Kontrol-Dj is a one-man company funded in 2003. My name is Luis Serrano and this is my history:
Around the year 2000, I worked as a DJ in my city during the weekends, my setup was not standard because I was using a computer and my collection of songs in MP3 format via some prehistoric audio programs. I was really excited about the potential of using computers for the DJing art but, at the same time, I felt a little bit limited using only a mouse/keyboard combo. I needed to have more control over my audio programs, but there wasn't anything in the market, so that, I started to design and build my own computer DJ hardware controllers.
In 2003, and after many prototypes, I thought that I could help to other digital DJs with my tools and Kontrol-Dj company was funded for this purpose. The first controller model named "KDJ-500" was released to the public the same year and it started to reach some popularity in 2004. It was the first commercial DJ MIDI controller in the world.
Around 1000 units of the "KDJ-500" were manufactured with my own hands and with the help of my family and friends in a small room of my house. It was a really crazy period and an accelerated course in product development. Slowly the rest of DJ hardware companies started to follow the digital DJ movement and at the end of 2006 all the big companies in the industry were releasing DJ controllers.
In 2007 I started to work as lead software developer for Image-Line company in "Deckadance" DJ software project. After all my hardware experience I was in the other side of the game... professional software development for DJs. I did more hardware controller designs in 2008, they introduced the modular concept for DJ MIDI controllers instead of the more usual "all in one" design. In 2013 "Deckadance 2" was released with a new design and a lot of innovative new features. I also designed some capacitive multi-touch screens for DJ controllers in 2013.
After 20 years I just continue pursuing the goal of improving the tools used by thousands of digital DJs all over the world. There are a lot of things that can be improved and new areas to explore. I hope to be able to contribute with my experience in hardware and software development in this field for the coming years.