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

musicweek.com

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

#41
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…

I used to do offline mixes with a (partly generated) shell script that calls several sox instances to do the mixing/tempo change/volume adjustments. As a CLI person, I liked that approach, although I would be happy for something a little more streamlined. I wonder if anyone knows an offline mixing tool in the spirit of KISS, without a GUI? I guess Csound would be a better backend then sox, but I lack the fluency in Csound to do that...

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

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Mixxx is for live mixing only. Still a good piece of software though!

It’s not for live mixing only.

It is? It has no timeline or automation. Mixx is Tractor alternative. DJ Studio is more like simplified DAW aimed at making mixes/prep for DJing.

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

#43

How is this legal? I thought you could not use streamed music commercially? If you’re a DJ making money on a gig you’d be violating that law.

The venue pays a license fee to play music. Not entirely sure how they work out how to distribute the pay though. Lot easier with streaming but with physical media and music on USBs I'm guessing they just use the sales data on music and split up the licensing assuming what's being sold roughly matches what's being played.

> Not entirely sure how they work out how to distribute the pay though.

They don't.

Your money goes into a pot of money that also includes every radio, every TV channel, every song used in an ad etc. Every month (or year), your local music association (there's one in every country) sums up the play counts and redistributes the pot accordingly.

This is all to say that the only people that actually get paid from this pot of money are either gonna be domestic musicians or global top 40. Even if your tracks are super famous in clubs and every DJ that plays it accurately reports that, it's still very unlikely you're gonna make the payment cut. Even a relatively minor hit on the radio is valued more than a super-popular song in clubs because it is guaranteed to have a higher play count.

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

#46
post #45

I recently learned that DJs today just press a button to mix two tracks. Growing up mixing and beat matching used to be a skill to be proud of. Now it's just a button. So I was told.

There are even vinyl DJs around.

You can use sync, but I don't think it's that widespread.

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

#47
post #12
post #4

Probably isn't huge for existing DJs who would need the reliability of having stuff on a USB in venues which might not have great internet access. But I can see this being good for the casual users at home since this is the first streaming integration which doesn't charge an additional DJ subscription on top of the standard subscription.

Indeed, you actually bring two as links don’t always work and flash drives tend to die in most unexpected ways. Besides this whole ‘get it from the streaming app’ business is indeed best suited for bedroom deejays. Everybody who cares about their craft as a professionL cuts VIP versions and dubplate loops that don’t get released on these platforms at all. The real recent (~10 years) breakthrough in this area was/is t…

> is indeed best suited for bedroom deejays.

Or wedding / event DJs who handle requests. I would not delete the local files, but having a streaming service with popular music would certainly help.

> Everybody who cares about their craft as a professionL cuts VIP versions and dubplate loops

If that is the case, I don't know a single DJs who cares about their craft. Makes you think.

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

#48
post #4

Probably isn't huge for existing DJs who would need the reliability of having stuff on a USB in venues which might not have great internet access. But I can see this being good for the casual users at home since this is the first streaming integration which doesn't charge an additional DJ subscription on top of the standard subscription.

Yep, almost by definition most DJs play unreleased stuff that wouldn’t be on streaming services for years.

> most DJs play unreleased

No, that is definitely not true.

While you can find DJs that play obscure or ~vinyl only~ releases, there are also a ton of DJs who play popular music.

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

#49
post #45

I recently learned that DJs today just press a button to mix two tracks. Growing up mixing and beat matching used to be a skill to be proud of. Now it's just a button. So I was told.

There's no skill involved in pitching the two nearly-identical-in-BPM tracks and nudging them into rhythm.

Put any sync button DJ in front of a proper CDJ setup, give them a couple of hours to practice and they will be able to pull off a set.

Most importantly: it is the least important part of the job. Nobody in the crowd gives a shit about whether or not you're using the sync button, it makes no difference to them. They're not there to stare at you, most of the time they can't even see what you're doing.

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