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Pioneer Technology Creates In-Car DJ Mixes

MIAMI –

Pioneer wants to put a DJ in your car with
the launch of Mixtrax technology, which creates multiple
playlists from music stored on a PC or iPod for
playback through select Pioneer car audio systems
and through the company’s Steez portable audio
products.

The technology could also appear in home audio
products.

Free Mixtrax music-management software for PCs
analyzes a user’s music collection for such musical
attributes as tempo and beats per minute (BPM). The
software then tags each song and creates an assortment
of playlists categorized by such musical styles
as Beat, Chill and Thump. The software also identifies
the best points in each song to make a transition
to another song, and it blends the tracks together
with added transition effects as a live DJ would, Pioneer
said. Users can then choose three settings to
adjust the intensity of the effects and transitions as
well as the duration of each track within a mix.

Next, users transfer the playlists to a USB stick
or SD memory card for playback through two new
car CD receivers, a big-screen car A/V receiver, and
Steez products. The playlists can also be transferred
directly to the Steez products, which are targeted to
dance enthusiasts with features designed for training,
rehearsing, and competing.

In the three car stereo systems, Pioneer is also
building a simpler version of Mixtrax technology to
automatically add three types of DJ-style transitions
(Flanger, Echo and Crossfade) and six sound effects
(Backspin 1 and 2, Echo, Trans, Roll and Scratch)
between songs.

Separately, Pioneer will offer an iPhone app that
creates playlists of iPhone-stored music for playback
with transition effects through Pioneer’s AppRadio
head unit, which uses the iPhone and its apps as
its primary source of A/V content and information.
The Mixtrax iPhone App accesses the Internet to
compare the songs stored in the iPhone to songs in
Pioneer’s music database to identify musical characteristics
and create custom playlists that can be
played back through the AppRadio.

In the two CD receivers, the illumination buttons
and display of the in-car CD receivers pulsate and
change color. Two defeatable illumination modes,
each with six color patterns, create different light effects.
Likewise, the Mixtrax-compatible car A/V receiver
uses its large LCD touchscreen to animate
the album art of the currently playing track in time
with the music.

Some of the products will ship in January.

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