What if we could stream music directly from Beatport?

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What if we could stream music directly from Beatport?
Posted on: 06.02.2012 by Birdie Vogeli
Hi guys. I just sent the following email to Beatport and would like to hear your thoughts on this idea.

Hi,

This is actually not a support issue. Rather it's an idea I've been believeing about for a while.

You guys have most, if not all, the popular electronic dance music tracks most DJs need. You also have the key information, the BPM and all the other metadata necessary for a DJ to easily organize and find the right tracks when playing a set.

Wouldn't it be great if software like Traktor and Serato had access to all this music on the fly?

While in Traktor, I could click the Beatport button in the sidebar and have access to all the music available on Beatport for a monthly fee. This would work exactly like other streaming alternatives like Spotify, with the obvious advantage of being able to manipulate the music in a professional DJ application. This is of course not possible with Spotify.

Users would have to pay a monthly fee, probably higher than competing streaming services, but the benefits for a modern DJ would be huge:
- Stream all the Beatport tracks. Upon track loading, the track should begin streaming and download cached in the background so that there's no interruption should the Internet access go down.
- Manipulate streamed/instantly downloaded songs.
- All the songs would be tagged with the correct key, BPM and even beat gridded, saving digital DJs around the world hundreds of hours of time of preparing tracks.
- All downloaded songs would stay downloaded until manually deleted or be automatically deleted if not played for a user-configured amount of time.
- Since tagging information differs between Serato, Traktor and other software, the implementation would have to be software-aware so that Traktor users get metadata compatible with Traktor and vice versa.
- For this you could charge a premium and DJs would have access to the full Beatport library and save a huge amount of time.

I would like to have your input on this system. There's nothing like it out there today. Either you buy your songs and tag them manually, or you let people stream there own songs using Spotify and similar services, thus losing the ability to be able to DJ them. We would save so much time and most importantly, never have to say "no, sorry, I don't have that track" to confused people accustomed to Spotify.

Thanks for a great music store.

Sincerely,

Gabriel
Birdie Vogeli
06.02.2012
Originally Posted by quartzlocked
Check this out: http://mix.until.am/
This is a really interesting idea. The SoundCloud ties of Mix Until AM is exactly what I'm talking about. Imagine if we could collaborate on beat grids that way.
Birdie Vogeli
07.02.2012
Originally Posted by padi_04
What's the point of streaming then? the only "benefit" I see is paying a suscription vs single purchases, but that's what promo pools have been doing for quite some time.
Extremely easy and quick access. Your mileage may vary across the world, but in most places of Europe it's possible to download a song in just a few seconds even over mobile broadband. The benefit is of course that you have access to the entire Beatport catalog and don't have to go anywhere else for your songs. I often download songs from iTunes now while my laptop is tethered to my iPhone. Not exactly the most excellent solution...

Regarding the beat gridding, it would be kind of cool if we could collaborate on that. Users that beatgrid songs would automatically upload their beatgrids to Beatport ready for others to use. In fact, this could be something else entirely - a DJ community tied to DJ software. We would save so much time.

Users would be able to up rank good beat grids and down rank band ones, and we would be able to hear a preview with a metronome before applying. That would solve the issue.
Nedra Fresneda
07.02.2012		Don't believe it would work. Keeping up with the gridding for all major software and doing the same for their back catalogue would take an awful lot of time and effort, this without even taking into account variable BPM (like keeb said) or bridges.

I believe the suscription fee will be pretty high to make it work, since it will take quite a chunk off the regular sales and it would even their income per user.

People are already having problems with bulky collections, this would only make the matter worse.

PS: Key info in theory is correct because that is summited by the artist/label, Beatport doesn't analyse the submissions.


Originally Posted by Lundmark
Regarding the streaming issue, this is of course something that needs work on. My solution would be to cache the entire song before streaming is allowed. Of course, you would still be able to use a local library as well.
What's the point of streaming then? the only "benefit" I see is paying a suscription vs single purchases, but that's what promo pools have been doing for quite some time.
Birdie Vogeli
07.02.2012
Originally Posted by keeb
Point-blank: I would never want to rely on wifi, especially not wifi with internet connectivity, for a set in any capacity. Not only would this flat out not work with a lot of Windows based setups (not that I use Windows anymore, but still) I wouldn't trust it on a Mac setup either. There's enough stress in a set in terms of making sure the software doesn't have any issues, making sure the laptop doesn't overheat, making sure the soundcard doesn't get unplugged, etc. that adding in "I hope the wifi doesn't drop out halfway through my song!" is something I'd rather avoid like the plague.

Aside from that; you can't rely on a venue to have wifi, nevermind well-maintained wifi.


As for Beatport's response; they already include key and BPM info, it's just not necessarily accurate. It's very unlikely that they would ever include beatgrid information because 1) some songs change tempo and 2) it's a LOT of work to put into songs when it's only going to benefit what, like the 30% of their userbase (I'm guessing) that uses Traktor? It's not economically feasible.

I also really don't see the benefit of this with Beatport aside from possibly cloud storage? Since you already pay per track with Beatport, why wouldn't DJs just download the tracks and access them from their hard drives instead of gambling their sets on the wifi connection at a club?

