Pioneer Premiers New Steez Line Of Modern Boomboxes
Pioneer has premiered the STEEZ line of boomboxes. These futuristic “portable entertainment” products are designed specifically for “the youthful, passionate and culturally diverse dance community.” (Now that’s certainly a narrow market niche! —Ed.) Offered in three models, the STZ-D10S-L Solo, STZ-D10T-G Duo and STZ-D10Z-R Crew, each STEEZ music system includes Pioneer’s MIXTRAX software that transforms a dancer’s music library into customizable tracks on a PC and makes it possible to change music tempo, set choreographed cue points, battle with friends, create smart playlists and more; all seamlessly on-the-fly via the STEEZ unit.
The STEEZ products offer features typically found in stand-alone mixing software or professional DJ equipment and brings it into an all-in-one portable music system designed exclusively for dancers.
Features:
» Tempo Control – All three STEEZ music systems let users change the tempo of the music without changing the pitch. Song tracks can play at slower or faster speeds, enabling dancers to follow along with the pace of the music without distorting the song’s characteristics.
» 8-Beat Skip – A standard for choreography, music analyzed by the MIXTRAX software is divided into eight counts, allowing users to skip forward and back by eight counts with the push of a button.
» Dance Cue – Eliminating the need to find a particular point in a track, users can set cue points to make playback begin at a desired spot in a piece of music extremely fast and easy.
» Auto DJ Mode – Each player offers non-stop music mix playback based on the genre organized by MIXTRAX. An entire music library is automatically categorized and grouped according to BPM, genre, etc., creating a mix based on the style of dance picked by the user.
» Dance Boost – The Dance Boost feature emphasizes specific instruments in a track such as the hi-hat and bass drum to make the beats more pronounced and easier to hear. This is ideal for training or teaching when used at low volume levels or in noisy (outdoor) environments.
» Remote Control – Each player also comes with an ultra-thin credit card-sized wireless remote that eliminates the need for users to run back and forth to the player.
STEEZ music systems also boast a cool Auto Battle Mode that enables users to automatically create a battle sequence, complete with a countdown timer on the player’s LCD screen and voice and tone prompts to signal when 10 seconds of music is left before switching to the next
user.
The Future: Aside from the stupid name, this lineup actually seems like a lot of fun. And if the Duo sounds half as good as it looks, they could have a real winner here!
Pioneer’s Solo ($299), Duo ($349), and Crew ($499) will all be available in November.
