Test System: djay v3 on 2.4Ghz Macbook Pro with 4Gb RAM and OS X 10.6.1
Introduction
Software is now officially part our DJ life, be it simple Flash loopers, DVSs or full on production suites. How and when you use that software is entirely down to your needs and preference, but one thing holds true - people want to DJ on their computer.
This on the whole hasn't been a very DJ like experience, eschewing the popular metaphor and becoming very much like a software interface. Decks are replaced with waveforms and playlists squeezed down into a tiny space. But Algorridim has revisited DJ software and have taken it back to a much more DJ like experience. And embracing the graphical power and multi-touch goodness of the OS X platform, have created djay - software that not only looks like regular djing, but also feels like it too.
Djay has now matured into v3, going beyond its basic but ultra Mac friendly roots into a
fully fledged DJ application - but its still standing out from the crowded market with because of the unique approach it takes.
First Impressions
I'm so used to opening up DJ software and seeing something that looks just like Traktor. Waveforms at the top, oodles of controls shoehorned in underneath and the library taking up the bottom space. It's hugely refreshing to see a graphical representation of real decks for a change. The screen is broken up into 3 parts: deck and mixer, extra controls and library, all of which scale and resize beautifully when clicking and dragging. Let's break it down.
The Library
Being entirely Mac based, and almost all Mac users slavishly using iTunes, integration is very tight between djay and iTunes. As most people probably use playlists, that is djay's first port of call, and shows all smartlists, custom playlists as well as iTunes default lists too. But there's also a few handy dropdowns do you can locate albums, artists, genres, composers across all of iTunes too.
Once you start looking through playlists, you get a lot more info about the songs. You get columns for artist, (track) name, BPM, album, genre, year, grouping, time, composer, comments, rating, date added and track number - and you can sort your playlist by clicking the column header as well, as well as define which of these columns you want to see on screen.
It does also seem that you can only read from the library on your Mac rather than seeing all your devices. So no iPods, iPhones or external devices for you in djay I'm afraid.
Upon opening djay, I did worry that the library was incredibly cramped and quite hard to use. But I discovered that the whole window not only completely scales, but also allows you to drag the middle bar on the fly to effectively minimise the decks and give over the main part of the screen to the library. You can also completely hide the libraryIt's a neat touch.
IDEA: How about being able to turn the columns on and off without having to go 2 menus deep? And perhaps artwork too?
But like any other DJ software, much of the successful usage is down to preparation, and djay is no exception. Proper playlisting is one part, but djay also lets you analyse tracks for gain, BPM and to create beat grids for perfect loops, effects integration and and sync mixing. Analysis can be done on the fly, but a better approach is to analyse playlists before use. I did detect some slight weirdness with BPM analysis on some tracks, like some Drum and Bass being half the BPM it should be, and the library listing tracks by BPM in an odd 2-step speed order. Minor issues really, especially as BPM can be manually tapped in anyway.
The Decks
Only real turntables will do here. These are actual spinning platters complete with strobe lights that respond to pitch changes too. You can even add a tape marker or use your own custom vinyl image. It's like custom slipmats but you can actually see them. You also get the option to have ID3 artwork on the label or the whole vinyl too (like a picture disk), as well as having the track time (clickable between elapsed and remaining), artist and track name right above the deck.
The tonearm is moveable as well needle drop style. It's not especially accurate though and is merely a rough approximation - no waveform display to show the highs and lows here. This is very much about replicating the use of real decks, even down to on/off switches and spin up/down speed and a reverse switch too. The attention to detail is high.
IDEA: I know it's stupid and completely unecessary, but how about options on decks and cart brands? A possible sponsorship opportunity to increase Algoriddim revenue?
The decks also have a feature rich pitch set too. Although the slider itself is only 1" long on screen, the resolution is still 0.01% and has switchable ranges of 8, 16, 25, 50 and 75%. But the gem here is key locking, which is keeping the key of the song the same while adjusting the speed (brilliant tool for pitching bending without the awful up and down warbling). You can adjust the quality of the end result depending on the power of your processor as well.
IDEA: Pitch range selector on screen would be a great help, as well as the ability to accurately set the speed numerically.
Having used many hardware and software equivalents, djay's keylocking is phenomenal. Speeding up usually gets good results on all systems, as you're removing audio to shorten the audio, but slowing down beyond 20% is normally the very maximum that software can handle as it has to create what isn't there. Not so with djay - even at -50%, the quality is amazing. Both geeky thumbs up from me for this.
