Have you been wondering when streaming music libraries will show up in standalone DJ hardware? Today, Denon DJ announced that their standalone Prime Series DJ hardware (SC5000, SC5000M, and Prime 4) will all have streaming services added to them in Summer 2019. That means anyone who owns these units will be able to stream music from one of four streaming platforms directly into those units.
Key Features of Prime Series Music Streaming
Denon DJ will get to wear the crown as the industry-first standalone DJ hardware to integrate streaming services. We knew that the Prime units had network connectivity, but it was easy to forget that they all have full WiFi connectivity as well. Here’s what Denon DJ says we can expect in terms of a feature set:
- Wi-Fi enabled across the entire Prime Series (Prime 4, SC5000, SC5000M)
- Hard Wire/physical connection to internet available
- Streaming of digital music services within standalone unit
- Touchscreen Interface direct to streaming service
- Buffering of track in unit memory in case of network disconnect
- Add hot-cues and loop points to streamed tracks
- Search artists, songs and playlists direct from touchscreen
- Streaming service partners added via firmware updates starting this summer
- Through the unique locker technology, both Beatport LINK and Beatsource LINK will have offline storage
- Beatport Link Pro will allow you to take 50 tracks offline *pricing TBD
- Beatport Link Pro+ will allow you to take 100 tracks offline *pricing TBD
What Streaming Services Will Be Compatible?
Instead of just one or two streaming services, Denon DJ has decided to offer four – including the upcoming Beatsource open format relaunch. Here’s what the press release says about each of them:
- SoundCloud Go+ – SoundCloud, the world’s largest open audio platform, will be a part of this new integration. With standalone streaming via the Prime Series, SoundCloud users can now instantly stream and mix SoundCloud’s massive catalog of more than 200 million tracks from over 20 million creators using a SoundCloud Go+ premium consumer subscription.
- Beatport – Beatport’s new LINK technology will support standalone streaming with the Prime Series hardware. LINK, an innovative streaming service built for DJs, is the first of its kind to include an offline storage mode for public performance. Beatport’s hugely popular and club-ready digital content, along with expertly curated playlists will give Prime DJs access to an unprecedented electronic music library.
- Beatsource – Beatport and world-leading promo pool, DJcity, recently joined forces to launch the hip-hop and open format specialist DJ platform Beatsource. This new platform will provide access to a broad catalogue of music, genre-specific discovery, intuitive playlisting, and expert curation, all accessible for performance over wireless and wired connection as well as standalone streaming in the Denon DJ Prime Series products via Beatsource LINK.
- TIDAL – With access to over 60 million songs, standalone streaming with the TIDAL platform brings DJs a huge variety of music to please any crowd, dancefloor or event. DJs can easily access their personal TIDAL playlists and follow the platform’s own expertly curated selections too. With so many tracks and exclusive content across a massive variety of music styles, DJs can be prepared for any request at every conceivable gig – and all standalone within the Prime Series hardware.
A Standalone Industry First
While Pioneer DJ’s new DDJ-200 is an impressive offer for beginner DJs, Denon DJ’s streaming on Prime units is yet another feature that seems to completely outmatch Pioneer DJ. I seriously doubt Pioneer DJ will be adding streaming to CDJ-2000NXS2 units – users will likely have to wait for the next generation.
We predicted that streaming music libraries would see a major adoption in DJ software this year – but even we didn’t guess that standalone hardware that was already on the market would be adopting it so fast. Kudos to Denon DJ!
