Serato has been a fixture of the DJ landscape for 2 decades, and they have marked this anniversary with a special documentary charting the birth and development of their revolutionary product. It’s a fascinating insight to how they created it, and the resistance and snobbery that early adopters like Jazzy Jeff ran into from vinyl purists! Check out part 1

Serato (and other DVS systems like it) completely changed the DJ game, and enabled a style of DJing that previously was basically impossible, especially for touring DJs. The DJs who blazed a trail and troubleshooted out in the wild for Serato deserve a lot of credit when there was so much resistance to this change.

Serato x Phase

Less revolutionary, but equally fascinating and innovative, is Phase – the remarkable gadgets that enable DJs to use Serato on decks without requiring needles, eliminating problems with badly kept decks causing signal issues, needle skips, and a million other little foibles that Serato/vinyl DJs will be familiar with. It was exciting enough, but they’ve worked out a deal and a system whereby setup is even easier, with no RCA cables required, just USB.

Phase has had a tricky first year or two out in the market – lots of DJs complaining about dropouts – but with native Serato support, that can only mean good things for the compatibility and stability of the product. Apparently it’s a few months away, and the initial version of Phase had all sorts of delays, so don’t put all your eggs in this basket – but definitely keep an eye out, as this is a really remarkable piece of kit for scratch DJs.