Some important announcements came down the pipe this week and both have big implementations for the future of djing. Traktor Pro, which was announced yesterday, continues shifting its fundamental philosophy more in the Ableton direction and farther away from the traditional 2 deck paradigm. Not to be outdone, Serato has countered with their own release which might suggest they don’t plan on being left behind.
Today a press release announced that Ableton and Serato are “happy to announce a partnership, which will pave the way for the future of Digital DJing”. While its not clear just what that means exactly, some info can be gathered from the statements:
“Ableton and Serato take different approaches to modern musical performance,” says Ableton CEO Gerhard Behles, “But both companies live by the philosophy that software should be straightforward, easy to use, and most importantly, reliable and stable onstage and in the studio. Ableton has never had an answer for the DJ who wants vinyl control, and rather than try to emulate what Serato do so well, we simply make sure that our products work well together.”
Without more details its hard to render a judgment on this one but we are told a video will be released next week which will will show what they have in mind. In the mean time we can only speculate.
Its doubtful the two will engage in the creation of the end-all dj app that truly does everything. Instead I would imagine they are working on a full integration of their respective audio engines along with some form of tempo mapping. This would certainly interest a lot of people and continue to bring more djs into the digital fold. Its worth mentioning however that BentoSan and Nico published several ground breaking articles here on dj tt about how to essentially do that using Traktor and Ableton. Be warned, they are not for the feint of heart, but i there are some amazing things that can be done with the tools available now. That being said, a plug and play solution that bridges the gaps between dj flexibility and studio precision is the dj holy grail. Who brings that cup home however, remains to be seen and this strategic alliance just made the race even more interesting.