It's kind of a cool idea in theory, but I seriously doubt it would ever get implemented.
Regarding the streaming issue, this is of course something that needs work on. My solution would be to cache the entire song before streaming is allowed. Of course, you would still be able to use a local library as well.
Birdie Vogeli
06.02.2012		Hi guys. I just sent the following email to Beatport and would like to hear your thoughts on this idea.

Hi,

This is actually not a support issue. Rather it's an idea I've been believeing about for a while.

You guys have most, if not all, the popular electronic dance music tracks most DJs need. You also have the key information, the BPM and all the other metadata necessary for a DJ to easily organize and find the right tracks when playing a set.

Wouldn't it be great if software like Traktor and Serato had access to all this music on the fly?

While in Traktor, I could click the Beatport button in the sidebar and have access to all the music available on Beatport for a monthly fee. This would work exactly like other streaming alternatives like Spotify, with the obvious advantage of being able to manipulate the music in a professional DJ application. This is of course not possible with Spotify.

Users would have to pay a monthly fee, probably higher than competing streaming services, but the benefits for a modern DJ would be huge:
- Stream all the Beatport tracks. Upon track loading, the track should begin streaming and download cached in the background so that there's no interruption should the Internet access go down.
- Manipulate streamed/instantly downloaded songs.
- All the songs would be tagged with the correct key, BPM and even beat gridded, saving digital DJs around the world hundreds of hours of time of preparing tracks.
- All downloaded songs would stay downloaded until manually deleted or be automatically deleted if not played for a user-configured amount of time.
- Since tagging information differs between Serato, Traktor and other software, the implementation would have to be software-aware so that Traktor users get metadata compatible with Traktor and vice versa.
- For this you could charge a premium and DJs would have access to the full Beatport library and save a huge amount of time.

I would like to have your input on this system. There's nothing like it out there today. Either you buy your songs and tag them manually, or you let people stream there own songs using Spotify and similar services, thus losing the ability to be able to DJ them. We would save so much time and most importantly, never have to say "no, sorry, I don't have that track" to confused people accustomed to Spotify.

Thanks for a great music store.

Sincerely,

Gabriel
Luna Sopcak
23.07.2013		Pulselocker does this. Stream 4M dj-oriented tracks, download songs into a Locker on your computer and dj them - offline - on traktor/serato. Play and exchange tracks out of your locker as much as you want for the life of your subscription. They're launching a web version in the next couple of weeks and will offer PC support.
Marshall Aby
06.02.2012		- You couldn't 'stream' the song. You wouldn't be able to jump cue-points etc. You'd have to download it all. And if you're downloading the entire song in HQ then you've effectively bought it anyway. If you're downloading the entire song in HQ to your laptop bypassing DRM would be a cinch.

- At present, you'd certainly have licensing issues DJing streaming audio

- I wouldn't rely on an internet connection to perform a gig. Hell, my internet connection at home went down toevening during the football. Hence my set would already be prepared, so I wouldn't need a streaming service. I have bought tunes from iTunes and Beatport before at gigs on the odd occassion (quite often unsuccessfully, playing basements in bars with dodgy wifi and all), but this is only responding to very specific requests and the odd oversight.

- From an artists point of view, I like to support artists by purchasing music I like from them. Streaming sites make no money for people outside of the top40:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.ne...s-earn-online/
...artists earn on average $0.60 from a mp3 sale. And $0.00029 from a spotify play.

- Finally, I believe it is very, very important for a DJ to be able to say 'I'm sorry, I don't have that track'. I want access to my catalogue, not Beatport's.

All that said, I'm sure something like this will end up being widely available. And you'll still have DJ's who make strong choices according to their tastes, as well as those who'll be forced into becoming meat jukeboxes.
Birdie Vogeli
06.02.2012
Originally Posted by quartzlocked
Check this out: http://mix.until.am/
This is a really interesting idea. The SoundCloud ties of Mix Until AM is exactly what I'm talking about. Imagine if we could collaborate on beat grids that way.
Birdie Vogeli
06.02.2012		I believe some of you are unwilling to accept the change that is happening in the digital DJing space, namely it's becoming easier for everyone to DJ.

I'm not saying that by having our collections stored in the cloud we should stop preparing our sets and just play stuff off of the top 40 lists. The art is still there. What I am saying is that it's ridiculous having to have all this stuff offline locally and preparing it with beat grids and stuff, when we could do this in the cloud. It may not be Beatport, but what better way to start? iTunes Match is another interesting service and so is Spotify, but alas none works with Traktor or Serato.

We could use a new method for this. It will not change the way we DJ. Bad DJs will still be bad DJs.
Fae Schuur
06.02.2012		DJing is not about having every track ever made available with a few key strokes. It is about your ability to take a massive collection and boil it down to the right 100 tracks or so for a cohesive evening of music.

That takes preparation - knowing your music - understanding what happens when, when the vocals drop, when the bass drops, when there is a nice clean bridge to mix. There are all things that you could never know if you were downloading your music on the fly.

