We look back on 15 years of rekordbox

A few weeks ago AlphaTheta / Pioneer DJ announced the arrival of rekordbox 7.0, the latest version of the DJ software that over the past 15 years has become the engine of our product line. We’re proud to say that rekordbox is now an essential tool for DJs, whether you’re organizing music for a gig, stepping up for a performance, or preparing tracks on your phone. 

It’s striking how different things looked back in 2009, at the beginning of rekordbox’s journey. The CDJ-1000 MK3, our flagship player at the time, was still using CDs, a format that by the end of the 2000s had come to feel a little dated. Handwriting tracklists or printing them out and putting them into a giant CD wallet didn’t feel in line with the ongoing digital music revolution. The laptop-and-a-controller setup was a popular choice for many DJs, allowing them to work directly with digital music files, which were, by then, the main way people listened to music. But with the technology still relatively new and relying on lots of moving parts (laptop, a controller or mixer, DVS, soundcard, turntables etc), reliability was a considerable issue. Changeovers between sets had also become notoriously tense, with DJs having to navigate nests of different cables and connections. 

The 2009 launch of the CDJ-2000—which for the first time in its history featured a USB port—and its accompanying rekordbox software therefore represented a huge turning point for Pioneer DJ. The CDJ was now offering something fundamentally different. Would DJs welcome a new music organization software that worked alongside hardware? And more importantly, would they want to DJ from an SD card or USB stick?  

For this piece, we asked the engineers and product planners behind rekordbox to look back on its development over the past 15 years—from its high-pressure launch alongside the CDJ-2000, to the reimagining of rekordbox as a performance platform in 2015, to the recent release of version 7.

rekordbox launches alongside the CDJ-2000

“We developed rekordbox as an iTunes for DJs, a music management application specialized for DJ use, in order to realize the concept of the CDJ-2000,” said the engineer Kunio Teramoto.  

“It would cover the DJ’s daily cycle: preparation at home, play at the club, and review after returning home.  

“The development of rekordbox started with an incredibly tight schedule,” he continued. “The CDJ-2000 was scheduled to be released in the summer of 2009, and I believe the hardware development was well underway in early 2008. Perhaps a prototype was already in the works. But at that point, we had not yet decided who to develop the software application with.” 

DJS, our first attempt at a DJ software, had not been successful, thanks to a combination of inexperience and poor computer processing power in the early 2000s. This time, we wanted to collaborate with an external partner and went with the French company Mixvibes, who had worked with us on the MEP-7000 media player and the CDJ-400, the first CDJ to support USB. That had proven such a tricky integration that Pioneer DJ knew we needed to create dedicated software. Mixvibes had plenty of relevant experience here—though not as well know as its competitors, they’d developed their own DJ application, Cross. But where Cross was an application for laptop DJ performances, rekordbox was designed as an organizational platform that worked in conjunction with the CDJ-2000 and CDJ-900.

“Unlike a computer, the CDJ-2000 had to browse music with less RAM and a smaller display, so the database table structure was specifically designed for CDJs,” said Kunio. “This made it difficult for computer applications to handle, and it was necessary to create and provide an API for Mixvibes to handle the device’s library.” 

Kou Atsumi, who led product planning for the CDJ-2000, recalled some of the big questions the rekordbox and CDJ designers faced. “How to manage the large number of songs owned by DJs?” he said. “How to display a large number of songs in an easy-to-understand manner? How can we quickly and easily get to a single song?” The team imagined DJs in a continual cycle with three main points: preparation for a gig, using the prepared music at the gig, and a review of the set afterwards through playback history.  

On a basic level, that preparation meant rekordbox had analyzed tracks ready for play on the CDJ, with full waveforms, BPM, beatgrids, playlists, ID3 tags, and up to three Hot Cue / Hot Loops and up to ten normal Cue/Loop Points per track. With this analysis of beatgrids came the option for triggering quantized loops on the fly (although the quantize function was initially somewhat buried in the menu options). rekordbox’s integration with iTunes was also a key point. iTunes was the dominant app for music organisation at the time, so allowing its library to be imported into rekordbox along with playlists promised to make things more convenient for DJs.

“At first rekordbox was bundled with the CDJ-2000 and other products as a CD-ROM, and a license key attached to the product was required to install it,” said the rekordbox product planner Hiroyuki Kamezaki. “Therefore the users of rekordbox were limited to the purchasers of the products. At that time, of course, there were no integrated systems or controllers.” 

