A Disc Jockey is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. We find lots of people today moving towards unusual careers to earn their living. DJ profession is one of them. In fact, it is a modern day craze to be a DJ. It not only helps an individual earn his living, but also gives him the desired relaxation and comfort. So, we find lots of people working hard to establish themselves in this classy and trendy world. What are the tools that a budding DJ needs to have? The tools which give him the required experience/exposure and help him make it big! What are they? Here, we discuss the features, mixing effects, interfaces and online versions of various DJ software needed for a budding DJ.
1. Djay
Djay is a music mixing software developed and launched by a company named Algoriddim. It was released in the year 2007 and allows the users to indulge in playback singing apart from providing an opportunity to mix and synchronize tracks. On a whole, this software is a real time simulation of DJs two turntables and microphone (hardware). It offers an interactive and easy to learn interface enabling any new budding DJ to learn and implement the Dj-ing traits. It has an efficient mixer and lets the user create song libraries and playlists. It is compatible with MAC and IOS operating systems. Before the launch of its ‘main’ version, a trail version was launched which depicted all its major features. This gave it the required promotion and also helped it rectify all its issues and bugs (customer suggestions). This tactic helped it record enormous sales after its launch. In earlier days, DJ-ing was expensive, thanks to the hardware (necessity). People who had plans of pursuing DJ-ing as their career backed up unable to bare the DJ hardware expenses. But, after release of software like djay, everybody has an equal opportunity to pursue this particular career. Its features are flexible and provide an opportunity to both professionals and amateurs. It is just like a ‘piano’ and easy to ‘play’ and handle. It keeps beats/tunes locked and in sync perfectly. It provides the ‘two turntables’ for the digital world. It had an excellent response with its downloads reaching a number of 3 million. Critics called it a design with a purpose. People were greatly impressed by its simple yet powerful nature. They called it an all rounder, a complete package: learn, mix and enjoy.
2. Beatler
Beatler DJ software is related to a music website named Beatport. This software helps you to download/buy music from the website and then lets you work with the music to create your own DJ version. It has a download manager, tabs for browsing music and tabs for creating albums. It makes the user’s buying experience a joyride: simple, attractive and user friendly. This software also gives you a feature using which you can combine two music files without any interruptions/disturbances (smooth transition), add effects to the audio file at any instant (DJ effects like rock, stereo, classical edit) and save the final file in any desired format you want. The effects may also include addition of some other music to blend a new flavour (give the music a new flavour). It had a few interface problems which were rectified at later stages.
3. DJ – 1800
DJ -1800 is DJ mixing software used by many professional DJs and in various radio stations. It emulates real time DJ equipment and allows us to play sounds/music in various formats (MP3, AAC, MP4). Its features include cueing, positional searching, pitch shifting and bending. Its interface is a standard one and is user friendly. It has a fully fledged song mixer and allows us to manage our song collection and playlists. It calculates Beats per Minute (BPM) automatically and can be downloaded free of cost from the internet (open source). It is compatible with Windows, Intel and MAC operating systems. Its trial version is open source but the licensed version is a paid version (80$). It had a few technical glitches (software crash) immediately after its release. All these issues were sorted out effectively.
4. DJ Mixer Professional
DJ Mixer Professional is an audio mixing console used by Disc Jockeys. Its major features include cuing, easy transition between two songs and its ability to create DJ Mixes. The crossfader option is an added plus. It facilitates effective beatmatching and beatmixing. DJ Mix is a sequence of tracks sequentially mixed together to form one continuous track with various effects added. The effects include sampling, dynamic mix and real time play. It is a versatile tool which gives the user complete control over his/her media, enables one click match and sync, gives seamless loop functionality, high quality stretching, Karaoke effects and zip support. It supports MIDI and HID controllers and closely resembles real time mixing. However, there were a few performance glitches which were fixed as soon as they were bought to the notice of the developers.
5. AccuBeatMix
How much ever you try to excel the art of mixing songs on your own (without the use of any software, Movie maker), mixing is always left asking for ‘some more’. For budding DJs who are on course of learning the technical traits of DJing, AccuBeatMix provides an opportunity to explore the world of DJing and get their tracks right. This software helps the ‘DJs’ to choose songs for mix sensibly, enables sync of tracks accurately and sees to it that the transition is smooth. It has a volume slider to regulate the volume of transitions and also provides a few mixing effects. Though it can’t perform miracles, its sensible song selection suggestions (for mixing), its user friendly interface and simple mix features make it stand at No.5 position in our list. Its features include: Perfect Beat, Cross fading tracks, easy switch of tracks. However, it lacks a preference and a control panel. Presence of these could have made it the best.
