MixEmergency standalone with CDJs

ndorse

Hey guys I'm a thumbdrive rekordbox DJ still trying to find my feet in the VJ realm. BACKSTORY: I've spent quite a bit of money so far which have unfortunately resulted in a few uphill battles with Serato (with an SL2 not yet compatible with my OSX already installed at the time of purchase) along with laggy visuals, CPU draining with a high end mac book pro and an equally frustrating purchase with DJAY Pro with lag and limited features. The latter was such a shame when they have such a simple and effective ipad vj app which would kick ass if controllable with CDJ2000s. After researching my problems, it all started to point to MixEmergency and it seems like amazing software I wish I had discovered sooner but this time round I'm reluctant to folk out even more money until I can establish if it can do what I'm after. First and foremost, I really don't like Serato. I get how it works, get why people like it but when you're used to a CDJ screen and workflow it is a bit different and not very comfortable to use. Yes I have linked it up with HID mode but it feels and acts differently than thumbdrives in a CDJ and it throws you, I guess like driving a car with the seat and mirrors not to comfort. I personally don't like using laptops to DJ after having one crash onto the dance floor by a very enthusiastic dancer pulling over the booth and even going back to use Traktor which was my starting ground it just doesn't feel as good as a thumbdrive rekordbox setup now I've seen the club "light". QUESTION: So I've had this idea, what if I could use the best VJ software on the market but keep the audio seperate on thumbdrives? However use the CDJ as a controller so whilst I'm playing audio off a thumbdrive, if I load matching visuals in have the same cues / play buttons trigger the tracks simultaneously. Having a play with the demo I was able to midi map things like the play / pause button and pitch / tempo fader but wondered if this could extend to hotcues and (long shot) the platter? I figured if all this matches up to Serato then it is potentially possible to map a CDJ to do the same thing even if it requires a bit of work. So has anyone looked into something like this? I won't hold my breath for a visual ipad that can link up to HID on CDJs but would love to find a solution where audio is independent from visuals, especially in the comfort zone of a CDJ. Thanks for taking the time to read Nic

Nick

It's an interesting thought, though I'm not sure it would be possible (to be honest, I have no idea what data is available from the CDJs though). It would also get annoying to have to load a music video for every audio file (and to search for it). MixEmergency really has been designed to be controlled via another software application (Scratch Live, and then Serato DJ), and it requires a lot of data that isn't available for more other control options.

ndorse

Thanks for getting back to me Nick, I've been having a bit more of a play since buying your software - works amazingly with serato and has taken a lot of the headaches out of that so cheers so much, has been a pleasure to use in clubs so far! I've still been experimenting with the stuff above but you have hit the nail on the head with it being very limited and mostly annoying. I'm in no way a software developer and appreciate that the way you hook it up to serato has nothing to do with the track playing and is to do with the data Serato creates but wonder if at some point the technology would be able to treat an audio file as a dvs type timecode in a similar way that Shazam uses the microphone to recognise songs and do a SMPTE type thing but based on it matching peaks and transients in the tune. Just speculating of course anyway, I can't imagine something like that would be achievable unless you had access to the rekordbox library data. On that note and I'm sure I've seen other people mention it in the forums, if down the line you're ever looking for feature requests opening up MixEmergency to work with Rekordbox DJ and Traktor would make many people happy. - Easier said than done though of course haha Cheers Nic