpg
https://djworx.com/windows-embedded-numark-akai-gear/
As we know today, mpcLive/X became a reality (but it seems Linux instead win10) so maybe if NS7 mockup could be Serato embed? Or maybe inMusic decided to make their own with Denon or similar (i.e.)?
I don’t see inMusic buying Serato or Virtual DJ. Engine Prime is their hand in this game. They’ve come this far with it, and I see it going further and doing a rekordbox i.e. moving from library manager to fully fledged DJ software.
When you consider that the MPC software is developed by the same AIR team that now does Engine Prime (i.e. all in-house for inMusic), the writing is on the wall. It’s just a matter of time.
It took years for rekordbox to become a more ore less stable DJ software.
And Engine right now is a more or less stable something that rekordbox was years ago – just preparation software.
It’s a rocky road from there to a Traktor / Serato (and rekordbox DJ) competitor.
Serato simply would be a shortcut.
I’ll give Serato another year or two until they pull out the for sale sign.
… the last good thing that got stuck at 2 was Half Life.
Thanks for the heads up guys.
Link doesn’t work. Looks like the message has been moved or reposted.
It’s now here https://forums.pioneerdj.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115009599246-Public-beta-version-of-rekordbox-5-0-0-beta1-released-on-Jul-7-
Beware though that the files are on Dropbox and there’s a traffic limit. :-(
It’s funny that both mixers released after the S9 and 900nxs2 were super cheap (for pio) and came with Rekordbox Dj licenses.
I assume the s9 users have to pay for the RBDJ license?
I have a 900nxs2 and I either have to pay around $150-200 to Serato or Pioneer to be able to plug directly into it. RBDJ gives the 900nxs2 more functionality too so that’s something to consider as well.
I love Serato but it’s been giving me some issues lately so I may give rbdj ago and see if I can stomach the change after all these years on Serato :(