Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets

musicweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 138 posts

Re: DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets

#121

Post by Shorel »

genewitch wrote: post #107
sollewitt wrote: post #16

Djay’s killer feature is algorithmic stem extraction. The streaming audio services that have integration (Tidal, now Apple Music) don’t allow this processing. It’s an arbitrary technical limitation that I suspect is rooted in a licensing agreement from the rights holders. tl;dr this is great for playing with sequencing, but a lot of modern djays will want to be able to do stem separation even when exploring, and live…

Does it stem in real time? That is can you use it to do karaoke on an arbitrary song as it streams ?

Stemming takes about 15 seconds for a 3 minute song. And most DJ software downloads the entire song in a few seconds, then generates the display waveforms, and so on, and then you can play the song.

So "realtime" and "streaming" don't really apply, because the files download and process fast enough.

Re: DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets

#122

Post by crtasm »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #112
crtasm wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is none of the streaming services integrated into DJ software cover licences for public performance. Just as you don't get that when buying a track from beatport etc.

It specifically says on the Apple page [1] "sculpt your sets directly from Apple Music before you perform ... for DJs at any level ..." That can only realistically mean that you're paying for something to perform with. Otherwise it would be an incitement to copyright infringement... Does Beatport say "Tracks for you to perform with as a DJ"? If not, I can't really see how the comparison works. Apple Music even existi…

It continues "Think of it as a sketch pad or a rehearsal space, a home for DJs of any level to master their craft and shape their future sets."

I agree Apple (and other services DJ software is integrating) are misleading people.

Re: DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets

#123

Post by crtasm »

crtasm wrote: post #86
sowbug wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works with FLAC; in fact, that's preferred, because you want to start with the best available quality.

Could anyone comment on how its stems separation compares to VirtualDJ?

A genuine question about the software being discussed, no call for downvotes.

Re: DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets

#124

Post by crtasm »

input_sh wrote: post #115
genewitch wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it stem in real time? That is can you use it to do karaoke on an arbitrary song as it streams ?

When you import a track to your collection, it does the processing. So, not completely in real time, but it only takes like a minute of background processing before it's ready. Virtually all DJ software has this as a feature nowadays, but of course, results vary. It's like the next "big thing", very few DJ controllers on the market right now have dedicated buttons for it, but that's about to change.

With a GPU stems take seconds to generate, it happens on the fly when I load a file and the track can begin playing immediately while its running.

Re: DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets

#125

Post by crtasm »

butlike wrote: post #104
tarentel wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's all you want you can very easily do this with a cheap mixer and two devices capable of streaming.

I just want to do this in-app, on the bus/train/car. I'd even be willing to pay more for the subscription

It would be a good feature. I wonder if you could run two copies of the app on android and split screen them.

Re: DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets

#126

Post by belthesar »

sowbug wrote: post #9

I steer clear of Apple products, but I've still had a lot of fun in this space thanks to DJ Studio ( https://dj.studio/ ), a desktop app that helps make offline (rather than real-time) mixes. I use it to make a monthly personal mixtape, which is a nice way to remember what I used to listen to. They call it a "DAW for DJs," which is accurate. I especially admire the team that makes it. The CEO records demo videos that…

Interesting! This product looks to be the spiritual successor to MixMeister Fusion, another app that I used to use to make offline mixes back in the mid-late 2000’s.

Re: DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets

#127

Post by dialup_sounds »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #111
dialup_sounds wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is different. This allows DJ software to utilize Apple Music as a library. You would still need DJ software to actually make a mix. However, for your use case, if you're already using Apple Music, you can set start and end points on individual tracks (Get Info on the track, Options). This is nondestructive, but not specific to the playlist so you'd have to turn it off again to hear the full track, and your expor…

Am I reading right, a new product has only 'burn to CD' as a way to listen offline? Haven't had a CD player in the house for a decade or more. Why not just cut a wax cylinder?

It's not a new product. The functionality I'm talking about dates from when Apple Music was iTunes.

You can listen to the playlist offline just fine. I just mean you can't export a playlist of trimmed tracks as audio (e.g. "My Mixtape.m4a") from within Apple Music. If you sometimes want to hear the full track and sometimes want to hear the trimmed tracks as a mixtape, then it's not a good solution. But if you just want to cut a 5 minute intro or 20 minutes of "hidden track" silence then it's there.

Re: DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets

#128

Post by genewitch »

input_sh wrote: post #115
genewitch wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it stem in real time? That is can you use it to do karaoke on an arbitrary song as it streams ?

When you import a track to your collection, it does the processing. So, not completely in real time, but it only takes like a minute of background processing before it's ready. Virtually all DJ software has this as a feature nowadays, but of course, results vary. It's like the next "big thing", very few DJ controllers on the market right now have dedicated buttons for it, but that's about to change.

i've been using "AI/ML" to stem songs for something like 7 years, i was wondering if the state of the art allowed streaming stems yet or not.

"next big thing" heh

Re: DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets

#129

Post by genewitch »

Shorel wrote: post #121
genewitch wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it stem in real time? That is can you use it to do karaoke on an arbitrary song as it streams ?

Stemming takes about 15 seconds for a 3 minute song. And most DJ software downloads the entire song in a few seconds, then generates the display waveforms, and so on, and then you can play the song. So "realtime" and "streaming" don't really apply, because the files download and process fast enough.

15 seconds for 3 minutes is quite slow, the open source thing i use, spleeter, says 100x speedup over realtime with a GPU, that would be 1.8 seconds for three minutes, which means that spleeter could, in fact, given all of the arguments of what i asked, do it "realtime".

Re: DJ With Apple Music launches to enable subscribers to mix their own sets

#130

Post by Shorel »

genewitch wrote: post #129
Shorel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stemming takes about 15 seconds for a 3 minute song. And most DJ software downloads the entire song in a few seconds, then generates the display waveforms, and so on, and then you can play the song. So "realtime" and "streaming" don't really apply, because the files download and process fast enough.

15 seconds for 3 minutes is quite slow, the open source thing i use, spleeter, says 100x speedup over realtime with a GPU, that would be 1.8 seconds for three minutes, which means that spleeter could, in fact, given all of the arguments of what i asked, do it "realtime".

It depends on the hardware. The laptop I use for DJ doesn't have a dedicated GPU.

I also use open source, preferring demucs over spleeter.

In my experience spleeter requires huge amounts of memory, my DJ laptop only has 16GB of RAM, and I need to close the browser to be able to successfully stem a 5 minutes song.

Demucs takes a bit longer, but it uses just 2GB of RAM. And the sound quality of the stems separation is much better with demucs, which is a more important factor than the runtime, IMO.

Post reply on HN