For many DJs who use standalone or all-in-one DJ equipment, who export their music to USB drives to DJ without a laptop, one of the biggest frustrations is exporting to USB and the time it takes. Not only is this often painfully slow, but it can be really annoying when you’re DJing at home, preparing … Continued

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The most obvious way to hook up your audio is via an 1/8″ audio in/through – although if you want to “feed” the music in from an external audio interface or digital out from a mixer, for example, it appears you’ll be able to do this via USB.

Also, such a system will have to truly be compatible with all the features of all popular lighting, without fiddly user programming – something else that remains to be seen.

Algoriddim has announced that it has won Best Windows App 2024 in Microsoft’s end-of-year awards. The company won the award in the AI category, celebrating its Djay Pro software’s Neural Mix stems technology and, perhaps more significantly, its Fluid Beatgrid feature. The latter is unique to Algoriddim’s platforms and effectively makes manual beatgridding a thing … Continued

You can also plug in a USB Midi controller, presumably to take more direct control over your lighting, should you wish. Power is also via USB.

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The hugely oversubscribed Kickstarter campaign for MaestroDMX shows that this is something DJs and performers want, and it’s from a serious company (Limbic Media, which has a background of working in the large-scale commercial lighting and visuals field).

MaestroDMX is a standalone piece of hardware, about the size of a paperback book, that promises to deliver real-time intelligent control of DJ and live music DMX lighting set-ups, without the need to plug into a laptop, and without the need to programme lighting on a track-by-track basis. This will make it suitable for live performance as well as DJ sets.

Control will be via an iOS/Android app, and MaestroDMX will be compatible with “any DMX lighting fixture”, offering AI-based control of RGBWA-UV fixtures, moving head spots (including pan/tilt/shutter/strobe), as well as AI-based triggers for lasers, gobos, flames, haze and so on.

There are both DJ and band demo videos on the MaestroDMX Kickstarter page, where you can also learn more about this from the company behind it, and offer your support.

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Meanwhile Rekordbox Lighting, which aims to broadly fix the same issues MaestroDMX and SoundSwitch tackle, is built in to Rekordbox DJ laptop software (and so needs a laptop too), also needing Pioneer DJ’s RB-DMX1 hardware to work. There isn’t much apparent development resource going into this solution, which is currently somewhat limited – and of course needing a laptop, it doesn’t work at all with Pioneer DJ’s standalone and pro gear.

StemSwap Sampler adds a new function to VirtualDJ’s existing sampler that allows you to sample your choice of stems in real-time from any playing track, then play them over other tracks, automatically muting the corresponding stems in those tracks – hence the name, StemSwap Sampler. You can configure sample slots to automatically sample vocals, drums, … Continued

One of the issues MaestroDMX attempts to solve is complexity when it comes to setting up the lighting side of your DJ gear. So the unit features a single DMX out for connecting to your lights, WiFi for connecting to the phone app, and standard USB for power.

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The makers say MaestroDMX “closely tracks musical events”, spotting intros, builds, drops, transitions and so on. It takes control of colour, dynamics and overall effect based on the music – even “relaxing” the lighting when there is no music or a spoken section.

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Headphones are important for DJs because we use them to listen to what the audience isn’t hearing, to check the track is what we actually want to play, to line up our starting points, and so on. Good DJ headphones therefore isolate you from the outside world, are comfortable on your head, are durable, and … Continued

Phil Morse is the founder of Digital DJ Tips. His DJ career has taken him from a 15-year residency in Manchester, England, to the main room at Privilege in Ibiza - the world's biggest club. He is also an award-winning club promoter, and has taught music tech and DJing since 2010. He regularly speaks at DJ seminars and events worldwide. His book, “Rock The Dancefloor!”, is a global best-seller on how to DJ.

An incredibly successful new Kickstarter project looks set to offer serious competition to the likes of SoundSwitch and Pioneer DJ’s lighting solutions for DJs, when it is delivered in Q2 2023.

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DJs have long craved the ability to “set and forget” their lighting, yet get better results than the naff old “sound-to-light” settings on lighting fixtures. With this system, you could set a static “theme” for non-musical moments (great for wedding DJs), then define some parameters and a few manual cues for when you need them, and past that, let the unit take care of everything for you.

SoundSwitch, which itself was launched to try to tackle this whole issue, does have “auto” modes that don’t require programming. But the main difference here is that unless you’re using Engine DJ-powered standalone gear, it’s a hardware-plus-software solution, meaning you need to run laptop software to use it. One more thing to worry about in the DJ booth.

Reloop has just announced the release of the Stand Hub Pro, a radically redesigned laptop stand/power hub for digital DJs. This innovative product combines a practical laptop stand with a built-in hub featuring multiple USB ports and power delivery. The Stand Hub Pro offers an ergonomic design that allows users to position their laptops at … Continued

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Of course, “AI” is a vague term, and what remains to be seen is how impressive the AI really is here. The makers themselves point that fact out, stating that what’s shown in their videos (you can watch them on the Kickstarter page) are only a taster of what is possible. That said, the videos do look pretty impressive.

Overall, we are excited by this – it’s an area our audience constantly tells us it is looking for help with, and MaestroDMX looks to simplify things even further than existing solutions. We’re looking forward to testing it when samples are ready.

As far as the actual hardware goes, from the initial published specs, things look pretty good, but we’d liked to have seen a built-in mic to get audio into it: For DJs with limited outputs from their DJ gear, plugging into an 1/8″ unbalanced input for lighting control may be an issue (although with a bit of thought, it’s not an insurmountable one).