[For DJs] DJ Technology, What's next?

In the past 30 years, we've seen major changes come to the DJ industry. Who knows what changes will impact us in the next 30 or more years? When it comes to change, we saw a major shift in the technology that DJs use to master their art. In the past 10 years, we've seen vinyls getting replaced with CDs, USBs and even controllers. What can we expect to see in the next 10 years?? Down below, we will discuss the 3 changes already happening and further advances based on the current changes.

1. Hybrid Controllers

More and more controllers are becoming advanced to where it's adapted by many of the top DJs today. Controllers are showing more options and flexibility to what it can do. One of the first hybrid controller/CD player I've seen was the Denon SC-3700 media player. It allows DJs to use the media player as a midi controller for Serato without the timecode. With this kind of technology in circulation, controllers are starting adapt the shape and the form of the common CDJs and DJM mixers. Pioneer's DDJ-SZ took a leap to almost revolutionize what controllers are capable of doing. The DDJ-SZ took a form of a CDJ and a mixer combo which allows skeptical users to feel comfortable using the controller. We can envision controllers taking a good chunk of what CDJs have been doing in the past.

2. Digial World is upon us!

In the live sound world, digital platforms are taking hold of most equipment that are out and available to us. We've commonly seen digital mixers taking over the long tradition of analog mixers that consisted of many knobs, faders and buttons. With the digital mixer being an option, we are beginning to see less of knobs, faders and buttons. Rather, touch screen technology is allowing users to emulate those analog controls. Much like this change, we can anticipate a similar revolution in the DJ technology. Could our mixers completely omit knobs, faders and buttons?

3. Networking based Technology.

With the digital platforms rushing into the market, these same technology allows users to transfer and send signals digitally. That means, we now can send audio signals using Cat5e, Cat5 ethernet cables. Where conventionally, we needed an analog snake cable to send massive amount of audio signal - we can now use a single Cat5e cable to send multiple channels of audio signal up to 300 feet of distance. Fiberwire cables extends that distance to even miles! We can see a similar feature into the DJ technology in the future. We can envision our equipments allowing for ethernet ports that can communicate with other devices that uses the same communication protocal.

With those 3 major changes already happening and affecting our technology, what other technological changes do YOU see? Comment below!

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