Why do Pioneer dominate the club scene?

[deevey]

In a word 'Quality'

The DJM 500 set the scene a long time ago, then the DJM series .... the rest is history. I have seen DJM 500s covered in beer back in the days when smoking at da club was cool................

Djs riding the faders and pots.... everything still working like a gem.

Quality ? The 500 was a absolutely horrible sounding mixer compared to the competition, the only reason it gained massive traction was the (quickly abused) onboard beat effects, which no other professional club mixer had and their massive discounts for club installations.

Most "industry standard" mixers at that time could handle at least a pint of two thrown over them every other week (Rane, Formula Sound, Citronic)

In saying that the CDJ's 500-S (CDJ-700 in the USA) were an absolute milestone and most clubs replaced their old (pretty unreliable) Denon Rackmount players with them very fast.

No other manufacturer caught up for quite a few years and by that time they had made their name as a brand to be relied on in a club environment and a true alternative for vinyl DJ's.

Yes there are other options when it comes to CDJ's, but Pioneer were the "Pioneers" when it came to CD Turntables and after 4 or 5 years DJ's were comfortable with the reliability, layout and functions of the CDJ - these have expanded on, but if you played on a CDJ500 back in 1999, you can pretty much walk up to a CDJ2000 and knock out a decent set with no problems.

Clubs want minimal fuss, as do DJ's. A set of CDJ's and USB key will do exactly the same thing for 90% of working djs' as a controller / laptop setup and its completely interchangeable with every DJ from anywhere and no grief with changeovers.

I genuinely could not see any NI controllers or mixers surviving the abuse of DJ box permanently for very long. When DJ's are playing on their own equipment they tend to treat it with a little more respect than the house equipment.

[DJAdeSands]

Quality ? The 500 was a absolutely horrible sounding mixer compared to the competition, the only reason it gained massive traction was the (quickly abused) onboard beat effects, which no other professional club mixer had and their massive discounts for club installations.

Most "industry standard" mixers at that time could handle at least a pint of two thrown over them every other week (Rane, Formula Sound, Citronic)

In saying that the CDJ's 500-S (CDJ-700 in the USA) were an absolute milestone and most clubs replaced their old (pretty unreliable) Denon Rackmount players with them very fast.

No other manufacturer caught up for quite a few years and by that time they had made their name as a brand to be relied on in a club environment and a true alternative for vinyl DJ's.

Yes there are other options when it comes to CDJ's, but Pioneer were the "Pioneers" when it came to CD Turntables and after 4 or 5 years DJ's were comfortable with the reliability, layout and functions of the CDJ - these have expanded on, but if you played on a CDJ500 back in 1999, you can pretty much walk up to a CDJ2000 and knock out a decent set with no problems.

Clubs want minimal fuss, as do DJ's. A set of CDJ's and USB key will do exactly the same thing for 90% of working djs' as a controller / laptop setup and its completely interchangeable with every DJ from anywhere and no grief with changeovers.

I genuinely could not see any NI controllers or mixers surviving the abuse of DJ box permanently for very long. When DJ's are playing on their own equipment they tend to treat it with a little more respect than the house equipment.

Good post.

[AdamBS]

Yeah shout out to that. I totally blanked on that asset of it because I am a dumb boy.



Sure but it wouldn't quite nearly be as seamless as even having CDJs plugged into the S8. And I know I'm just being nitpicky at schematics here, but I just can't see why an S8 would be the way to go over a mixer plus CDJs or turntables.

With the S8 you can be more creative and it opens up more possibilities for the dj to perform things live than you could using the Pioneer gear. So it makes sense to have the S8 as the standard as you can do more with it so why have other equipment as standard when it limits you in what you can do. Sure you can have the Pioneer as standard and then bring your own NI gear to plug in but what's the point when you can just have the NI gear there from the start.
But then again i suppose it depends on demand. Maybe the majority of dj's prefer to just mix two tracks together with minimal use of effects and live performance. It would be interesting if a survey was done to see actually how many people would prefer to see the S8 as standard and who prefers the Pioneer.

