Interview with Jeroen 'Lead'  Over Pioneer's producten en hun visie.Nederlands    

Submitted by Lead   on 14-02-2004 15:15

How did Pioneer develop as supplier of professional DJ equipment?

Jeroen G : In 1961 the Japanese company Fukuin Denki changed its name to Pioneer Electronics Coorperation. From the mid 1960's they got active on the Dutch market and tried to honor it's name: being the first to bring new and innovative products to the market.

Pioneer was the first company in the world to launch a Car Stereo headunit as one component (1975), the Laserdisk player (1979) and the computer DVD writer (1999). What also a lot of people don't know is that in the majority of the early iMacs, the internal drive was a Pioneer optical unit.

Pro DJ Series

The first product developed specially for DJs was the CDJ-500 in 1995 (CDJ-300 was never available in Europe, but would be the real first DJ player in 1994). Accept for this particular model, all models introduced since then are still available today in 2003. In late 1997 the CDJ-500s was introduced which gave Pioneer credibility in desktop CD players. With a relative big jogwheel Pioneer seeked a link into the DJ market. A revolutional feature on the CDJ-500s was the seamless loop that could span the complete length of the CD, regardless of the number tracks it spanned, this was a feature introduced by other brands much later.

Other than CD players also the development of Mixers got attention. In 1996 the only mixer Pioneer offered was the DJM-500. This mixer was ground breaking as it was the first mixer ever to have a build in effect section that could adjust the timing automatically to match the tempo the DJ was playing (with a build in BPM counter). The BPM counters of Pioneer are know as being the fastest, mnost accurate in the market today.

Performance Series

In 1998 Pioneer introduced the Performance series of products (CDJ-100s, DJM-300 and CDJ-300), this was the beginning of Pioneers fame as a brand that created high quality products for DJs. From this point onwards Pioneer was recognized as a desired brand and almost every DJ knew how the CDJ-100s looked like and how it worked.

DJM-600 Mixer & CDJ-1000 CD Player

It was in 1999 when Pioneer launched the DJM-600 when the breakthrough came [in the Netherlands] amongst all of the big top DJs like: Ben Liebrand, Erick-E, Armin van Buren and Tiesto.

Another big succes came in juli 2001 with the introduction of the CDJ-1000. With this CD Player Pioneer made it possible for the very first time a DJ could manipulate CD by scratching, cue-ing or making a backspin, and retaining the sound quality.

See all Pioneer DJ products in the Gearbase : Pioneer DJ Product Overview

What does the brand Pioneer stand for?

Jeroen G : Pioneer is an innovative company that sets itself the target to create high quality DJ products. All components for our products are designed in-house by our own engineers. Unlike many other brands we do not buy the diskdrives we use in our CD players, but develop and produces them ourself in our own factories.

Pioneer as a brand is for sure not a follower in the market, but market leader is a big word. There are more brands that make good products and each brand has it's followers and haters. But Pioneer is the only brand in the industry that offers a complete lineup in the full width of the market segment.

Our assortment ranges across a wide span of products (accept for turntables) like DJ Mixers, CD Players (twin systems and stand alone), Effect units and Headphones. Due to this wide range of products we have colleages in different areas like Dateq for mixers and Denon for CD Players

Did Pioneer seduce a lot of vinyl junkies to play with CD?

Jeroen G : With the introduction of the CDJ-1000 an era started where traditional vinyl DJ seriously looked at the possibilities of CD. I get weekly phonecalls whereby those 'vinyljunks' have questions or show interrest in the CDJ-1000, so the number or reactions by those guys is big.

What is Pioneers technical future for DJ Gear?

Jeroen G : Nobody knows for sure what the future brings us, but Pioneer is definitly ready for the digital era. In the whole world everything is moving into the digital direction, I also see this move in the DJ market.

Vinyl is a medium that will always exist for multiple reasons, that CD and MP3 will gain traction is also certain. But in how far this will go in the future, only the future knows. Pioneer is looking confident ahead.

