Rekord Buddy, the program that helps DJs to convert their music libraries between Serato DJ, Traktor and Rekordbox, is now free and open source, the developer has announced today.
“As of today, October 9th 2020, Rekord Buddy is a free app and will become open source software before the end of the year, free for anyone to use and modify as they wish. Without revenue, I’ll continue to support and develop it more as a labour of love, but user support will be minimal and sporadic.” It was announced via post on the Rekord Buddy forum.
There is an FAQ over there for users of the software answering immediate questions and giving a timeline, and also a call for help to further develop the app.
Our thoughts
The developer says that “the restrictive walled garden approach to library management benefits only the industry … by selling Rekord Buddy as a product and then as a service, I’m profiting from the poor practices of the DJ industry, albeit in a bid to provide a solution to this bad practice”.
Fair enough, but we also believe that with other entrants in this field, it must have become increasingly difficult to make money from such a niche venture, and also that the considerable issues with playing cat and mouse with the software developers as they change and develop their systems cannot have been easy.
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(For instance, Rekord Buddy cannot convert libraries to or from Rekordbox 6 at present, which is typical of how changes can catch developers out).
Whatever the motivation or mix of motivations for this, we think this is a laudable move, and hope that the gamble pays off and that Rekord Buddy develops into an even more up to date, useful and disruptive app that genuinely helps DJs with this annoying task.
Phil Morse
