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Spreaker DJ For iPad Review

Spreaker DJ for iPad

Spreaker is a new broadcast app for DJs that allows them to construct complete radio shows from little more than just an iPad.

Have you ever considered doing online radio broadcasting? In this age where DJs need to try harder and harder to stand out from the crowd, one way to differentiate yourself in order to get more gigs could be to run a regular radio show. Not a live mix, but a “proper” show, with chat, music and so on – like an EDM round-up for your town, for instance.

Of course, this being 2013, there’s no need to have access o radio studio any more for any of this. Spreaker DJ for iPad lets you put together and broadcast your own radio show, live, using little more than the iPad and a microphone. Let’s take a closer look…

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Love Serato, Hate iTunes? Meet Alchimie Zinc

Alchimie Zinc review

File management is never going to be exciting, but if you use a Serato DJ program but hate iTunes, Alchimie Zinc could save you a lot of time.

If you use Serato ITCH, Serato Scratch Live, or Serato DJ Intro, but you don’t use iTunes to organise your music, Alchimie Zinc For Serato program could save you a lot of time when you’re organising your music.

It solves a basic issue whereby Serato doesn’t recognise your hard drive’s folder structure. This means you have to set up all your crates and sub-crates again from within Serato to reflect how you keep your music on your hard drive. You also have to put any new tunes in two places every time you add to, rearrange or delete from your collection.

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Beginner DJs’ Guide: How To Rip CDs to iTunes Properly

MP3 encoder window

The MP3 Encoder window: Get these settings right and your newly ripped MP3s will sound great.

If you’re a new digital DJ, you probably have lots of music on CD that you’d like to rip to iTunes in order to use in your DJ sets. You’ll only do this once, though, and so it’s important that you get all the settings right for success. It’s also important that you understand a few of the things you’re doing along the way.

So here’s our quick guide to help you to rip your CDs and get the music safely into your computer ready to start DJing with. We’re going to rip to MP3 at the highest possible quality, which is going to be good enough for most DJs here.

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Over To You: Help With Broadcasting DJ Mixes On Ustream

Ustream

Ustream: A favourite for DJs to broadcast live mixes on.

Reader Miguel from Chicago, USA writes: “I host an online DJ mix show. I use a laptop to stream to Ustream. DJs bring their own laptops to mix music for the show.

“Several DJs would like to VJ on our show. How do I capture their video from their laptops and get it into my laptop to broadcast on Ustream? Is it possible? Our goal is to have a picture-in-picture window broadcasting on Ustream, with the main window displaying the music video and the small window show the DJ mixing.”

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Free DJ BPM Counter For Your Mac or PC

BPM counter

A free browser, Mac or PC BPM counter.

Here’s a free, tiny program for PC or Mac that will let you find out the beat of any song you happen to be listening to, by duplicating the “tap BPM” function of nearly all DJ software.

Unsurprisingly called “Tap BPM”, it is simplicity itself – you open the program and tap any key as you’re listening along to your music, and it reports the BPM back at you.

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Review: Stanton Scratch DJ Academy MIX!

Stanton Mix! review - main screen

Stanton Mix! lets you plan a mixtape, mix by mix, recording the results only when you're happy.

Scratch DJ Academy MIX! is an intriguing new piece of DJ software from Stanton, the company that made a legendary reputation for itself through its DJ record deck cartridges, but which has recently been releasing innovative DJ products such as its SCS.1, SCS.3 and forthcoming SCS.4 DJ digital controllers, as well as a range of DJ turntables including the heavyweight contender, the STR8.150.

MIX! is aimed at beginners or those dabbling with DJing who want to make mixtapes rather than perform live. As such, it is in the same ballpark as software such as Mixmeister and Mixtape. Rather than doing your mixing in real time, with Mix! you work on your mix to get it right before finalising it.

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Your Questions: Can My Mixtrack Pro Work With Traktor Pro 2?

Mixtrack Pro Traktor Pro 2

The Mixtrack Pro 2: Comes with Virtual DJ LE in most of the world, but you can use it with Traktor too. Here's how...

Reader Arjun from New Delhi, India, writes: “I just ordered my first controller, the Mixtrack Pro, which ships with Virtual DJ. Though it is a great software, I was wondering if there is a Traktor 2 mapping available for the same. Since I am a beginner DJ, I won’t really require four decks at the beginning, but I would still like the flexibility of using Traktor 2 and Virtual DJ, since I am adept at using both the softwares.

Can I do that? What will I need to do if i want to switch my software when I want?

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Over To You: What’s The Best Software For Mobile DJs?

PCDJ OOVJ

PCDJ's OOVJ video DJing system costs thousands... but what is the best mainstream DJ software for mobile?

Reader DJ Malarkey writes: “I have been a DJ since 1983 (you can imagine :D ) and now as a mobile DJing business owner I ask my DJs what software they like to use (since all of them use laptops for their shows).

“They all like something different, and that’s OK to me – I am a ‘whatever works for you’ kind of guy. Do you feel the same way, and what are your suggestions and opinions with regards to software and the mobile DJ?”

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djay for iPad 1.2 Launched: Adds Power Features For iPad 2 Users

Hitting the app store today is the latest version of djay for iPad, specially optimised for the new dual-core iPad 2.

djay for iPad 1.2 takes advantage of the extra power available, bringing keylock / timestretching to the software for the first time and delivering improved beat analysis and looping features.