It is currently happening more often that a DJ wants to play his creation of the afternoon in the evening when he has a gig, CD offers this possibility. It is possible for everybody to burn a CD at low cost, making a single vinyl currently costs more than 65 euro per side.

We've introduced effects in combination with a top class mixer, this has set the tone. Nowadays DJs want to do more in the booth than just mixing with two turntables. Our DJM-600 mixer offers these possibilities. The CDJ-1000 offers a lot of extra's when compared with playing with vinyl, but it keeps the same feeling of the analogue 12inch setup.

Pioneer recently launched the HDJ-1000 in September 2002, available from October that year.
Next in line is the CDJ-800 and the DMP-555.

How does Pioneer intergrate new media like MP3 in their range?

Jeroen G : The DMP-555 is our first CD Player that offers MP3 playback in a DJ Player. Never before did we offer the possibility to also play a CD with MP3 files like DJs are used to lay on our CDJs. Also this product offers the possibility to store Loops and tracks on an SD memroy card.

Additionally the DMP-555 can be connected to a Windows computer, this way MP3s from the computer can be played without loosing the DJ feeling. For the DJ it is just like he plays with CDs.

MP3 has not been introduced in any of our other products, but this is more a political decision than a technical one. The technical knowledge is present amongst the engineers but there are things related to copyright and MP3 licensing that held us back to add MP3 Playback to our products.

Where can I insert my Memorystick, how will this develope?

Jeroen G : Memorystick is a Sony product and cannot be used in our Pro-DJ products. The CDJ-1000 Pioneer uses a MultiMediaCard (MMC) to store the data like Cue Points, Loops, Waveforms and Hot Cues. The, still unreleased, DMP-555 accepsts SecureData memorycards (SD). In contradiction to the use on CDJ-1000, with this products music is stored, next to Loop and Cue information.

Recently the 512MB SD card has been introduced to the market, I suspect that within a year there will be SD cards with a capacity of 2GB. Imagine that a DJ can carry a matchbox with more than 4GB of MP3 music... it sure saves a lot of dragging with CD cases and records bags!

Can DJs keep up with the developments?

Jeroen G : The operation of our products is reasonably simple, everybody that takes half an hour to check the product will be able to operate it. Most DJs have the basic feeling within 2 to 3 tracks. Pioneer believes in the principle that every button should have one function, we rarely use a combination to change or activate a function. If we do use a double function, it is mostly a setting a DJ sets and never touches again during his set.

When the possibility is there I give perosnal workshops and explinations, to end users but also to the professional DJs. Most of the public workshops are in partnerships with our dealers. If users have questions they can go to our dealers to get them answered, if the dealer doesn't know the answer they will reach out to me. Up to now it hasn't occured that I could not give an answer to any question, let's hope I can keep up.

Are DJs involved in developing all those funky features?

Jeroen G : The features on our products are developed by a team of engineers in combinations with some top DJs from several countries of the world. There are also market investigations throughout the world by engineers that physically go out into the field. When there is a base concept there will be internal evaluations aswell as external audits.

Belgium and the Netherlands have in Europe a little step ahead as the sales responsible for that area are also still an active DJ. During one meeting I've suggested the type of switch to be used as Reverse swtich, I was happy to see this appear in the final design of the product.

When there are sample units they will be tested by various DJs around the world. The feedback will be send to Tokyo and used in later stages of the design process.

There are 5 Comments

  Steev wrote on 24-10-2006 @ 13:19

nice, ik dacht, laat ik maar eens commente :P

  Illusion wrote on 25-09-2007 @ 09:12

Hmm nog niet veel comments hier op. Toch interresant om te lezen!

  djmaarten wrote on 07-11-2007 @ 20:03

na drie van die stukjes werd het me te veel om nog te lezen maar die stukjes waren wel intersant:P

  fisted wrote on 16-06-2008 @ 18:47

intersant! leuk om eens te lezen

  Stefjuuh wrote on 26-08-2009 @ 17:33

Wat ben ik blij dat er Pioneer spelers zijn, en geen Fuktuin Denktie..:p