Serato Audio Research

Innovation is a hallmark of Serato Audio Research, a company set up by two computer science students working out of a warehouse to take what they knew was a world best software product for the international music and film industry to market.

Almost ten years on and a second Serato product, this one designed for the much bigger DJ market, is also considered an industry benchmark and the company, its warehouse days behind it, is growing exponentially, says General Manager Sam Gribben.

Steve West and AJ Bertenshaw started Serato in 1998 to sell “Pitch ‘n Time”, a pro-audio algorithm product for Serato Audio Research

Innovation is a hallmark of Serato Audio Research, a company set up by two computer science students working out of a warehouse to take what they knew was a world best software product for the international music and film industry to market.

Almost ten years on and a second Serato product, this one designed for the much bigger DJ market, is also considered an industry benchmark and the company, its warehouse days behind it, is growing exponentially, says General Manager Sam Gribben.

Steve West and AJ Bertenshaw started Serato in 1998 to sell “Pitch ‘n Time”, a pro-audio algorithm product for recording and film studios – a product that can speed up or slow down audio without losing the pitch.

“Steve had invented it when he was learning to play the bass guitar and wanted to take a piece of music and slow it down so he could work out complicated riffs,” says Mr Gribben.

“There was software around that allowed you to do that but it wasn’t very good, so he set about developing his own product and worked out how to do it better than anything else on the market.”

The product was an immediate hit in the United States. Priced at the upper end of the market, Mr Gribben says it was the only tool that could do the job to the standard the world’s best music and film studios demanded, and has been used by the likes of musician George Michael and filmmaker David Lynch.

In 2004 Serato entered the much larger DJ market with a completely new product Scratch LIVE, a software hardware solution for bridging the analog world of vinyl and the digital world of computer audio files.

Using regular turntables or CD players, Scratch LIVE enables DJs to scratch and mix files from their laptop. It means they can take their entire music collection with them wherever they perform without having to lug hundreds of vinyl records with them.

Mr Gribben says Scratch LIVE is now Serato’s most famous product, a huge hit with professional and amateur DJs in the United States, with Europe, Japan and East Asia also strong markets.

“In the early stages we did very little conventional marketing. DJs are very media savvy. They are used to having new technologies thrust upon them telling them it’s going to be the future. We let Scratch LIVE spread by word of mouth and it was much more effective – people found out about it through their peers. It became the word on the street that this was the way things were going.

“Some of the most critical DJs adopted it early on and people in the crowds saw them using that ‘crazy piece of software from New Zealand’ – it was self-fulfilling.”

Mr Gribben says the key to the success of Scratch LIVE is an understanding of the mentality of the customer.

“We have competitors with products which in some cases can do things Scratch LIVE can’t do, but what our product does it does very simply – more than half our customers are drunk when they use it, so we have to keep it simple!”

There is also an overriding emphasis on product reliability, critical given the high pressure environment DJs operate in.

All upgrades are free to clients, something which Mr Gribben says makes the product very appealing in an age when technology moves so quickly.

“It’s made our customers very loyal and as part of that process we interact with what they want. Some make suggestions via our website and a few months later may well see that upgrade. It’s critical to stay in touch without market, even to the point of being open to criticism; it’s how well you deal with the feedback.”

Manufacturing of Scratch LIVE’s hardware component and distribution is handled by Serato’s US partner Rane Corporate, a manufacturer with an international distribution network.

“Our relationship with Rane has worked extremely well because we share the same values,” says Mr Gribben – “high quality engineering, high quality product and really good technical support.”

SERATO has now moved out of the basement and into an Auckland office, and staff numbers have increased from about five people to 23. Where possible, it hires people who are passionate about music. For the majority, working at Serato is a dream job.

The company has two people on the ground in the United States now, one of whom is promoting White Label, Serato’s new software product that enables recording studios to send demos to DJs digitally rather than on vinyl – a niche that opened up following the success of Scratch LIVE.

While business is growing beyond Serato’s “wildest dreams”, Mr Gribben says it will expand slowly and cautiously. “We don’t’ want to be a mega corporation and not even necessarily sell the most product of anyone in our industry. We want to keep being the best in our own eyes and in the eyes of our most critical customers.”

Contact: Sam Gribben, General Manager, Serato Audio Research, phone 64 9 3794944, email sam@serato.com, www.serato.com