Aside from the many backend technical challenges, it would take a lot of work to convince DJs of the CDJ’s new direction. For those moving away from CDs, it would mean a new workflow, which would culminate at a gig by slotting a USB into a CDJ and selecting songs from it—common today, but a big change back then. 

In August 2009, DJsounds, the content channel from Pioneer DJ, rounded up a handful of DJs who were enthusiastic about the prospect of this new workflow and began a teaser campaign. Artists like James Zabiela, Laidback Luke and Roger Sanchez talked about their excitement towards new products’ features—without actually stating what products they were talking about. 

“It’s really great to now be able to just look at the player and go through my tracks on that, and not have to burn loads of CDs or stare at the laptop screen” hinted James Zabiela.

“The new equipment is going to change everything about how I [perform],” said Roger Sanchez. 

“I think the software is really interesting for all us DJs who are traveling, who are out of the studio and want to prepare sets properly,” Laidback Luke said, cryptically.

The campaign had the desired effect. rekordbox and the CDJs 2000, launched alongside the lower-specced CDJ-900, tapped into the sentiment that DJs were looking for a reliable new way to play that didn’t involve a laptop. Unfortunately, rekordbox itself was running into some reliability issues. Early versions could be buggy, partially a symptom of Pioneer DJ and Mixvibes attempting to integrate their respective systems. “Since the parts created by both parties were black boxes, debugging was very difficult,” said Kunio. 

As issues were addressed, a new approach to distributing rekordbox took shape. “After a while, we decided that we wanted more people to use rekordbox, so we started to distribute license keys free of charge to those who registered as users,” said Hiroyuki. 

“When we started this policy, I think many users responded, ‘Is this really free?’”

rekordbox finds its groove

With the 2014 arrival of rekordbox 3.0, the version where it began to resemble the platform we know today, there were a few important developments that would help shape its design. 

About six months after the rekordbox launch in 2009, version 1.10 arrived with a feature called Pro DJ Link, which Kunio Teramoto described as “very advanced at the time.” “CDJs could be connected via a LAN cable, and a USB memory stick inserted in one CDJ could be read from another CDJ,” he said. “This meant that you could browse and play your rekordbox collection directly from your CDJs over a LAN, without having to export part of your rekordbox collection to a USB stick.”

In 2012, this breakthrough feature was included on the CDJ-2000NXS, which cemented rekordbox’s place at the center of the new Pioneer DJ ecosystem. There was a dedicated rekordbox button on the unit, which let you access your main collection on the laptop via Pro DJ Link. Key detection was now included in rekordbox, and the 2000NXS introduced a new feature that, to put it mildly, got people talking: the Sync button.   

Also in 2012, a rekordbox app arrived for mobile. It was relatively basic compared to today’s version, but it did allow DJs to manage and prepare music with cues and beat grids, and also create playlists before syncing to their main library.

It had become clear that working with an external partner on rekordbox was no longer tenable. rekordbox 3.0, which dropped in 2014, was the first version developed entirely in-house. “rekordbox3 was an important project to fully renew and rebuild the GUI based on the concept of thoroughly pursuing browsing for DJs,” said the rekordbox product planner Takafumi Nitta. “The GUI and functions that were thought through at that time—Related Tracks, My Tag, Playlist Pallet, Matching—are still in place today. The ‘Related Tracks’ function we developed at that time was a ‘recommendation’ for DJs, and it only displayed tracks that were similar to the one currently being played. I can still look back on it as a great feature to accelerate the creativity of professional DJs who have a lot of music.” 

With rekordbox now achieving improved stability and the features Taka mentioned here firmly in place, the following year would see the biggest update to rekordbox yet.    

By this point the novelty of DJing from a USB was beginning to wane a little, but it understandably took some time to be normalized. DJs had previously performed by hauling crates of records, burning collections of CDs, or carrying their laptop and additional hardware to gigs. There was initially a lingering feeling that turning up with just headphones and a USB key was somehow cheating. But as we’ve grown used to the technology, very few people feel that way today.

rekordbox adds performance mode

The roots of rekordbox becoming a DJ performance app can be traced back to 2011 and Pioneer DJ’s first controllers. This is when the brand started to fully diversify its product line, with the idea of catering to DJs no matter how they wanted to play. 

