NI and iZotope just merged.
InMusic owns DeckaDance and Torq.
Owner Jack used to work for Stanton.
2 Likes
Tell you what, reading through the comments on Mojaxx Youtube vid, people arenāt happy are theyā¦ 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, Izotopeā¦ and which weighs $41bnā¦ But InMusic can do no more than buy NIās DJ products division.
1 Like
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 theyāve been moving away from that recently anyhow.
If they ever combine the two or deprecate one there will be a big market opportunity ā 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 thereās 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. Iād love if someone with more knowledge on that could weigh in, though 
Overall this just gives me a sinking feeling; itās going to make Pioneerās 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 isnāt even for sale right now, but I donāt think you could split them, either, nor would want to. iZotope has a premier audio DSP coding staff. No offense to AIR, but AIRās 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 youāre comparing sophistication of the software and most people didnāt 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 soundā¦ 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 00ās for being ānot-professionalā dj software. The same thing happened to FruityLoops/FL Studio, but somehow they managed to turn it aroundā¦ so thereās definitely hope for VDJ.
I highly highly doubt it triggers a single antitrust flag. There are a ton of DJ programs to choose from.
That was simply because they were not primarily DVS-focused, but DVS is now appropriately a minor portion of DJ softwareās user base & market compared to MIDI and HID controllerism. And letās not forget that the later chief coder for Deckadance who now works at InMusic was the first person to design & build (in his garage) controllers with platter, pitch fader, and most of what we think of now as a DJ controller. Granted, before that I was doing MIDI timecode stuff with an Axis 8 smart looping test tones, tapping out the BPM I wanted, and MIDI linking to drum machines & sequencers that I would manually mix using the Numark into DJ sets without the need for DVS, but that wasnāt quite the same.
Your right @Reticuli there are a tonne of DJ programs, i donāt use them all and i canāt comment on what platforms they support, there is however a lot of DJ hardware which supports the Serato branding so it will be interesting too see how long that continues.
I think itās bad for the entertainment industry, i mean all businesses need competition to stay relevant and be in the forefront of their category, i personally feel that it will put a stranglehold on a lot of the smaller markets [not basing that on any statistical data before anyone jumps down my throat].
Give it 2 years and Serato will only support Pioneer devices!
2 Likes
I know VDJ well, I bought version 1.0 the day it came out in 2003 for less than ā¬15 at the time (and when I think that it costs nearly ā¬300 today I say to myself that Iāve done well since I have a pro infinity licence with all the updates for life).
Virtual DJ has great qualities, especially with an HID controller (works like a charm with my SC6000M if you put aside the flimsiness of the waveform sent by VDJ on the sc6000M screens (laggy ~30 fps). But maybe thatās because my laptop only has a USB 2.0 port.
However for some uses VDJ is completely lagging behind. Iām thinking of DVS, for example. I also have a Traktor licence that I use with vinyl decks for DVS with a Kontrol Z2 mixer. Well, if I decide to use Sync to maintain sync on Traktor in DVS, I donāt get any drift, everything stays perfectly in sync for several minutes. If I do the same thing with VDJ, still with the Kontrol Z2, both with Traktor and VDJ timecode vinyls, VDJ is incapable of maintaining sync for more than a few seconds.
On the VDJ forum Iām not the only one to encounter this problem, there are dozens of posts saying the same thing, and the support says itās because of the wow and flutter of the turntables. But if my decks have wow & flutter why doesnāt it show up in traktor?
VDJ is good software but not for DVS
Well yeah that, and the fact that at the time if you wanted to get your toes wet with DJing your only affordable option was VDJ. Not to mention that it was easily pirateable.
Itās also not a big enough market to bother regulators.
I am not sure I fully understand why Pioneer have done this, other than to clean up most of the controller based market. But there is a big chance a whole load of Serato users will jump ship simply because they use Serato as they hate RB. I mean I went for RB initially because I disliked Serato as the on screen turntables looked naff (I am that petty)
I guess Pioneer could go fully in on the All in One market and come after Denon. Strip RB back to what it was in the past and have it as track prep for AIO and mixers. Serato would then be all in on the controller market. They could have some funky links between them, and maybe Serato could have a few paid for features that takes and All in One + a laptop to somewhere completely new.
RB does some things better than Serato, and vice versa. Yes the best bits of both will make better software, but it wonāt be huge.
Who is putting money on Rekordbox DJ software being replaced with Serato, or vice versa?
I think the latter is unlikely. Since Rekordbox as DJing software (I donāt mean the database, library, analysis stuff) is relatively new, I would presume thatās the one eventually replaced with the other.
Or do you actually think in 10 years both DJing (MIDI/DVS, not the database, library, analysis stuff) softwares will still exist separately?
According to DigitalDJTips (Here Are The Results From Our 2023 Census, The Biggest DJ Survey In The World), Rekordbox has almost 30% market share. Obviously this doesnāt take into account prep vs. performance Rekordboxā¦ but Iām sure Pioneer has the data on that. If I were a betting man, Iād guess Pioneer will migrate some features over to Serato and shut down the performance side of Rekordbox. Orā¦ maybe theyāll shut both down and start a new DJ software called Flex DJĀ®
2 Likes
TBH, I think this move is FAR more targeted at staving off competition from Denon than it is competition from Serato.
If Stems is really that big of a deal (Iām still not sold on it), then Pioneer has to be looking at pulling that code in from Serato to play catch up with Denonās offering of a standalone player (now) and what likely to be something like a āSC7000ā with stems onboard.
If Stems isnāt that big of a deal, then this is simply a move to capture market share. They can drop licensing/unlocking completely and force ALL Serato controllers to have to subscribe to a service to use your device (or pay an outrageous $300 for the license). Pioneer no long has to pay Serato for unlocking licensing on the hardware, so thatās a win for them.
I fear that integrating Serato libraries into being fully compatible with RekordBox now set things up to drop that support (read: our hands were forced due to OS upgrades) and cajoling everyone into using RB. That would put the CDJ-3000 as the undisputed king of media players, and could stop any inroads on the SCx000 series from threatening that dominance.
I meant to write āMusicā which I still havenāt gotten used to. For me, it still is iTunes. What a horrible rebranding!
I was forced to make the switch last year (hardware failure on my fairly new MacBook Pro) and canāt complain. It works great with both Traktor and Engine.
Iām buying single tracks and have long stopped caring where Music places the files on my hard drive. I still have separate folders for the downloaded music (organized by purchase date). So yeah, duplicate files but since I donāt buy hundreds of tracks, itās not an issue.
1 Like
My workflow is to remove the file from its sub folder, rename it then place it into a genre folder then delete all the empty folders it created when I imported. Bit long winded but means I have everything where I can find it.
1 Like
Wow. That was around five years ago! Itās got my usual autocorrect spelling mistakes in it too as my eyes are that bad yet still refuse to go to the optician and get real reading glasses (Iām using pound-shop ones at the moment).
Iām actually feeling a bit uneasy about it. Iām not sure why but I really donāt feel happy although I guess some technology will be shared they did state they will be run as separate companies. My guess is to not ruin any partnerships they have.
Maybe itās the start of Serato embedded and ādo an Engineā by planting it directly into their own stand alone machine.
According to the press release they will work close, sharing where they want to push forward. Maybe itās time for inMusic to buy MixEmergency and drop that into Engine DJ!
1 Like
It seems to be deleted now as I canāt see anything. Oh well!
Ah no that was my point:) the staff member reminding a certain somebody to bring some positivity lol, whoād have thought 
And yeah itās not sitting right with me at the minute either, it could get a bit petty and the only people who suffer will be us lot behind the decks.
1 Like