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Preview & Video: Stanton Scratch DJ Academy MIX! Software

There’s a new kid on the block in the DJ software world, with Stanton Scratch DJ Academy MIX! due for imminent launch.

Rather than entering the crowded DJ controller software/live performance market, Stanton has partnered with the Scratch DJ Academy to target the less crowded mix automation arena. Watch the promo video above, and read on for more…

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New Beatport: A Major Leap Forward For Buying Digital Music?

Beatport Announcement

As the biggest and most influential player in DJ downloads, anything Beatport does to its store can have a significant effect on the overall music discovery and buying experience for the whole post-record shop generation.

Set up in 2004, Beatport is easily the most successful specialist DJ digital music store, with plenty of exclusive releases along with the thousands of tracks released each year.

The website regularly underlines its importance as a music discovery tool for digital DJs by hosting stages at events across the US, including at the Winter Music Conference in Miami.

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Review: DJ-Tech VTT-101 Mini USB Scratch Controller

DJ-Tech VTT-101 Review

DJ-Tech VTT-101: A neat little controller aimed squarely at scratch DJs, but is it up to the job?

Are you looking for a simple way to add real deck control to your digital DJ set-up? Maybe you’re a laptop DJ who just wants to be able to scratch over your laptop-controlled music, or you’re a DJ who is happy with his current DJ controller but wants to liberate one of the extra decks offered by your current software…

If this sounds like you, you might be interested in the intriguing little VTT-101 from DJ-Tech. We took a closer look…

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Review & Video: Emulator Multi-Touch DJ Midi Software

Emulator for Traktor

Emulator for Traktor: Does this touch-screen overlay for Traktor show the way forward for digital DJing?

There has been plenty of hype about Emulator, a multi-touch overlay for Traktor Pro that was first brought to most people’s attention last year, when its presentation on a big glass panel wowed a lot of DJs.

Today I’m going to answer the question that many people asked at the time, and have been asking since: Is this really the future of DJing?

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Over To You: Do You VJ Using A DJ Midi Controller?

VJing with Virtual DJ.

VJing with Virtual DJ.

Reader Ned writes: “A DJ friend of mine has decided to venture into VJing and has been stumped as to which way to go forward. Currently he has a MacBook Pro and an M-Audio Xponent Torq controller that uses Traktor, and it cannot mix videos.

“He was thinking of going the Serato Scratch way and getting a TTM57 and two decks but this would defeat the whole purpose of going small on set-up and having a controller. So my questions are as follows: Is there any controller that can mix videos? And is there any software that he can use with his Xponent to mix videos on his Mac, saving him the hassle of selling the Xponent and getting another controller?”

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Get djay for iPhone & iPod Touch Today For Under $1!

djay for iPhone

djay for iPhone and iPod Touch is the most realistic looking and feeling DJ app yet for iOS.

Couldn’t resist telling you about this one. If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, the 4.5/5-rated DJing application, djay – which we’ve covered in it’s Mac, iPad and this iPhone/iPod Touch versions over the past year – is now available with a 90% discount for only US$0.99/£0.59.

If you have any music at all on your iPhone (personally I sync my smart playlist of my current DJ set so I can carry around my “box” for a quick mix at all times), you owe it to yourself to have a DJ app on there – and at this price, you really can’t go wrong with djay.

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MixVibes U-Mix Control Pro DJ Console with Cross DJ 1.5 – Review & Video

U-Mix Control Pro review

The U-Mix Control Pro is a well-made, compact and fun-to-use controller. So is it worth your serious consideration?

French company MixVibes is one of the smaller digital DJ companies, but is well-respected in Europe and especially in its native France. The company has MixVibes Cross DJ as its flagship software product, and now it has a controller to go with it – the U-Mix Control Pro. (Incidentally, there’s iPad remote control software on the way too – we’ll review that too when we get our hands on it…)

When you buy the controller, you also get the full version of the software – no “light” edition, and so no need to then go and invest in a full-priced version or an expensive upgrade to unlock important features, as happens with some DJ controllers. Let’s look at the package as a whole…

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Musikmesse 2011: Your Must-See Guide To What’s New In Digital DJing

The Pioneer DJM-T1

The Pioneer DJM-T1 two-channel Traktor Scratch mixer is given its first public outing at the Musikmesse show.

Frankfurt’s Musikmesse / Pro Sound & Light show is the biggest music fair in the world. In among the bassoons and concert PA systems, just about every DJ equipment manufacturer and software house has their latest wares on show. We spent three days there to check out all that’s new and good.

We’ve already covered Serato ITCH 2.0, the Novation Twitch controller and the DJ-Tech 4Mix prototype, but here’s our round-up of the rest of the products that caught our eye this week.

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Serato ITCH 2.0: New Look, New Features

Serato ITCH 2.0

Serato ITCH 2.0. If it looks familiar, that's because the software has borrowed many of its features from Serato Scratch.

Serato has shown its ITCH 2.0 DJ controller software off to Digital DJ Tips for the first time, here at the Musikmesse show in Germany. And we can report that it bring many of the features of Serato Scratch into the platform for the first time, considerably beefing up its abilities in a number of areas including file handling, appearance, sample decks and syncing.

Serato may have felt a bit of pressure to pull something out of the bag, and maybe it’s no surprise that this comes hot on the heels of Traktor Pro 2, which with its new coloured waveforms now has more appeal to Serato ITCH users than ever before.

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