Dropbox, Beatsource & Flexible Beatgrids Arrive For Denon DJ Prime

Users of Denon DJ’s standalone DJ gear can now enjoy Dropbox personal cloud integration, Beatsource Link streaming, and fully flexible beatgrids, with today’s launch of Engine Prime 1.6 public beta.

The release means that DJs can use Engine Prime 1.6 software on their Mac or PC to sync crates and playlists to Dropbox, complete with track analysis info, and can also add 100% accurate beatgrids to practically all tracks – even if the track BPMs change completely mid-song.

Meanwhile, the new Engine OS 1.6 firmware means that when spinning, DJs can access their Dropbox-synced music, complete with all track analysis information, from any Denon DJ Prime device, anywhere in the world (as long as there is internet, of course).

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The addition of Beatsource Link, the sister streaming service to Beatport Link which is already supported on the devices, means DJs who play a more commercial open format sound now have access to a streaming DJ music service built just for them when spinning on Denon DJ gear.

In addition to the above, Denon DJ Prime 4 users now get the Track Preview “needle drop” feature that didn’t arrive for them with the last update, bringing their hardware into line with the rest of the Prime range.

• You can obtain the Engine Prime 1.6 and Engine OS 1.6 public betas as of today, from the Denon DJ forum.

First thoughts

Here are some first thoughts having played with the new features:

• This personal cloud implementation is free, unlike with Pioneer DJ… Music in a personal cloud will be huge in years to come, especially with 5G around the corner. Denon DJ is not charging a subscription for this – Pioneer DJ is (plus, the Pioneer DJ implementation currently only works with Rekordbox on a laptop)
• Currently, you cannot download your full Dropbox library to the unit – We want to see this implemented (especially as for Dropbox to work, you do need some kind of storage plugged in to the Prime anyway, such as a USB, SD or hard drive). It’ll currently download tracks song-by-song, but hey, it’s your music! You should have the choice to batch this job

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• Beatsource Link is a cool addition, but… – it will be all the better when DJcity and Beatport – the partners in Beatsource Link – manage to get DJ edits into it (currently, it’s mainly radio versions, general release versions etc. of tracks). Also, the “offline locker” doesn’t work – this needs to be implemented if DJs are to use this function seriously
• Having fully flexible beatgridding is awesome – Not only can you add anchor points to correct drifting BPMs as before, but now you can indicate where the BPM changes entirely in tracks. This brings Engine to the top of the pack when it comes to DJ software beatgridding

Overall, we’re impressed with the speed of work going on over at Engine DJ to support the Denon DJ Prime hardware, which bodes well for the future of this tech, as software has frequently been called out as a weak spot with Denon DJ gear.