The Pioneer DJM-500 was Pioneer DJ’s first club mixer. Released in 1995 and sold until 2006, it brought beat-synced effects into the DJ booth and set the vertical four-channel layout that almost every club mixer still follows. It had real flaws, and it was the DJM-600 that followed which made Pioneer the industry standard, but none of that happens without the 500.
Cast your mind back to 1995. Blur and Oasis were squabbling over the top of the charts, the Ministry of Sound was four years into its reign on Gaunt Street, and the DJ booth looked nothing like it does today. Mixers came in all shapes and sizes, and very few of them…
