Big Improvements To Serato In Latest Beta Releases

Serato has quietly rolled out the latest beta versions of Serato DJ Pro (2.4) and Serato DJ Lite (1.4), with a number of new features, including some that have been asked for for a long time. Here’s a list of what’s new:

• Beatport Link streaming – Almost all of the electronic music catalogue of Beatport is now available to stream in Serato DJ Lite and Pro. No offline locker, though, as of now
• Beatsource Link Streaming – Open-format DJs rejoice! Major label DJ-curated music from Beatsource Link is now also available in Serato DJ Lite and Pro. Again, you’ll have to wait for the offline locker
• Easier livestreaming – By enabling “make audio available to other applications” in the setup menu, Serato’s output can be selected as an input in other software such as OBS for streaming. Note this is a great way to record sets too on a third-party app like Audacity if you’re using streaming services, which means the usual record button will be disabled (note: only Serato DJ Pro)
• Use laptop speakers as master out – You can now opt to bypass your controller’s built-in sound card and just use the laptop speakers – great for those travel set practice sessions
• Improved Midi mapping – You can map more than one function to a single control. We haven’t checked yet to see if the modifier functions or pads can be remapped, but we suspect not or they’d have told us – but we will check!

First thoughts

It’s nice to see additions to the software that aren’t just compatibility with new controllers. We would like to see the Midi mapping changes we asked for in the final bullet point (assuming they’ve not been done), though.

Get the skills: Serato Made Easy course

We’d also like to see improvements to Serato Play – we know of many DJs turning out perfectly usable sets using that software (that lets you use Serato without a controller), but there is no way currently to DJ in “headphone split” mode which would mean you could DJ a full set with pre-cueing just in your headphones. That plus a cue/master mix knob would make Serato Play genuinely useful to so many more DJs.

Oh, and let’s have an “undo” function on the library, please, for those silly errors we all make when working on our tunes…

• The new betas are available now from the Serato website