AlphaTheta – the confusing history

The whole Pioneer DJ AlphaTheta saga is quite confusing.
Some sources contradict, and brandnames and company names are not the same, which makes it kind of a mess.
Let me shed some light.

Who is Alpha Theta?

AlphaTheta is company specialised in DJ products.

AlphaTheta is the industry leader in the market.
It releases both DJ hardware: like players, mixers, fx machines and DJ controller.
It releases also DJ software: Rekordbox, Serato, WeDJ.

AlphaTheta CDJ 2000, CDJ 3000 players are used almost by every club in the world.
These players can use USB drives that are prepared with Rekordbox software.

Brief history

Here’s a brief history (source & source).

1994

Pioneer released the CDJ-500.

It was the first CD player for DJs on the market, because it had a Jog Wheel to control the speed of the CD.
The jog wheel was different than we use nowadays.

The CDJ-500 wasn’t really taken serious by the majority of DJs.
Vinyl was better, because you could scratch with them!

2001

Pioneer launched the CDJ-1000.
This player brought digital DJing on par with vinyl.

What catches your eye is the big Jog Wheel that let you better control your music.
The jog wheel mimicked the old vinyl record players.
Now you could scratch with the Jog Wheel!

All of a sudden you could do the same as with CDs as you could with vinyl.
Even better: you didn’t have to worry that your needle would jump out of the groove.

The CDJ-1000 was a massive success and every club in the world had one.

2009

Pioneer launched the CDJ-2000.
Where the CDJ-1000 played catch-up with vinyl, the CDJ-2000 brought digital DJing far beyond:

• You could play music from a USB drive.
• You could place Cue Points and Hot Cues.
• You could create loops
• You could quantize
• Rekordbox became the companion software to further expand features

2012

Pioneer launched the CDJ-2000 nexus.
Now you could:

• Slowing tracks up/down while maintaining the key of a song (master tempo)
• use Slip mode

2015

Pioneer’s DJ division split off from Pioneer, probably with the intention to sell the division. (source)
The name “Pioneer DJ” became the brand for DJs.

2016

Pioneer launched the CDJ-2000 nxs 2.
Just a small increment in features, some firsts:

• touch screen
• 4 hot cues instead of 3
• Colored Hot Cues

2020

On January 1st 2020 the company Pioneer DJ was renamed AlphaTheta (source).
Then in March 2020 it was sold to Noritsu.

In september 2020 the CDJ 3000 was released.
The upgrade is pretty minimal compared to the previous models:

• Improved loading speeds
• Improved audio quality
• improved jog wheel (they were pretty fragile)
• bigger display
• no CD player

2023

AlphaTheta (the company) buys Serato.

2024

The brand name “AlphaTheta” is used for new products (source).

Renaming “Pioneer DJ” was confusing

There are company names and brand names.
A company has a name, but can also have brand names under which they bring products to market.
When you have the same brand name as your company name, there is no confusion.

But when a company has multiple brand names : Pioneer DJ, rekordbox, TORAIZ, KUVO it get’s a bit complicated.
But where it gets confusing when you rename your company from “Pioneer DJ” -> “AlphaTheta”, and you still keep using “Pioneer DJ” and “AlphaTheta” brand names interchangeably.

But why?

I think renaming the whole thing “AlphaTheta” was a stupid move:

• No one knows who or what AlphaTheta is.
• It sounds scammy and fragile (I associate it with “beta” versions of software)
• It is hard to pronounce, especially for non-English speakers
• The name is too long
• The name is hard to write
• The logo doesn’t make any sense

I think they realized that, and now trying to back down.

But I think they can’t for legal reasons, because the company “Pioneer” owns the brand name “Pioneer”.
I think: part of the sales agreement was: steering away from the brand name “Pioneer”.

Personally, I think they should rip the band-aid off, just rename everything to AlphaTheta.
Because the situation now with some products under Pioneer and others under AlphaTheta is incredibly confusing.
AlphaTheta Rekordbox supports AlphaTheta DJ controllers, but also Pioneer DJ controllers … it doesn’t make any sense.

Future

Buying, selling, renaming…
It has been a roller coaster in the early 2020’s.
That is never be good for a company.

Everything screams instability.
As a client I want to know that a company has me covered, and not going to be bankrupt next year when I invest in ridiculously expensive equipment.

Is the name Pioneer DJ going away?

I think so, although I have no solid evidence to back that up.
The reason for that being, that Pioneer created a separate company for their DJ division, for the sole purpose of selling it.
I suspect the new buyer can’t use the name Pioneer anymore in a couple of years.