Really bad idea...sorry.
Nedra Fresneda
07.02.2012		I still believe it's the same as downloading a track directly from beatport (besides the monthly fee), since it won't start playing until it's fully buffered.
Celestine Porebski
07.02.2012		I don't see any advantage (except for maybe a financial one - but in the end it's a moot discussion, it makes no sense for Beatport to begin with). Preparing a nice crate before gigs is hard enough as it is and the last thing I wanna worry about during a gig is digging for more music. And if I have to dig beforehand anyways, why shouldn't I just buy the tracks I dig (see what I did there?) there and then?
Birdie Vogeli
07.02.2012
Originally Posted by padi_04
What's the point of streaming then? the only "benefit" I see is paying a suscription vs single purchases, but that's what promo pools have been doing for quite some time.
Extremely easy and quick access. Your mileage may vary across the world, but in most places of Europe it's possible to download a song in just a few seconds even over mobile broadband. The benefit is of course that you have access to the entire Beatport catalog and don't have to go anywhere else for your songs. I often download songs from iTunes now while my laptop is tethered to my iPhone. Not exactly the most excellent solution...

Regarding the beat gridding, it would be kind of cool if we could collaborate on that. Users that beatgrid songs would automatically upload their beatgrids to Beatport ready for others to use. In fact, this could be something else entirely - a DJ community tied to DJ software. We would save so much time.

Users would be able to up rank good beat grids and down rank band ones, and we would be able to hear a preview with a metronome before applying. That would solve the issue.
Nedra Fresneda
07.02.2012		Don't believe it would work. Keeping up with the gridding for all major software and doing the same for their back catalogue would take an awful lot of time and effort, this without even taking into account variable BPM (like keeb said) or bridges.

I believe the suscription fee will be pretty high to make it work, since it will take quite a chunk off the regular sales and it would even their income per user.

People are already having problems with bulky collections, this would only make the matter worse.

PS: Key info in theory is correct because that is summited by the artist/label, Beatport doesn't analyse the submissions.


Originally Posted by Lundmark
Regarding the streaming issue, this is of course something that needs work on. My solution would be to cache the entire song before streaming is allowed. Of course, you would still be able to use a local library as well.
What's the point of streaming then? the only "benefit" I see is paying a suscription vs single purchases, but that's what promo pools have been doing for quite some time.
Birdie Vogeli
07.02.2012
Originally Posted by keeb
Point-blank: I would never want to rely on wifi, especially not wifi with internet connectivity, for a set in any capacity. Not only would this flat out not work with a lot of Windows based setups (not that I use Windows anymore, but still) I wouldn't trust it on a Mac setup either. There's enough stress in a set in terms of making sure the software doesn't have any issues, making sure the laptop doesn't overheat, making sure the soundcard doesn't get unplugged, etc. that adding in "I hope the wifi doesn't drop out halfway through my song!" is something I'd rather avoid like the plague.

Aside from that; you can't rely on a venue to have wifi, nevermind well-maintained wifi.


As for Beatport's response; they already include key and BPM info, it's just not necessarily accurate. It's very unlikely that they would ever include beatgrid information because 1) some songs change tempo and 2) it's a LOT of work to put into songs when it's only going to benefit what, like the 30% of their userbase (I'm guessing) that uses Traktor? It's not economically feasible.

I also really don't see the benefit of this with Beatport aside from possibly cloud storage? Since you already pay per track with Beatport, why wouldn't DJs just download the tracks and access them from their hard drives instead of gambling their sets on the wifi connection at a club?

It's kind of a cool idea in theory, but I seriously doubt it would ever get implemented.
Regarding the streaming issue, this is of course something that needs work on. My solution would be to cache the entire song before streaming is allowed. Of course, you would still be able to use a local library as well.
Ok Moroski
07.02.2012		Point-blank: I would never want to rely on wifi, especially not wifi with internet connectivity, for a set in any capacity. Not only would this flat out not work with a lot of Windows based setups (not that I use Windows anymore, but still) I wouldn't trust it on a Mac setup either. There's enough stress in a set in terms of making sure the software doesn't have any issues, making sure the laptop doesn't overheat, making sure the soundcard doesn't get unplugged, etc. that adding in "I hope the wifi doesn't drop out halfway through my song!" is something I'd rather avoid like the plague.

Aside from that; you can't rely on a venue to have wifi, nevermind well-maintained wifi.


As for Beatport's response; they already include key and BPM info, it's just not necessarily accurate. It's very unlikely that they would ever include beatgrid information because 1) some songs change tempo and 2) it's a LOT of work to put into songs when it's only going to benefit what, like the 30% of their userbase (I'm guessing) that uses Traktor? It's not economically feasible.

I also really don't see the benefit of this with Beatport aside from possibly cloud storage? Since you already pay per track with Beatport, why wouldn't DJs just download the tracks and access them from their hard drives instead of gambling their sets on the wifi connection at a club?

It's kind of a cool idea in theory, but I seriously doubt it would ever get implemented.
Shawna Denha
07.02.2012		Check this out: http://mix.until.am/

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