Behind the Technology: Beatport DJ’s Party Mode Exclusive with Founder, Jonas Tempel

Making its next great leap in developing groundbreaking DJ technology, Beatport has proudly introduced one of its most social, interactive and entertaining products to date, Party Mode — a new feature inside Beatport DJ that gives you latency-free, connected DJ sessions with up to four DJs at once from any location worldwide.

While playing in Party Mode, you and your fellow DJs can exchange tracks, dig through Beatport to find new music, and build joint playlists directly in our web-based DJ software. Think of it as any regular B2B session… but borderless — giving you and your friends the ability to play together at any time, no matter the place — and with the tremendous power of Beatport’s 12-million-strong track catalog at your fingertips.

Additionally, DJs can also invite up to 100 fans to watch, listen, and join in on the action in real-time with Party Mode’s track request and chat function, all while creating shared playlists that all participants can save.

This first-of-its-kind, truly interactive performance tool has a wide variety of applications. Whether you want to communicate with your fans in new and innovative ways, prep for a gig, teach or learn the fundamentals of DJing, or simply play, socialize, and bond with friends over your shared passion for music discovery and DJing, Party Mode is the place to be.

We sat down with the brains behind this amazing new DJ technology, Beatport’s Founding Partner and Chief Officer Jonas Temple, to learn more about how he and his team dreamed up the idea for Party Mode and to better understand the ways in which this app can help strengthen the sense of community between fans and DJs worldwide.

Read the interview and check out Beatport’s Party Mode tutorial below.

For those who are unfamiliar, how would you describe Beatport DJ’s new Party Mode feature?

It’s Beatport’s long overdue product that finally adds a community layer where people can share a synchronised music experience using our DJ app. It’s very exciting to bring this to life and a key piece of innovation that can unite our community around the music we all love. It’s also a signal of where we are taking our products in the future. We want our customers to be able to collaborate easier and this is a very impressive first step in that direction.

How did the idea behind Party Mode get dreamed up in the first place?

It’s very hard to build a community around music outside of a venue or a performance. However, there have been some apps in the past that did this quite well. The most memorable is Turntable.fm which had a viral moment around shared music. Twitch has also done the job of connecting people using live streams and chat.

For me, I was looking for a more immersive experience where more than one person could engage at one time. The general problem with DJing together from different locations is the latency. You just can’t get the timing right because you are experiencing the audio at different times. What we came up with was a brilliant workaround using the technical capabilities of the Chrome browser. It never would have happened without the brilliance and creative ingenuity of our dev teams and the advancements in browser technology.

Our hope is that people discover DJing, experiment together, and share these experiences with their friends, family, and fans. This is truly a revolutionary concept that will help create a new generation of DJs that learn the craft and find music together building amazing playlists and discovering the deepest tracks in our library. We can’t wait to see what people do with this feature.

What have been some of the more significant challenges you and your team have had to overcome in getting Party Mode ready for launch?

Developing technology is challenging. You dream big and usually have to settle for less than your dream. Party Mode is the opposite. We had the dream, and we brought it to life. It’s surprisingly better than we planned and I can’t wait for the world to try it for themselves.

This idea hasn’t come without its share of challenges. Beatport DJ is a significant technological achievement that would not have been possible a few years ago. It’s certainly not as good as our software-based competitors, but given that it’s running in a browser and has fairly advanced features, the experience is honestly quite impressive.

Adding the Party Mode layer takes the experience even further allowing a truly interactive experience for DJs and fans alike. The ambitions were huge, and the challenge was just as big.

Technically, we can’t share how this is being accomplished, but it was solved by two of the smartest developers I’ve ever met. They are geniuses with their creativity and vision of how to solve very complex problems with the least amount of code. And that alone is magical.

Tell us some of the reactions and feedback you’ve received from DJs using Party Mode for the first time.

I think primarily, most people are not even aware that you can DJ in the browser yet. So when we show them that, it gets the inspiration flowing. Then, when we show them how to DJ with their friends, the electricity really gets going. We get a lot of “how does this work?” kind of questions because people are simply amazed at how smooth it works. It’s all rather mind-blowing, to be honest.

Do you think Party Mode will change how people think about and approach the art of DJing?

I don’t think this is aligned with our ambition. We don’t want to change the art of DJing. But, we do want to inspire people to DJ and share the experience with their fellow DJs and fans. Additionally, I think it will change the way people can showcase new music. Imagine sharing your new release in context. And lastly, I think Party Mode will become one of the main tools for DJ education where students can quickly understand the basic methodology of DJing before they jump to their preferred performance software. The ideas are endless and I think over the next year or two we’ll see so many new ideas. This is just the beginning.

In what ways do you think this groundbreaking DJ technology will evolve over time?

Assuming there is a demand, we’ll continue to advance the technology stack to make it better and better. As more and more people are using the app, we’ll amass feature requests and find bugs. For now, it’s a great starting point and will function as an experiment in the social aspects of music sharing and DJing. From here, who knows where it can go? We are very bullish about the future of our web-based DJ app and Party Mode.

Start Playing with Party Mode on Beatport DJ!

Be sure to share your session link on Twitter and tag @beatport with the hashtag #PartywithBeatport