[the_bastet]

Pioneer has built it's entire marketing and development around the term "Club Standard." Once the CDJ1000 (MK1) came out in 2001, we also saw the popularity of digital music aquisition hit a peak at the same time. This helped drive sales in a market which was still dominated by the turntable.

As we progressed further into the digital music age, Pioneer continued to improve their players. At the same time, they began teaming up with companies that focus solely on club installs. This put the CDJ in front of everyone who played any mainstream club or event.

It's not that they are better than anything else out there, it's that they are already there and the name is known. Brand recognition plays a huge role in marketing. You can walk up to any bloke on the street and they will recognize Pioneer as an audio electronics company.
Now ask that same person about Denon, Stanton, Numark, etcetera.

NI knows that they will never be the club standard. It's the only real explanation why we have never seen a standalone player from a company that really does make top notch gear. Ive gone through 1 djm850, 2 djm800's, 2 djm600's, 1 djm400, and 1 djm500 over the past 17 years. My vestax PMC270a (which turned 16 this year and is hanging on my wall) still plays like new (aside from two replacement input faders). My technics 1200s still played like new when I boxed them and put em in storage last month, and they are from who knows what year in the early 90's.

But to that same argument, my CDJ1000 MK2's still play like brand new as well. They've been through everything from DJ Swamp blowing fire directly at one of em (melting one of the covers lol) to being dropped 15 feet off of a stage onto concrete.

We will see how NI gear stands the test of time, but I can say from experience that I have put each piece of NI gear I own through hell and back.

[overcast]

With the S8 you can be more creative and it opens up more possibilities for the dj to perform things live than you could using the Pioneer gear. So it makes sense to have the S8 as the standard as you can do more with it so why have other equipment as standard when it limits you in what you can do. Sure you can have the Pioneer as standard and then bring your own NI gear to plug in but what's the point when you can just have the NI gear there from the start.
But then again i suppose it depends on demand. Maybe the majority of dj's prefer to just mix two tracks together with minimal use of effects and live performance. It would be interesting if a survey was done to see actually how many people would prefer to see the S8 as standard and who prefers the Pioneer.

So in an ideal world would you want the "club standard" setup to be S8, 2 CDJs and 2 tech 1200s?

[JustTho]

Just speaking of pioneer I recently purchase a home stereo amplifier from a thrift store for $30, picked it up because it really has some weight to it, (heavy parts usually means heavy performance), anyways I looked it up and its dolby digital 5.1 140watts per channel, hooked it up to my 600 watt 15" subwoofers and it pounds them out hardcore, pioneer just rocks at sound stuff!

[Reticuli]

DJ sponsorship.

Free gear to certain clubs.

Certain other manufacturers in the late 90s early 2000s being afflicted by the Great Capacitor Plague while Pioneer DJ was not. Same reason Gateway disappeared and Dell became big.

And their stuff was decent enough and not too complicated.

[the_bastet]

DJ sponsorship.

Free gear to certain clubs.

Certain other manufacturers in the late 90s early 2000s being afflicted by the Great Capacitor Plague while Pioneer DJ was not. Same reason Gateway disappeared and Dell became big.

And their stuff was decent enough and not too complicated.

Hahahaha. Always remember, never buy Taiwanese capacitors!

[Reticuli]

Hahahaha. Always remember, never buy Taiwanese capacitors!

And never go in against a Sicilian...

[SupaSandeep]

Pioneer has just been on top of it for yearsssssssss, they were the first to bat & stayed strong. Denon had a strong chance back in the day with their dual deck CD players, but after the CDJs came out that's long gone. I too wish there would be more variety in the "standard" gear, but people don't want to change too much. Even the Allen & Heath Xone 92 took a long time before it was considered standard, that one came in the early 2000's & took about 10 yrs before it was more visible