Sonabos: The future of hardware and software for electronic music performance
Rough Draft Ventures is excited to announce our investment in Sonabos, an MIT company building the future of hardware and software for DJs and EDM artists. Their first product is a pocket-size device, called SetSaver, that will keep the music playing even if the DJ’s audio equipment fails, saving the set and keeping the crowd dancing as though nothing happened. SetSaver works with nearly all commercially available mixers and DJ controllers and all sizes of sound systems, from college parties to the largest EDM festivals.
Sonabos co-founder David Couto has been DJing for more than four years, and came up with the idea for SetSaver based on his experiences with equipment failures while performing. “I was spinning at a party, and my good friend accidentally knocked a beer directly into my laptop keyboard that was controlling the music. The audio went out, and an hour of setting the mood was destroyed,” he clearly remembers. David’s co-founders and fellow MIT students Tom and John shared his passion for electronic music and audio products, and together they built the first Raspberry Pi-based prototype of the SetSaver system and joined MIT’s GFSA accelerator program in the summer of 2014. Reaching out to some of the most prominent DJs and venues in the Boston nightlife scene, the team quickly confirmed the market potential for SetSaver and began to secure pre-orders even before finalizing their design.
SetSaver works by detecting which songs the DJ is playing using technology similar to Shazam. If the audio output from the DJ booth cuts out mid-track, the device seamlessly steps in to keep the song playing or transitions to a new one as though nothing happened, giving the DJ time to fix the problem. As soon as sound from the booth is back, the device hands control back over to the DJ as smoothly as it stepped in. The SetSaver box connects in-line with the audio output cables, making it compatible with nearly all digital DJ software and hardware products on the market. This fusion of compact hardware and clever software is poised to quickly become every DJ and nightclub’s new favorite audio device.
Beyond helping DJs recover from equipment failures, the team’s long-term vision is to turn Sonabos into a platform on which further system-agnostic DJ software can be built. In addition to its creative set-saving technology, the device has the ability to simultaneously record performances. Future software updates could give the device further functionality such as additional audio effects, automatic lighting controls, and numerous other potential features. Ultimately, Sonabos seeks to join the ranks of the largest hardware and software manufacturers in the $6.2 billion electronic music industry, and here at Rough Draft we’re very excited to support them along the way.
