And without being party to the agreement none of us know what they did and didnt acquire, but we can safely assume that a successful business wouldn’t buy out another one without some entirely valid reasoning for it. They didn’t just wake up one morning and say ‘oooh lets buy the Stanton brand for a laugh’ did they.
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Good job ATC. 
It makes sense cause when ever you see someone using serato more times than not they will be using some kind of pioneer gear to interface with it. Pioneer hardware is more robustly supported by serato than with Denon.
If inmusic were to acquire a dj software company I believe it should be Algoriddim. I say this because I see Djay has an iOS monopoly that could be capitalized on. Pioneer is already venturing into smart device tech devices that work on android and iOS so I think that Algoriddim would be a big deal and would certainly give a leapfrogging boost relative to what inmusic already has now.
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I use iTunes inside Traktor to do that. Works fine for me.
Maybe this will give both Denon DJ and Native Instruments a firm nudge to at least start working together. The lack of Traktor HID support is one of the biggest missed opportunities for both parties.
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Big short term move by Pio and I believe they will ‘kill’ Serato in the future (at least as a options for other brands) BUT with prices for embedded computers/hardware dropping, the future lies on all-in-one/integrated hardware. P4, Opus and equivalent are already ‘good enough’ to ‘ditch the laptop’ for a big part of the consumers, so…
Talking about Traktor as a option for INMusic for a ‘a war’…it is my favorite DJing software but it has become a bit of a ‘niche’ product, as it is mainly used in House/techno scene, so I don’t believe it would had a lot of market share for Denon.
The problem with iTunes is its legacy software now, and Apple messed everything up with the switch to music didnt they… there isn’t a day goes by on the Serato forum without someone complaining about their Apple managed music library being screwed.
I removed any Apple management of my music 14yrs ago and would never touch it now, even where it places the music files in finder is a complete mess, especially if you’re buying single tracks.
If InMusic want to develop Engine in to a computer based DJing package, I believe they’ve got most of the code in place ready to go.
Ask @AIRVince to tell you about a little DJing programme called Torq, that was sold by M-Audio (now owned by InMusic)
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Great post by @MrWilks enjoyed reading that… the first comment underneath made me chuckle too, i caught him on a Denon review video a few weeks back slating everything about the brand:)
I honestly think Engine Desktop is merging into DJ software anyway, and the wireless interrogation of your music library is the first phase. I might be wrong though.
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While most would like to see features transferring from software or merging of things I imagine the ergonomic value of the new serato and pioneer bedfellowship.
Imagine Serato exporting your work to a usb stick and it just works with pioneer software and standalone hardware. Or better yet just lay down on your couch with your smart phone or tablet preparing your work with the rekordbox app and syncing it for use with both serato and pioneer.
Ergonomics between the two will be the first child born from this in my opinion.
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I’m not down with this at all. Seems like a middle finger from Pioneer (excuse me, Alpha Theta) and honestly I wonder if this is allowed to go through at all. This triggers so many antitrust red flags. And Pioneer would officially know all of the hardware in development from everyone? Suuuuuuuure. That sounds PERFECT! Force higher prices for your competition. Why not?! So many problems here.
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I see this as two companies who have been for years lagging in innovation coming together in fear of becoming obsolete to the competition.
Think about it:
- Denon DJ’s Prime lineup is light years ahead of Pioneer DJ
- Serato’s innovations always followed VDJ (Stems, etc.)
- Serato makes poor use of of the Prime 4’s touchscreen in controller mode (I think on purpose).
Years ago, I began moving away from Pioneer & Serato and I’m glad I did. KEEP INNOVATING DENON DJ!!!
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My assumption was due to InMusic already owning a handful of companies that utilize Hanpin Electron for manufacturing products. With the STX poised to come out, it made sense.
Now that’s a game changing acquisition I could get behind. Considering VDJ already has solid integrations with the bulk of InMusic produced DJ hardware.
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NI and iZotope just merged.
InMusic owns DeckaDance and Torq.
Owner Jack used to work for Stanton.
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Tell you what, reading through the comments on Mojaxx Youtube vid, people aren’t happy are they… far more negativity than positive.
I dread to think what the Facebook reaction is.
I doubt that InMusic has the finances to pay Native Instruments in its current version, ex soundwide, merger between Native-instruments, brainworx, Pluggin Alliance, Izotope… and which weighs $41bn… But InMusic can do no more than buy NI’s DJ products division.
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Spooky and not good for users imo, except in this one way: no more separate serato/rekordbox versions of pio hardware! Though it seems like they’ve been moving away from that recently anyhow.
If they ever combine the two or deprecate one there will be a big market opportunity – InMusic for sure needs a DVS package to be ready to receive new users if that day comes (buy VDJ, maybe?)
I have zero actual knowledge on this, but it seems like there’s an antitrust concern here, as others have pointed out. For instance how does Denon keep working with Serato without giving their product roadmap away to the competition? That seems like something that would need to be enforced via regulation/oversight. I’d love if someone with more knowledge on that could weigh in, though 
Overall this just gives me a sinking feeling; it’s going to make Pioneer’s dominance in the club even stronger and let them just take more and more money from folks
I also doubt Pioneer or InMusic can afford NI+iZotope, and the latter probably isn’t even for sale right now, but I don’t think you could split them, either, nor would want to. iZotope has a premier audio DSP coding staff. No offense to AIR, but AIR’s not really the standard go-to plug-ins for Pro Tools and Avid anymore.
VDJ has been ahead of everyone else for like a decade if you’re comparing sophistication of the software and most people didn’t even know it, but I agree with others that Atomix is probably not financially distressed considering people are finally starting to realize how good their software is. Old VDJ was the closest to old Pioneer CDJ processing, but with the option of better keylock, but now is basically like Serato, Mixxx, Cross, Algoriddim, etc, in terms of sound… fake stems aside which is another area VDJ excels. New VDJ certainly has more adjustable options, though.
Torq was the most processed-sounding, but Deckadance is arguably the best sounding of the recent-version DJ software, and the main DSP coding guy for it that took over after the founders death now works for InMusic with the Stanton acquisition.
I think VDJ has had a hard time shaking off the reputation they (rightfully, or not) earned in the 00’s for being ‘not-professional’ dj software. The same thing happened to FruityLoops/FL Studio, but somehow they managed to turn it around… so there’s definitely hope for VDJ.
I highly highly doubt it triggers a single antitrust flag. There are a ton of DJ programs to choose from.