The DDJ controllers were created to work alongside popular DJ apps like Serato, Traktor and Virtual DJ. These controllers ranged from club-ready professional units like the DDJ-SZ for Serato, through to playful beginner products like the DDJ-WEGO for Virtual DJ, which came in a range of bold colors. 

But as the 2010s wore on, with rekordbox established at the center of Pioneer DJ’s product line and relied upon by more and more DJs, it became clear that the app could be more than just a music management tool. There was also the exciting possibility of building hardware specifically designed to work with rekordbox.  

This vision was realized with the 2015 arrival of Plus Packs, which would turn rekordbox 4.0 into rekordbox DJ, a fully fledged performance software. On top of the core functionality DJs had come to expect from performance software, the Performance Mode Pack stepped out with innovative new pad FX and sequence samples, while promising the industry’s lowest latency for responsive control from the hardware. 

4.0 was compatible with a long list of existing products, but it worked at its fullest with the new dedicated DDJ-RX and DDJ-RZ controllers. The layout of the hardware was matched by the software, creating a symbiotic performance flow across either two or four decks. In this video from DJ Tech Tools, Ean Golden demonstrated how the DDJ-RZ, in combination with the new rekordbox, could function as a 16-pad sampler.

Further Plus Packs became available for control of digital vinyl systems (DVS) and video files. With the release of version 4.2.1, there was the RMX Effects Pack, which offered the Scene FX from RMX effects units.

When it came to 2017’s rekordbox 5.0, stability and performance were the watchwords. The new Koretech engine was built to improve overall performance across audio, video, graphics and track processing, while the GUI was modernized to make browsing more intuitive. DJs who mixed in key saw their lives made easier with the arrival of the traffic light system, in which any track harmonically compatible with the one playing was highlighted in green. 

There was also a feature for Performance Mode that may have passed many people by at the time, but it would prove to be important in the app’s overall evolution, linking us with what we’ll call the “modern era” of rekordbox: integration with services like Beatport LINK and SoundCloud Go+. This meant you could DJ directly from a streaming service.

rekordbox in the modern era

“We want to continue to support the cutting-edge music scene by evolving the software for DJs every day, even as media and devices change,” said Taka.  

These days rekordbox could be described as having a dual mission: to continually improve the basic stuff that DJs rely on night after night, and to innovate in line with the rapidly evolving landscape of digital music. 

“We are developing rekordbox with an eye on media and devices that will be trending in the DJ industry in the future,” said the rekordbox product planner Naoto Takase. “The cloud services, streaming, and mobile devices that we are currently working with are all mainstream outside the DJ industry, so we are doing what’s natural.” 

We’re likely moving towards a future in which a DJ steps up to perform and, in any given situation, can mix tracks straight from the cloud or their preferred streaming service. Some of the key features in rekordbox 7.0 are in line with this vision. DJs can sync their collection across up to eight devices and play directly from the cloud. There are, of course, infrastructure challenges to overcome, with these setups relying on solid internet services in venues. But it feels like a case of when rather than if the widespread freedom of this type of setup will arrive.

When you also factor in rekordbox 7.0 features like track suggestions via software learning, stem separation of musical parts, and collaborative playlists—not to mention the track Edit Mode that was introduced in 6.0—it seems that the future of DJing will be more flexible, creative and open-ended than it ever has been. And this won’t be restricted to DJing in venues. The advancements in rekordbox’s mobile app mean that DJing on a smartphone or tablet, perhaps along with a controller, has become a serious alternative to fixed home setups. 

“We are proud that the DJs who use rekordbox are still making audiences dance around the world,” said Taka . “We feel it is our mission to continue to support the creative side of these DJs. Looking back over the past 15 years, there have been times when we have fallen behind other DJ software and received flak for unsatisfactory quality. But for 15 years, we have continued to receive feedback from DJs, and we have done our best to solve their problems. I feel that we have become a kind of friend that has been with some DJs for half of their lives. We want to support the cutting-edge music scene by evolving the software for DJs every day, even as media and devices change.

“rekordbox will continue to evolve for DJs, with many surprises in store to support their creativity,” he said. “This not only means software updates but also with hardware and other tools for DJs, as we look to enhance DJ culture.”