Algoriddim djay Pro (for Windows 10) - Review 2022

DJs are tactile people. They desire to feel the scratch and plow the knobs. The new Algoriddim djay Pro app for Windows x, with its support for Microsoft's Surface Dial and the new Surface Studio all-in-ane PC, fulfills those needs. The app has been available for iOS and macOS for several years, simply the Surface Studio is uniquely suited to djay Pro, providing both the visual and tactile interfaces that bring this very absurd software's capabilities to the fore.

Getting Upwards and Running

The only way to get the Dial-compatible app is as a $49.99 Windows Shop buy. You tin get plenty of other DJ apps there, and most are $4.99 or less. Merely djay Pro is on a far different plane, as its name advise. It'southward suitable for professional DJs, and is priced more along the lines of Serato, a pop competitor, which starts at $l and goes up to $300 for its entire squadron of furnishings and tools. Djay, too, can price more than the initial price, every bit information technology offers in-app filter issue purchases.

djay Pro for Windows 10

In order to go the Surface Dial support, Algoriddim had to launch the software on the Windows Store, and that's really not such a bad thing, since it makes updating and installing on multiple PCs simpler. The Windows Store too offers meliorate security by running apps in a sandbox. The app is a 190MB download, which isn't bad for a rich media app.

I tested the app on a Surface Studio, likewise as on an Asus Zen AiO Pro Z240IC, and a Surface Book running Windows x Creators Update. Of course, the Asus all-in-one didn't support on-screen employ of the Surface Dial.

Setting upwards an external sound device such equally a MIDI controller or speaker takes a couple more than steps, simply is still pretty simple. You can set Exclusive mode for this, meaning other sound sources won't be able to interrupt, and yous tin choose External mixer mode split output.

Music-Making Interface

At the top of the program window are the two virtual turntables. You get 2 or four decks, and two video decks. You tin view them in either waveform or disc modes. In that location are two disc views, one that resembles a realistic Technics turntable, and one a uncomplicated geometric disk. The waveforms can display either horizontally across the app window or vertically scrolling upward. The waveforms are very colorful, and help you determine loud points in a vocal likewise as see where the beats are. And the colors are more than only pretty: Unlike colors represent unlike musical events. For example, red represents bass notes, and bluish is for high pitches.

djay Pro waveform view

Along the bottom of the screen are your song sources. As shortly as yous open up the app, you'll see music listed as potential scratch fodder forth the lesser of the window. Yous can access Windows Media Player playlists, detect whatsoever music files in on-disk folders, and even search for songs. Just who uses local music files anymore? Luckily, buttons let you switch the song list to your Spotify or iTunes libraries. It doesn't let you add your Groove or SoundCloud libraries, though competitor edjing 5 does the latter seamlessly. To get your iTunes Library to show upwards in djay Pro, you open iTunes' applications setting and enable XML sharing. And to hook up your Spotify tunage, y'all demand a Premium business relationship.

Sending a vocal to one of the decks is a simple affair of right-clicking and choosing which deck to send it to, tapping the song entry and so choosing to send it to the deck from the overflow menu. That's really four taps, which is a lot in the heat of spinning for a party or social club. You can likewise simply drag the runway to the deck's song thumbnail. Competitor edjing 5 takes an approach that requires fewer taps: Just tap on the deck now playing button, and your song listing drops down from which a single tap gets it onto the deck. The song-count link offers to analyze your music, merely the mixing and effects work whether y'all go through this ahead of time or in existent time.

Ane of the best things about djay Pro is how easy it makes matching key and tempo betwixt tracks. It's not something that all DJ software can do, and in my testing, I didn't hear any audio degradation, though lowering or raising the primal of a vocal track too much can make the vocalizer sound unnatural. Ane thing I didn't observe in the very rich app was pitch bending; it seems you can do this with external controllers, but not in the software. That said, you tin power down the virtual turntable to grind the music to a halt or scratch to speed up.

Scratching With the Surface Dial

Algorridim claims that djay Pro is the first app with zone-enlightened back up for the Surface Dial. What this ways is that its office is unlike depending where information technology is. If you place information technology over Deck 1, for example, you can control filter furnishings on the runway playing there, and if y'all put it over Deck 2, you'd apply the result to that rail. Without irresolute any settings, you can place the Punch on the library expanse to browse through your vocal list.

djay Pro on Surface Studio

Pressing down on the dial for a second opens its circular carte of app functions. The choices are Looping, Filter FX, Scratch, Seek, Crossfader, Media Library, and Next Rail. Yous can switch between unlike crossfader curves in Settings, including Default, Constant Power, Linear, and Cut. You tin set loops from a tiny 16th of a beat to 32 beats. The smaller ones make a fun spasmodic effect, and the longer ones are useful for musical elements.

I'd similar even more zone awareness, yet: I wish y'all could ready dissimilar functions for the 2 (or four) decks, and that the dial would automatically control the mix when yous placed it over the mixing bar in the middle. What really works well, though, is when you combine the very sensitive touch input on the Surface Studio with using the Dial. And you probably want to avoid slamming the heavy Punch downwardly on the glass screen likewise much.

Without a Surface Dial, the controls are still very impact-friendly and capable. You can swipe upward on a dial to raise its setting or down to lower information technology, and double-borer or right-clicking resets it to nada. Hitting the infinite bar once starts the song. Hitting it again grinds playback to a halt, simply as though the turntable were slowing to a stop.

Actress DJ Features

Djay Pro'due south automix characteristic lets you add songs to a playlist to have them automatically played in sequence, with transitions you gear up ahead of time. Djay lets y'all choose Standard, Backspin, Echo, Restriction, Reverse, and Random transitions. You can likewise create up to eight cue points per runway. This let y'all cutting quickly to spots in the rails.

You also go a standard ready of effects—flanger, echo, phaser, and many more—that you lot can use with dials to the virtual turntables. For a $ix.99 in-app purchase, you tin add together Saccharide Bytes advanced furnishings, such as Attune, Warp, and Piece.

djay Pro touchpad

The app offers pads for hitting preset sound samples, such as drums, grunts, sirens, and foghorns. Y'all go the Essentials pack with the app, which includes Snoop Dogg, Milk & Sugar, and Dubstep sets, and y'all tin record your own, too. At that place's no built-in drum machine in the software, but you could use a looping track for this. I found that there was a very slight lag when tapping the pad for a pulsate beat, and then y'all may want to invest in an external pad. Using the mouse with the pads produced a more immediate sound, though that's non as satisfying as hit a pad.

I didn't exam the software with hardware controllers aside from the Surface Studio with the Surface Dial, but information technology boasts plug-and-play back up for over fifty popular MIDI controllers.

Since you're an creative person, yous surely want to save your creations for posterity, and djay Pro lets you record them. Recordings are saved as high-quality WAV files, and the feature worked perfectly in my testing. One thing missing in the app that's in the Apple versions is video mixing, and then veejays must hold off till that'south added.

Get the Shell On

Most DJs are non going to purchase a Surface Studio, and it's not the well-nigh portable device. But yous don't need a Surface Studio to run djay Pro—the app works well on any Windows 10 tablet or laptop, such as the Surface Book. You just lose the on-screen dial adequacy. A Macbook Pro can hands toll more than $3,000, and doesn't offer the impact-screen and punch capabilities, non to mention stunning high-res brandish of the Surface Studio. With its scratching, effects, samples, and Spotify integration, the djay Pro app is certainly a practiced identify to start for both budding and experienced DJs, and even those just looking to take fun with mixing tunes for your ain enjoyment.