Rekordbox has come a long way: it started off as a music management tool that you can use to export tracks to a thumb drive for use with CDJs (think of how iTunes let you transfer songs to an iPod).
Now, it’s grown into a full-on DJ environment complete with all the trimmings you’d expect in a contemporary digital DJ platform: hot cues and loop cue editing track analysis, and sophisticated music library management and playlisting. It even comes with its own suite of add-ons that can be purchased to extend its functionality, such as the ability to DJ with your laptop and DJing with video.
Rekordbox 5.0 is a free download from the Rekordbox website, and is available for both Mac and PC. You just download the app and install it on computer. You may be asked to create a Kuvo account, which is Pioneer DJ’s music tracking system, but you can opt not to have one.
I’ve currently got two set-ups in my studio: a Pioneer DJ DDJ-RZ, which I use for DJing with my laptop running Rekordbox DJ (also known as “Performance” mode), and a CDJ / DJM set-up, which I use for DJing with a thumb drive full of music prepared in Rekordbox (also known as “Export” mode). Using Rekordbox means that I can DJ from the same music library, regardless of whether I want to DJ with a laptop (Performance mode), or with a thumb drive and CDJs (Export mode).
Both Export and Performance modes benefit from an updated graphical user interface. Rekordbox 5.0 sports a flatter, modern look that is easy on the eyes. The virtual decks look sleeker, and the FX section at the top looks less cramped. The text also looks sharper and more uniform, plus you can change font sizing in Rekordbox’s preferences – that’s great news for us DJs who are visually-impaired (I’m “legally blind” without my glasses), but even folk with 20/20 vision would appreciate the crisper text.
The library section also gets a graphic boost. It looks a lot slicker: gone are the dull grey hues that defined previous iterations of Rekordbox. In their place is a simple black, blue, and white colour scheme. Scanning your library is also more responsive and faster – I was always annoyed at the “text ghosting” that happened when you scrolled up and down. It made me feel like I was using an app from the 2000s instead of the 2010s. That’s gone, and it’s great.
Overall, the interface tweak is a welcome change, and is reason enough for the upgrade.
Koretech engine
Pioneer DJ claims that it’s done some under the hood tweaks in this version of Rekordbox, specifically in the “engine” that runs the app. Dubbed “Koretech”, Pioneer DJ says that this overhauled engine makes Rekordbox run smoother and faster.
Apart from the graphic improvements mentioned above, we didn’t feel a massive performance difference between using Rekordbox 5.0 and Rekordbox 4 during normal DJ use.
There are now up to 16 available cue points (eight was the previous maximum), and you can assign them anywhere in a track. You can change the colour of the hot cue and the colour also changes if you’re using a controller with RGB performance pads, or you’re using the CDJ-2000NXS2. You can also label these cue points by adding text to it, handy if you use a naming convention for song sections (eg Break, Drop, Build Up).
Now let’s take a look at Performance mode, which is activated by purchasing the Rekordbox DJ add-on pack…
Performance mode lets you DJ with your laptop connected to a Rekordbox DJ-compatible controller, media player, or mixer. In this mode, Rekordbox works pretty much the way Serato DJ, Virtual DJ, and Traktor Pro 2 do – you drag and drop songs from your library onto the virtual decks, and you play them back using the connected DJ device.
Rekordbox DJ lets you control up to four decks, and you can choose two or four deck operation via a dropdown. Four decks can look quite cramped on smaller screens, and I do prefer the layout and simplicity of having two virtual decks.
Once loaded onto the virtual decks, your tracks appear as waveforms in Rekordbox DJ. There are two ways to display these waveforms: horizontal, where the waveforms are stacked on top of each other and vertical, where the waveforms are placed beside each other. You can also change the colour of the waveforms from its default blue hue to an RGB palette.
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There’s a dropdown menu at the bottom of each virtual deck, and this lets you select from up to 10 functions: Hot Cues, Pad FX, Slicer, Beatjump, Beat Loop, Keyboard, Key Shift, Sequence Call, Active Censor, and Memory Cue.
Hot Cues displays the 16 hot cue banks that you can edit. Pad FX shows two rows of four pads that you can assign effects to (handy if you’re using a controller that supports this). Slicer divides the waveform display into eight segments that you can trigger using the slice buttons; Beat Jump lets you move through a track in rhythmic increments; Beat Loop allows you to perform stutter effects in different note values.
Keyboard and Key Shift are the new pad modes in Rekordbox 5.0. Keyboard lets you pitch up or pitch down hot cues for melodic cue point juggle routines. Key Shift lets you change the musical key of a song (12 semitones up or down).
Sequence Call lets you record a series of sample presses for playback; Active Censor lets you create non-destructive edits to portions of a track that you’d want to censor (eg cursing, pejoratives); and finally Memory Cue lets you edit cue or loop points in a track.
There’s a dropdown menu at the bottom of each virtual deck, and this lets you select from up to 10 functions: Hot Cues, Pad FX, Slicer, Beatjump, Beat Loop, Keyboard, Key Shift, Sequence Call, Active Censor, and Memory Cue.
Hot Cues displays the 16 hot cue banks that you can edit. Pad FX shows two rows of four pads that you can assign effects to (handy if you’re using a controller that supports this). Slicer divides the waveform display into eight segments that you can trigger using the slice buttons; Beat Jump lets you move through a track in rhythmic increments; Beat Loop allows you to perform stutter effects in different note values.
Keyboard and Key Shift are the new pad modes in Rekordbox 5.0. Keyboard lets you pitch up or pitch down hot cues for melodic cue point juggle routines. Key Shift lets you change the musical key of a song (12 semitones up or down).
Sequence Call lets you record a series of sample presses for playback; Active Censor lets you create non-destructive edits to portions of a track that you’d want to censor (eg cursing, pejoratives); and finally Memory Cue lets you edit cue or loop points in a track.
