Djing with your iPad

If you own an iPad and if you are reading this blog, you are probably always looking for some music app review here and there on the net, so I’m happy to write the first of many upcoming app articles in this blog.
Due to the very hyped week for Dj apps I feel that there is no better subject for today’s post.
I’m going to talk about 2 apps out there which are for me the top iPad app for djing, Dj Player and Djay.
Let’s do a quick review of both apps and then I will tell you which over the 2 I would recommend.
Dj player : I’ve been a Dj Player user for quite sometime now, in the past I also gave the developer a few suggestions to improve the app a little and they surprisingly listened to me and improved the app.
This app comes very close to be a small 2 cdj + mixer setup that fits in your iPad, it won’t replace the feeling of using a cdj but it will definitely make you come back to it again and again whenever you feel like mixing some new music that you can’t be bothered burning on a cd( I’m and old school cdj 800 user, so no USB stick for me).
The interface is relatively simple, very clean and minimal design, excellent use of the iPad display space, with BIG buttons that you hardly fail to push, you have the basic play/pause, cue, hot cue (that will take you back to the cue point you set an automatically play the track from that point) bend +/- that will allow you to speed up or down your track till you release the button, this will help not loosing the beat matching, pitch +/- step, this will increase the master pitch by 0.05% every time it’s pressed, the way that your speed setting will be as precise as possible, pitch bend is precise but sometime when released, your finger make a tiny movement that could cause a wrong speed setting, those step buttons will avoid this (this smart idea comes from yours truly :p )
Also we have a vinyl display where we can see what’s going on in our track, if there is a break or a full on part coming, time passed and time left and of course bpm.
Keep in mind that we have 2 different decks for playing 2 different tracks so what mentioned above is on deck A as well as deck B
The mixer page it’s pretty classic and definitely something any Dj would be familiar with, also who has never seen a mixer though could figure out how the whole thing works within 5 minutes.
But worth to mention you will have a cross fade control, 2 main fader controls for Deck A& B, gain control and a 3 band EQ for both decks
Of course you can browse and import music from your iPod library so if you are picky like me with that adding new tracks to try transitions it’s just a pleasure.
Last but not least Dj Player let’s has built in efxs which is something that doesn’t really touch me as I tend to keep me sets as clean as possible, won’t deny I played with the filters and delays a few times anyway, lot of fun!
Djay, probably the most hyped Dj app ever, and since apple made a little promo with it during last week’s keynote (or whatever that is) it has been reviewed everywhere.
The app interface works on a single page as opposite of Dj Player that has something like 6 or 7 pages, this is a great thing in therms of accessibility but of course sacrifices the size of the buttons which are extremely tiny and sometimes you push something you didn’t want or fail to push what you wanted.
We have pretty much the same controls a Dj app should have, cue, play pitch band and bend +/- buttons, what we have extra here, are 2 nice spinning vinyls that let us scratch with a fairly realistic result, also the cover of our mp3 (if embedded) is displayed on the label of the cd (like a real thing) this makes it easy to identify your tracks, but I believe it really add some extra work to the iPad CPU, surely is cool to watch but I judge things related to their usability in a pro/semi-pro contest and if such a thing could be turned off and make the app a little bit more stable (I’ll talk about this soon) I’d be happier.
On the volume control and transition side, again we have a cross fade, and 2 main faders, one for deck A one for deck B, 3 band eq and gain per deck (a pop up window comes out to show these controls).
We also have an auto mix option but again, let’s be serious and focus on what a REAL Dj should do.
No efxs in this app, but we have some looping options instead, we can decide the length of our loop, if automatic or manual (with punch in and out). And we have a really cool function that will let us record our set, now this is really cool and useful but I’m afraid the recorded file is wav format and my almost full 16 gb iPad doesn’t really like that, so I used it a few times to record some nice transition that then I can use in my radioshow or during one of my gigs, but never to record a whole set.
Now let’s get to my final judgment.
Djay has been released in November/December 2010 and since then, the maximum amount of time I was able to use it without a crash has been something like 15 or 20 minutes, as I said the interface it’s filled of cute little things that are undoubtedly appealing at first but quite useless and CPU heavy when you need something which is more stable than good looking.
The interface is certainly very easy and straight forward and many option will make the mixing work extremely easy for anyone, eventually will make the user itself quite useless as the app does everything on its own. I can understand the success of it anyway, the graphic and all the functions make it a product for anyone especially who has no idea about how to Dj.
The record option again, its a great thing, but I would feel more comfortable using it on an iPad2 as the app itself is extremely easy crashing and adding more operations to the CPU doesn’t help for sure.
Dj Player is certainly more advanced and definitely more stable, not for nothing I’ve seen this app used for some Dj sets already, used it myself for a couple of hours during a few flights and never had a crash or a little let down, the only moment this app will really put the CPU under stress is while loading a track and generating the vinyl view, but you won’t get anything more than a few graphic problems (but that doesn’t even happen all the times), audio will stream perfectly, nothing will crash.
Interface here is a little bit more complicated(but still very intuitive), sometimes you get confused with the pages, but hell, those huge buttons are so sweet to touch, you literally won’t miss a push, and if this is the price to pay, I’m happy with it.
Cue and play response, which is something I’m really fussy with, both apps are great with this, both quick as a real cdj (great work both of you on this).
Price both apps are pretty expensive Djay is 19.99$ and will ONLY work with your iPad, if you want it on your iPhone/iPod touch you will have to spend 9.99$ extra. Dj Player is even more expensive, it’s indeed 29.99$ but comes as universal app so it will work on both iPad and iPhone/iPod touch.
In conclusion, I think I made it quite clear that for me Dj Player is the go to app, if you want a stable software that won’t let you down and that will give you plenty of option to get the mix right and still have control on what’s happening this is the right app.
If you want something cool to show your friends like spinning vinyls and scratch sounds, if you want something straight forward or something that will also mix for you Djay is the perfect app, can do the pro work as well, but the experience is not as cool and certainly is not as stable as it would be on Dj Player.