Pioneer is soft launching a new product – dubbed KUVO – a new web service that takes the behavior of
Richie Hawtin’s Twitter DJ
and incorporates it into an actual club setup with the addition of one
small box. KUVO pushes DJ and track information from the booth onto the
internet, making checking in on what the DJ is playing right now as easy
as opening an app – read on to learn more.
KUVO OVERVIEW
The soft launch of KUVO seemed to start in Amsterdam at ADE in mid-October, with the launch of a companion website (
http://djclubnetwork.com)
that shares a few details on the future of the system. Pioneer aims to
bring metadata to massives, allowing performing DJs to share their track
information via KUVO to their audience and fans. You might have seen
Pioneer briefly post a video announcing the service on their YouTube
page, which has since been taken down in anticipation of a larger
upcoming launch.
At it’s core, KUVO takes on the issue of being an audience member who
can’t peek into the booth to see what the playing track name is – or
even the identity of the DJ behind the decks. Whip out a smartphone app,
location detect the venue, and instantly know who’s playing, and what
track is coming out of the speakers. Starting to sound a bit like
Ean’s predication of the future of DJing yet?
THE TECHNOLOGY: INSTALLING KUVO
Pioneer’s NXS-GW: Not much to look at, but the backbone of the system.
There’s a whole application process that’s required to get the KUVO box, dubbed the NXS-GW (
shown above).
The unit isn’t designed to be a piece of gear that a DJ owns – but
instead it gets installed in a venues – clubs, bars, festivals – DJ
booths that get a wide array of performers and audience members. Venues
apply for the service here, and then create an account profile that will
collect all of the DJs, sets, and tracks played at their venue.
The requirements for venues from a technical perspective are pretty
much what you’d expect – utilizing Pioneer’s PRO DJ Link ethernet cable
between Pioneer’s DJ gear and the NXS-GW. Venues will need:
- NXS-GW
- Internet LAN cable available around the DJ booth
- DJ player: CDJ-2000nexus
- DJ mixer: DJM-2000nexus, DJM-2000, DJM-900nexus, DJM-900SRT
How the NXS-GW is installed in a typical setup.
WHAT’S DIFFERENT FOR THE DJ
DJs can add custom crowd-facing metadata to tracks.
Many DJs will wonder if this new Pioneer technology will be the end
of exclusive tracks and secret set lists – not so. Pioneer has
introduced a few new features into the Rekordbox software that allows
for easy marking of tracks as Secret or Public. The software update also
allows DJs to their own messages and information with tracks, like in
the above promo photo with James Zabiela. DJs not using Rekordbox to
organize their collection won’t have access to the same level of custom
metadata, and every track is published onto the set playlist.
At the moment it doesn’t look like there’s integration for HID-based
use of the CDJ-2000s for sending track information from Traktor or
Serato – but we suspect that this also is on the product roadmap.
Additionally, In order to stop DJs from impersonating each other and
fraudulent promotion of tracks, Pioneer has also set up an
authentication process that requires DJs to register and acquire an
authentication key.
DJ registration + authentication workflow
We’re guessing this is just the beginning of the features that KUVO
will allow for DJs – and that more dynamic interaction with the crowd
will become possible with the smartphone application. Requests and track
feedback are likely being discussed as options – what would you use the
system for?
TRENDING DJS + TRACKS WITH LISTENER FEEDBACK
The KUVO application on iOS
As mentioned above, the entire KUVO system is paired with a smartphone app
downloadable by the actual audience members – as well as the entire online interface. Have a look at
an example set that Pioneer product developer X-ian played at Cafe d’Anvers in the Netherlands to get a good idea of what a typical set looks like to a user.
Fans will be able to watch what top DJs are playing as well – so if
you want to know what James Zabiela played last night, just check KUVO.
We’re sure to see a fair amount of crate digging opportunity from this
type of system. There’s also top/trending tracks and DJs – which counts
the number of times audience members have hit the “like” button on a DJ
or track, and the ability for audience members to take photos with the
app and associate them with the event – something that we’ve seen a
number of major music festivals start doing as well.
We’ll have more information on the KUVO service as it continues
to launch – let us know your questions in the comments below and we’ll
try to find out more information!
SOURCE:
DJTECHTOOLS
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