The Mixer
Replicating a mixer to scale would see the controls being too tiny to use so the controls properly so they've been made big enough to see and use on screen. It's an unusual layout, more akin to a regular mobile dual head player, but everything is laid out logically. The cross fader sits in the middle and has a 3 way curve control between fully linear (i.e. centre dip) all the way to instant cut. Either side of the fader are the channel fader (fully linear) with meters and a tiny pan control below them.
3 band EQ with +/- 12dB EQ rests either side of those. The EQs don't quite kill, but when you're talking about laptop DJing with such affordable software, we're not talking about the finer points of EQing here.
IDEA: Given that fader EQs aren't that common, how about an option to switch to rotary EQ on screen?
There doesn't however seem to be a master level inside djay itself. I guess that can be handled by the system volume. But better still is to use an audio interface so you can properly monitor your music and output to a sound system too. Thankfully, djay recognises all such interfaces and allows you to configure channels to suit. Nice.
Looping Panel
Each deck has a single loop feature. Assuming that the BPM has been analysed correctly, pressing the measure button automatically creates an instant loop to the length of the measure on the button. this can be expanded up to 32 beats or down to 1/8 beats. And if you haven't analysed your BPM, you can also manually create loops with the in and out buttons. But I do strongly advise analysis as this feature works a lot better if you do.
This is a really useful and impressive feature that works perfectly if the track analysis has done its job right, and is great for messing around with doubles.
IDEA: Can we please have down to 1/32 beats please.
Cue Point Panel
Equating to the turntablist art of stickering is the cue points panel. You get 3 per deck that can be saved for future use as well. You set each one in the panel, and they appear as a coloured dot on the vinyl which is a really nice touch. Jumping to the cue points can be done on screen, or like just about everything else inside djay, via the keyboard. You can also add start and end poits too, which can get djay to automatically start from when loading a track or automixing.
In practice, I found hitting cues perfectly whie playing a little hard - just the slightest of delay so that hard drum beats lost the first milliseconds. If you work manually and move the wheel to the right point, it works solidly. Again, this underlines the importance of preparation.
IDEA: Perhaps some control can be added that adjusts the manual tapping of the cue point to be +/- a few milliseconds, or maybe locks to the analysed beat grid.
Transition Panel
For most people, moving the on-screen faders is how you'll move from track to track. But if you decide to shake things up a little, you can have a little more than regular fades and can pick from a list including backspin, echo, brake and reverse. And you can have djay apply the transitions at random too, and up to a length of 15 seconds on 0.5 second increments.
FX Panel
Standard in DJ software these days are effects, and djay gives you 3 per deck:
Pitch: This keeps the speed the same but shifts the pitch in one note increments.
Echo: Based on the BPM, this can apply echo from 1/64 beats to 4 beat measures.
Reverb: Club, hall, arena and room settings.
What's great here is that you can apply them all at once, and each has a full wet/dry control too.
But being Apple, you also get the wide and wonderful world of Apple Audio Unit effects too - and these are something to be reckoned with. I'm not going into details as it's really quite geeky, but I show you the detail of one particular audio unit, you'll get the idea:
Indeed - they're very powerful. And you can apply them per deck and on top of the djay internal effects too. They are however pre-fader effects.
Microphone
Appealing to the more mobile nature of djay, you also get a microphone input too. You get the same level of control over it as you do other channels, but it is a separate channel and can't be routed through the crossfader. It can act as a third deck if you so choose as you can define the mic input to any audio interface you choose.
Sampler
This review keeps throwing up surprises the deeper I dig. I wasn't even aware that djay has a sampler. And I mean sampler, not just a sample player. You can grab a sample from the decks or microphone or load some in from your own collection (I hear airhorn is quite popular…). But it's not just a matter of a simple drop, you can also loop the samples, reverse them, change speed and volume too. And they play over whatever you happen to be playing too.
With just a little more polish, this could be a very serious tool in djay's arsenal.
History
Isn't it annoying when you've rocked a really good set but have no idea what you rocked? Well djay saves a history for you. It's nothing more than a list of played tracks in the correct order with the elapsed time, but you can export it as a PDF, or better still as an iTunes playlist.
Recording
You could always record directly out of the audio interface, but djay allows you to record internally as well. The recording is done on the master output and can be saved in 3 qualities: good (.m4a 1Mb/min), high (.aif 2.7Mb/min) and best (.aif 10Mb/min). Not much more to be said about it really other than the recordings sound great and don't glitch either.