6. Rapid Evolution
Rapid Evolution is a DJ tool that supports the following features: analyzed audio files, determine music properties (beats per minute, music key, beat intensity and ReplayGain), offers filter-search for musicians, DJs and music lovers. It is open source software and can be downloaded from the internet free of cost. It supports various audio formats: MP3, MP4, WAV, FLAC, OGG, AAC, APE; organizes music, provides music mix assistance by making use of metadata (suggests harmonically similar songs/ songs with similar style for mixing) and enables saving of compositions in desired format in a customized orderly fashion. Harmonic Mixing Technique eliminates out of tune songs getting mixed (songs which lack sync) and gives a hi-fi to songs with less BPM (beats per minute) difference. It supports all Operating systems with Java (most of the OS) and can be downloaded from Mixshare.com. Songs can be browsed online (server – Mixshare.com) and can be added to the software for mixing or to make desired editions.
7. Traktor Pro
Traktor Pro is DJ software developed by Native Instruments. Native instruments have also launched the related hardware which makes it a Complete DJ Mixing Package. It was first released in the year 2008 and has various professional DJ features. It offers infinite looping, auto beat gridding, advance beat detection, enables auto-sync of tracks, 4 channel mixer, equalizer and real time track management. Its features also include easy search and browsing options. It has automatic gain control and has an integrated recorder supporting various audio hardware and controllers (MIDI, advanced MIDI controllers). It runs effectively in various Operating systems: Windows, MAC OS. Its entire hardware interfaces offer ‘plug and play’ feature which make it very user friendly. Effects include several individual and chained effects.
8. UltraMixer Professional
UltraMixer Professional is DJ mixing software, its speciality being mixing/combination of heterogeneous music formats. Music in different formats (MP3, WMA, AAC, WAVs) can be mixed together easily. Music from real time CDs can also be added and mixed with music in some other format. Anybody can be a DJ with this software; the only requirements are a sound card and sound players/decks. Integrated FileArchive feature sees to it that files are instantly mixed and saved in the user’s desired format. Auto correction of file paths (playlists) is its most attractive feature. This software is mainly used for Automatic beatmatching, Automatic gain and loops. All these features give thumbs up for this software to feature in our list of 10 must have software for budding DJs. The disadvantage of this software: not available as an open source (228$).
9. Mixxx
Mixxx is digital mixing software that is specifically used for beatmatching. It is an open source and is available for free download on internet. The only thing he/she needs to have is a good computer system with sound/stereo facility. It was released for the first time in the year 2001. It supports various advanced systems/controllers and runs on all major operating systems. More than 100 programmers/developers and artists were involved in making of this software. This software supports all major audio formats (MP3, WAVE, AIFF, FLAC). There are plug-ins available to read all other formats. It supports ASIO, WASAPI and DirectSound audio hardware and MIDI, HID Audio controllers. It had a very warm reception in the market. It created a record by having the most number of downloads in first 48 hours of its release. It had more than a million downloads overall and has now become the Top Free App in USA.
10. Virtual DJ
Virtual DJ is an audio/video mixing software launched by Atomic Productions. Inc. It enables DJs to mix songs, remix them and present/play them in the desired fashion (as per ‘public’ taste). It comes in various editions: Home Edition, Broadcaster, Pro Full, Limited Edition and Pro Basic. This software supports lots of decks. Four Deck/Six Deck skins are included in any version of this software and offer video mixing and scratching. This software allows DJs to Scratch, Beatmatch and build up new tunes/versions. Users can download music/video from content providers which can be streamed directly to the user’s decks and the user can customize and mix stuff accordingly. A new feature added to this software is ‘MusicGroups’ wherein users can access the recently closed or saved tracks or history list (media). People can share their views about the existing tracks and give suggestions on song mixing on the Mini Blog page of this software. Licensed users can start their own single user or multi user groups. This software has a real time tracker which gives suggestions to the DJs on what to mix next/how to mix next (what options to be included) depending on real time DJ mixing market throughout the world and public tastes at the moment. This software has been developed using various coding languages like c++, XML and various high level scripting languages. This software is user friendly and any person with a computer system can be a DJ himself, thanks to this software’s great features, utility and quality.
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