Serato

Serato creates world-leading audio software for professional DJs and musicians. Serato is based in New Zealand and has partnerships with many highly regarded hardware, software, and record industry companies worldwide.

In 1997 Steve West, co-founder of Serato, was attending Auckland University and learning to play the bass guitar as a side interest. Steve wanted to slow down complicated bass solos in songs in order to hear each note and subsequently learn them. This resulted in a tool that could speed up and slow down any piece of audio (including the bass solos) without coloring and distorting the result. Conversely, it could also alter the tempo of a piece of audio without changing the pitch. Not only that, but it was all done in the time it took to make a cup of tea. Steve's good friend, A.J. Bertenshaw, co-founder of Serato, suspected that Steve was onto something, and despite Steve's eagerness to give this algorithm away for free, convinced him to take a shot at selling it. The rest, as they say, is history.

Serato has gone on to also revolutionize the DJ world with ongoing software innovations such as Scratch Live, which integrated with many different platforms to provide DJ's worldwide with cutting-edge tools to hone their craft.