I may as well add a note about performance here. On my 4Gb 2.4ghz Macbook Pro, djay barely made a dent on the performance. In normal performance, the processor hit around 4%. But even when hammering djay, with internal effects, audio units, samples and recording, djay barely hit 16%.
Hands-on
Having used Traktor-like programs for a long time now, going back to a more hands on DJ-like experience on screen is an adjustment to say the least. Djay offers full keyboard control over most features, but also makes a big deal about multi-touch gestures i.e. single and multiple fingers on suitably equipped trackpads. Using 2 or 3 fingers while hovering over controls does different things. Over the platters for example, 2 fingers makes it scratch whereas 3 fingers does spinbacks. It's a highly imprecise method of control, but with practice, you may well get better at it.
There is however a new scratch feature in djay called auto-cut. It's not unlike Vestax's Samurai fader technology or a gate effect
that esssentially cuts the sound on and off while you move the platter back and forth while holding down shift. Yeah I know it won't make you into Qbert, but it's a nice effect. I think I'd like to see it incorporated as an effect as well.
IDEA: How about an iPhone app for control?
If using your laptop exclusively doesn't appeal, djay now accepts MIDI learn so that you can assign control over to your favourite MIDI hardware. I tried this with a Vestax VCI-300 and Denon DN-S1200, and got great results - except for the jogwheels. This is an area the algoriddim will have to do some extra work to ensure full compatibility, but now you can at lest grab any old MIDI controller and remove the reliance on mouse and keyboard actions.
Generally speaking though, djay feels much more like conventional vinyl DJing that computer spinning. Having a very graphical representation of decks and a mixer, along with features like instant doubles for quick mixing makes this much more engaging that just hitting keys.
Automix
Having laid out that djay offers you a heap of tools to keep a crowd happy, and that you can hook up a couple of very capable Vestax controllers, you can also completely switch off and have djay acts as little more than an automatic jukebox. Automix simply trawls through your predefined collection and transitions from track to track using the presets in the transition panel. This can be from a playlist or totally at random.
But should you
want to deviate away from your preset list, there's also the automix queue for you to simply drop tracks (like a request) and going back to the playlist.
Automix doesn't mean beat matching, but simply means unattended DJing for the lazy or simply weak of bladder. But with careful planning, you can put together quick a slick automix, especially if using sync with predefined start points. I know it's not like having Fat Boy Slim in your living room, but for a relatively unattended play, it's quite good.
Broadcasting
Now before you get too excited, this isn't a Shoutcast style internet broadcasting thing, but is in fact via Apple's Bonjour networking. As the above box says, you can send or receive mixes across your Bonjour LAN from inside djay. In all honesty, it's nice to djay uses all that Apple has to offer, but I'm not really seeing the usefulness of such a feature, other than broadcasting to your workmates.
That said, djay does integrate with Rogue Amoeba's Nicecast - a fully featured broadcast suite. You could create your own radio station simply by making a suitable playlist in djay, set it to automix and send it to the world via Nicecast. More info here.
Summing Up
Clearly djay is a breath of fresh air and an antidote to the me too traktorlikes out there. And even though the end result of djay use is much the same, the process is entirely different and much more like a traditional DJ does. This should enable people to perhaps appreciate the DJ's skill a little more rather than just pressing the sync button. I found it especially cool for putting together Hip Hop mixes with Beat Junkie style doubles rocking - all ultra clean and precise.
Djay has a solid feature set that goes beyond the $50 price tag, but might just take a little bit of getting used to. But it does work, and work well. If you want a good starting place for a very mac-centric DJ experience, there's none better than djay.
Sound Quality
Like anything digital, it depends on the source more than anything. But even on a standard MP3 with internal and Apple unit effects applied, djay gave a solid reproduction.
Features & Implementation
Being very Mac based makes this graphically rich from the start. And the experience is closer to tradtional DJing than laptop spinning.
Value For Money
For $50, there's not much to touch it. The effects, looping and keylocking in particular are really good.
I Like...
• The interface
• Looping
• Effects
• MIDI learn
• The price
But not so keen on...
• The accuracy of the hot cues
The Bottom Line
If you own a Mac and want to try out DJing in the most cost effective way before investing in hardware, or simply want a very Maclike DJing experience, djay is for you.
