Posts

cable vs streaming

To Cut the Cord or Not? TikTok Behind Increase in Streams

Similar to cable TV “cord-cutting,” media executives do not feel threatened by the increasing popularity of the social media app: TikTok.

For more than a decade, cable and broadcast executives brushed aside the threat of cable TV “cord-cutting” (ditching traditional cable TV) as either a nonexistent threat or a temporary phenomenon. There were endless reports about how these users were poor and unimportant (they weren’t), or how the phenomenon would end once Millennials bought homes and started procreating (it didn’t).

Read more

Beatport Plan

Beatport Launches ‘The Beatport Plan,’ Monthly DJing Plan

Beatport has launched its The Beatport Plan, a new pricing tier giving DJs access to millions of the best electronic music tracks for just $9.99/month. By integrating with Beatport’s popular DJ web app, subscribers to The Beatport Plan can instantly become DJs within their browser: no expensive DJ hardware is required.

Read more

FestEvo Promises a Better Festival Experience

Music festivals are fun to attend to, but sometimes the experience can be overwhelming, from traveling to the festival venue to keeping up with the many festivals happening each year, not to mention familiarizing oneself with the artists performing.

Enter Tucker Gumber, an avid music festival attendee who has come to be known as “The Festival Guy”, who has introduced a new app that aims to enhance the overall festival experience called FestEvo.

Read more

Introducing KADO: Your Own Personal DJ Assistant

Banner1

It can be hard for traveling DJs or even those in a city’s local scene to find time to fit everything they need to get done in one day. We have covered good advice on how to make more time to get into the studio and how to be more productive once in it, but what about the lengthy and arduous task of sorting through countless new releases to discover the music you should be playing in your gigs?

Two former Google and Twitter employees with a penchant for DJing have teamed up with one of electronic music’s most respected experts on DJ technology to create a new application for DJs. Called KADO, the app aims to ease the life of DJs by providing intelligent recommendations of tracks that they might want to play out there.

KADO sifts through information from over 200,000 DJ sets (a number that will keep on growing) to formulate personalized recommendations based on what DJs with similar sounds are playing.

“We want you to spend more time DJing and less time searching,” says KADO co-founder AJ Asver, a DJ who left Google to focus on music technology. “Give KADO a starting track and it will show you highly curated tracks based on what other DJs like to play next.”

As we continue to see the rise of vinyl’s popularity once again, KADO borrows the concept of a personal DJ assistant from the heydays of record store buying. A good record store has clerks who would get to know customer’s taste and have music set aside just for them, able to carefully select gems for that individual DJ. As technology advances, KADO is bringing back that very same spirit in digital form, analyzing your current music library, playing behavior, artist similarity, taste preferences and more, juxtaposing this information with actual DJ sets around the world to create individualized suggestions for you and you only.

How does it work?

1.     DROP a track into the app – KADO will match it against its library of millions of tracks and sets.

2.     DISCOVER what other DJs played after or before your track – analyzing over 200,000 DJ sets and filtering them based on your own tastes.

3.     DIG into results – find tracks or remixes by artists and labels that are being played by other DJs based on your preferences.

4.     ADD tracks to your crate or download them – KADO links you directly to purchase tracks within the app, continually learning from the music you choose to crate

KADO’s founders are fast to point out that the app doesn’t seek to completely replace the track digging process, but to make it slightly easier and less time consuming so that DJs can focus on playing and producing music with the time freed up by the app’s use.

“Our mission is to make the world dance more”, says KADO co-founder Rob McQueen, previously an engineer at Twitter. “We believe KADO will inspire DJs to play because they are getting better quality music from far less prep time.

Ean Golden, KADO’s product designer, saw the need for a proper discovery tool designed by DJs.

“Every day thousands of new tracks are released, and it’s impossible to stay on top of a growing collection without spending countless hours every week,” Golden says. “We solve the problem by suggesting great music other DJs are already playing and then custom tailor those results to fit your music style. It’s everyone’s favorite record store clerk, available 24-7, with the intelligence factor turned up to 11.”

You can sign up for KADO directly on their website.

Connect with KADO: Facebook | Twitter

If you found this article interesting, sign up for our newsletter to learn more and to stay up to date with 6AM’s news and features on the world of electronic music.

“Dance Tonight” Event App Aims to Revolutionize the Electronic Music World

Featured_Image

Dance Tonight – a new event-driven app – has now launched in key US and European markets. Aimed to provide fans with the most up-to-date and comprehensive guide to electronic music events in their area, Dance Tonight focuses on Underground, Indie Electronic and EDM with one simple user-friendly interface.

By integrating monthly top events from sources that include Dancing Astronaut, XLR8R, TRAX, Deep House Amsterdam, ROLLINGTUFF and Gotta Dance Dirty, Dance Tonight provides users with the ability to search events by location and date, buy tickets as well as bookmark their favorite artists and venues to be alerted of new shows as soon as they are announced. The app goes one step further, adding a social function that allows fans with similar interests to interact via direct messaging or city-wide after-party chats.

KidHoldingPhone

The app, which is available for download for both iOS and Google Play Store, is live in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Berlin and Barcelona. Further cities will be added in the coming months as the platform rolls out with its expansion plans.

When introducing the ideas behind this new platform, Ryan Botwinick, President of Dance Tonight, explained, “We set out to create the most convenient way for our music community to plan their night out. I am very proud of our team and excited to announce that Dance Tonight App does just that. For the first time, a user can get all the information they need in a single place. The app helps promote the Dance Music scene as a whole as it drives ticket sales to multiple platforms, encourages communication between fans and brings together some of the most influential music media outlets as partner curators for the app. No matter what style of Dance Music you like, this app was created for you.”

Check out a video teaser below for an idea of what to expect from the app!

Connect with Dance Tonight for updates: Online | Facebook | Instagram

 

roland tr-rec logo

Guitar Hero? Nah. Roland’s TR-REC Is Here.

roland-tr-rec-ios

Nowadays, essentially any activity can, and likely already has, been made into a mobile app for iOS, especially in the form of a game.

Roland, producers of the iconic TR-808 drum machine, is nothing short of a household name. In the past several years, they have released updated reissues of many classic synths; even more recently, however, they have plunged deeper into the endless capabilities of digital technology, with over a dozen iOS mobile apps.

roland-tr-rec-crop-970-80

We’re beyond ecstatic to announce the newest addition to Roland’s line of apps. Just in time for the holidays, they have released TR-REC, a free game for iOS which presents a TR-style drum machine interface. The game challenges you to create beats with a visual guide within a set period of time. As you progress, the rhythms get increasingly difficult. Essentially, it’s “Guitar Hero” for drum machine. 2009 saw Activision’s DJ Hero follow-up, ultimately a let-down to many DJs and dance music aficionados; however, this game (created by a company that actually understands dance culture) focuses on the production of dance music rather than the DJ stardom that so many up-and-comers long for. If you wanna try create some music yourself here are acoustic guitars under 100 dollars.

tr-8 for tr-rec

Perfect for the inevitable winter-break couch slump, TR-REC instantly won our hearts, and we bet you’ll love it too; grab the app now from the Apple App Store.