SoundCloud is on a roll. Hot on the heels of an announcement earlier this month allowing all users of the open audio platform to tap into the company’s monetization tool at no additional cost for subscribers, SoundCloud revealed more big news Thursday.
The Berlin-based streaming platform has announced partnerships with Native Instruments, Serato, Virtual DJ, DEX3, Mixvibes and DJuced/Hercules allowing DJs to stream and mix SoundCloud’s massive music catalog in real time via their DJ performance software of choice, with most integrations rolling out in 2019.
SoundCloud Chief Executive Officer Kerry Trainor made the announcement Thursday at the Amsterdam Dance Event conference during a keynote conversation.
“Until recently, digital workflows for DJs were limited to downloads and physical media, but streaming workflows are the future,” Trainor said in an accompanying statement.
“SoundCloud is committed to empowering creators with the best tools and resources to grow their careers, which is why we are excited to partner with these leading companies to help DJs take their workflow to the next level,” the CEO added. “Through these partnership, DJs will have the largest, most diverse streaming music catalog ever assembled instantly accessible within the tools they use every day.”
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Trainor stressed that while streaming for DJs may not yet totally replace high-quality WAV files that DJs download from sites such as Beatport to play in live sets, that day will come.
“What we are offering is an important first step [towards a lossless streaming future for high-quality audio files] and high-quality streaming access,” Trainor tells Variety. “It’s a whole different level of convenience [for creators/DJs] as we look to the future, and this a first-of-its-kind offering.”
All content uploaded to SoundCloud is already available to stream in high quality at AAC 256 kbps, and subscribers can opt in to high-quality streaming by going to their settings on the platform.
Regarding the new partnerships with music software/hardware giants such as Native Instruments, Trainor notes that it’s simply a logical extension of merging like-minded users of platforms on the creator side. “We’ve always had great collaborative conversations with these companies over the years – it evolved naturally and organically,” he says of new partnerships with the hardware and software companies who court the same consumers, namely electronic music DJs/producers and hip-hop beatmakers.
Trainor went on to add that ADE, where about 5,000 dance music professionals and DJs are gathered this week in Amsterdam, was the right place to make the announcement.
“The DJ and electronic community is extremely important to SoundCloud, and that’s why we chose to announce this news here at Amsterdam Dance Event,” he says. “This community, particularly out of Europe, [was] the first to really embrace our platform.”
The integrations with Native Instruments, Virtual DJ, DEX3, Mixvibes and DJuced/Hercules will begin surfacing next year, with the Serato integration to debut likely in 2020. Details on each individual integration will be announced at a later date.