Feb 10, 2020 Serato DJ provides library compatibility Seamless integration with Pulselocker, iTunes and our crate storage system mean it’s easy to keep your library organized and intuitive. Furthermore, Analyze your music to detect the BPM and Key information.
Serato DJ is software designed for DJs by DJs. The latest version has many features you can use to make your sets a hit with crowds at your events.
More capability and options for mixing
The level of information available is awesome. Serato DJ takes some of the pressure out of performing live.
Serato DJ is customizable. You can decide in advance where you want your key details displayed. The BPM, track length, and time remaining are all easy to see and keep track of.
You do need to make sure it’s compatible with your hardware. Most well-known set-ups are available. If your equipment is good enough, it will likely have the needed compatibility.
Serato DJ can build your crates within the software. It will remember each track. It can analyze them for key details, such as track length, Key, and BPM. You can also spot any unusual MP3’s which is fantastic as it avoids making a mistake during your performance.
The recording function is so easy to use. Click a button to start recording, and use the same to stop again. Your take is saved automatically. You can extract it the tracklist before uploading to social media or elsewhere. It’s a massive time saver when it comes to making mixes to promote yourself.
Serato also prides itself on customer support. If you have any issues with the program, such as connecting to devices, they are there to help you solve the problem. The other options don’t come close when it comes to support.
Where can you run this program?
You can run this program on Windows, and Mac OS. It is not available on Linux, but to be honest, you wouldn’t ever need it to be.
Is there a better alternative?
No. Traktor is better for use with turntables, but does not have the same capabilities as Serato DJ. Virtual DJ is fantastic too. It is particularly useful if you do not have Serato compatible hardware.
Our take
Serato DJ is a great option for professional and amateur bedroom DJs. It is easy to get a handle on. You’ll be recording sets and performing live with confidence.
Should you download it?
Serato Dj Intro Full Version
Yes, download it now. If you don’t want to pay the monthly subscription, try out DJ Intro from Serato. It’s packed full of features, and is wonderful for DJ’s starting out.
Virtual Dj Home
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Executive Summary of a long-winded response
If you don't use iTunes at all and your files are already well-organized, MixMeister appears to be much faster and creates tempos to two decimal places. You still need to create overviews in SSL, though.
If, however, you use iTunes and/or you're going to have to build overviews anyway, you might be better off doing the mapping in SSL to keep things compatible and get all of your processing done in one step.
MixMeister processed files at a rate of (at least) 650 tracks per hour. It is probably higher than that, but I can't be sure because I couldn't get it to work reliably over the network.
SSL processes my files at a rate of about 375 per hour, but is also creating overviews and setting track gain, so take that into account.
Details you can ignore if you want to
I'm currently going through the same thing. I currently have my master library stored on a desktop Macintosh.
I first tried mounting the music drive on my PC and using MixMeister. It chugged along through the night pretty quickly... I estimate that it got through about 6800 files when I checked on it the next morning. Unfortunately, something had irritated it and it had stopped processing. I could restart the process, but it wouldn't seem to do more than 100 files or so at a stretch. I haven't seen anyone else complain about this issue, though, so I assume it's a problem with my files or something else about my particular setup.
The real deal killer for me, though: MixMeister created really nice tempos down to two decimal places. Unfortunately, iTunes on the Mac choked on them and displayed any MM created tempo as a very large number... like 64,203. These bpms did appear correctly in SSL, but SSL doesn't display anything to the right of the decimal.
So I decided to try creating tempos in SSL. It seems to get confused a little more often about halves/doubles (e.g., a 144 tempo is listed as 72) but that may be an unfair assessment as SSL has now processed almost 25,000 files - I've had more of a chance to notice the mistakes.
The nice thing is iTunes happily accepts the tempos created by SSL and displays them correctly. Additionally, I've created overviews and set track gain in one step.
Assuming that rate of 375/hour, my library of ~25.5k songs should take approximately 68 hours of processing time on my Dual 2.0Ghz G5 PowerMac. I'd be curious to see if it's any faster on my Core2Duo MacBook Pro.
Assuming a rate of at least 650 tracks per hour, MixMeister would take around 39-40 hours to set all tempos. This is on a 3.0Ghz Pentium 4 processing files on a network volume. Keep in mine that I still wouldn't have the overviews or track gains set and would need to factor that in to the final time needed to get all files completely processed.
Hope this info helps you (and others) make a decision. My preference is to let SSL handle it all. I'm then going to play with the library for a couple of weeks to catch as many incorrect tempos as I can before forcing iTunes to re-read the files and display all tempos.
Cheers and good luck!