Pulselocker Folds: Is Streaming In DJ Software Over?

Author: Dan White DJ TechTools

We’ve just gotten tipped off that streaming service Pulselocker has been quietly telling its customers today that they are shutting down operations. The service abruptly went down today and sent out notifications to all of their customers – without any previous notice. Keep reading for what we know so far.

So Long, Pulselocker

Despite relaunching in late 2015, gaining built-in integration in Serato, Rekordbox, and Virtual DJ, and building their own iOS app earlier this year, the service has come to a close. Here’s the email sent out to all of Pulselocker Customers about an hour ago – concurrent with a complete stop in service.

Dear Pulselocker Customer,

It is with an incredibly heavy heart that we have to send this message. As of today, November 10th, 2017, Pulselocker is ceasing operations.

Six years ago we set out to provide a unique service to the DJ community—we believe we succeeded in providing something truly revolutionary that was well received by all of you. Due to a combination of market circumstances and financial constraints, we must re-organize our current structure if we are to successfully serve you in the future. After exhaustively searching for alternatives, we have made the extremely hard decision to shut down our operations.

We realize this news comes incredibly fast and we are truly sorry for the inconveniences this may cause. Thank you from the very bottom of our hearts for the support you’ve shown Pulselocker and our deepest apologies for the speed and inconvenience of this announcement.

We will continue to search for ways to bring the service back to you in a bigger and better way. We are proud of the community that rallied behind our technology and thank you for your support and patronage.

Sincerely,

The Pulselocker Team

Sadly, instead of sunsetting the product naturally and allowing users to migrate or find new solutions, the company shut down their service today as well. If you’re were DJ relying on using the service this weekend, you’re screwed. Some Reddit users are even reporting that they were just charged their regular monthly subscription as recently as yesterday:

At time of press, Pulselocker hasn’t responded to a request for details about their shutdown. They have posted the above letter to customers on their official status page.

Editor’s Update: Wow. Some customers really in a lurch as a result:

The End Of The Streaming Experiment – For Now?

What’s incredible is that the industry seemed to really stand behind Pulselocker. Adding integration into Serato DJ and Pioneer DJ’s Rekordbox software would have taken serious negotiations. These two companies would likely have made a serious assessment about how much work integration would have taken – and not added the service without relative confidence. Now they’ll have to remove the integration – and it will likely mean less trust in future streaming services that crop up.

For Virtual DJ, this makes the second streaming service that their users have lost access to in just a few months. Spotify became unavailable in Virtual DJ in mid-September.

Do you see any hope for the DJ streaming library future? Share your thoughts in the comment section.