I think that it will eventually come but I don’t think that they will accelerate it because they acquired Stanton Magnetics.
InMusic already owned Torq from M-Audio which it didn’t implement anything into Engine Prime although some of the Torq team exist as developers for Prime so I guess their know-how is helping to shape future products for us.
I would have loved to have seen some Torq action come to EP, even if they revived it for the Denon DJ DVS box. It will 99% not happen but at least the team know what we want and where they want to be in the future. I’m curious which way it goes as there is a market for it.
The name Engine DJ is already with us for some time. There is a full brand on inMusic website around it and also a separate www.enginedj.com
No info about Denon’s Dj software there yet… But there surely is a place for speculations…
It would enable new possibilities for sure, similar to Rekordbox: The same software you can use both for preparing and performing.
Just think about the Prime 2 and Go units: Yes, they are designed for standalone operation mainly, but there are DJs doing both clubbing and weddings: For clubbing with 2-3 fixed music genres or maybe a prepared playlists, the rather small 7" screens are more than sufficient. However, for a 9hrs wedding gig with countless genres and requests, you’re really thankful when the same device is plug n’ play ready with a proper DJ software on your 15" laptop.
It’s a bummer that the Prime 2 only supports VDJ (need to pay another $300 and re-analyze all your beatgrids from Serato) and the Go no software at all. Compared to that, XDJ-RX2 users can at least rely on Rekordbox and thus have a true 2-in-1 device. As I don’t believe Engine DJ is coming soon, I strongly encourage Serato and VDJ support for both the P2 and Go, to give users the same flexibility like with the P4.
I’d rather see tighter integration between the Serato and Denon teams to be honest. No real point in making another DJ performance software if they can perfect the syncing to and from Serato. The only missing piece now is being able to send track info back to Serato, and then we’ll be golden
tbh I would be totally fine with a tight Serato partnership, it seems more convenient than ‘re-inventing’ a whole DJ software from scratch which would consume many resources. Engine harmonizes well with it already, can even import their flexi-beatgrids afaik. Also, Serato has the best reputation for stability and just runs smoothly once licensed hardware is connected.
This certainly requires the Prime 2 / Go to get Serato support, as already requested. Playing a tight 3hrs DJ-set entirely standalone is a sweet thing, but if you Denon guys also advertise it as workhorse for mobile DJs, give us the option to use it plug’n’play with a proper Serato laptop. If a $400 Mixars Primo works with SDJ Pro, a $1000 Prime should too. I would have preferred a Engine DJ solution, since we could use the same software for both preparation and performing (->RX2), but I just don’t see it happening soon.
The SDK is available from Denon DJ to anyone who wants to use it. Support from the companies come when they want to support their product as an official accessory on the Prime units.
I 100% agree that Serato DJ is a more convenient option however from a business point of view it isn’t the only option and they are driven by keeping costs down. When you have two or three DJ softwares already in ownership, why are they licensing Serato DJ? The cost is passed on to the end user with officially branded Serato DJ gear. This is a collaboration. The Prime gear wasn’t designed for Serato or with Serato and there is no logo on the gear like all (or most) Serato gear has. They are an official accessory only.
The top-end stuff will probably always support SDJ as the licensing cost is easier to factor in and would be bad business not to support the biggest name. If you add Serato DJ licensing fees onto the cost of a £1699 item, it becomes unnoticeable but by adding this extra cost to a sub £500 controller is much more obvious so looking at in-house DJ software is desirable. This what Pioneer DJ have done with Rekordbox DJ and their budget controllers where you can save £30-ish on a Rekordbox DJ budget controller.
Engine is slowly catching up to be DJ software and within two years I guessing that it will have the option to actually play from it as Engine DJ. This would give them their own ecosystem and while there will always be Serato DJ on the high end gear, the lower end stuff will most probably be Engine DJ. After all, EngineOS is firstly a stand alone player with the option to use Serato DJ. They aren’t Serato DJ branded products.
With InMusic owning VJ software and lighting software and two or three DJ softwares, once they tie all this together it could make for a great ecosystem and the bonus is that Engine Prime reads data from all the major DJ software. It could be something to rival the others in only a few years, while still keeping the high end products as official Serato DJ accessories but the budget controllers can read all the Serato DJ metadata without actually being Serato DJ. That’s a win.
The ultimate move would be to ask Arkaos to make a version that is lighter and on par with Serato Video. They own the technology so it’s just development time. Then you ask SoundSwitch to make a version that can be added as a module too and maybe Mixmeister adds it’s elastic audio algorithm. Have Torq DVS (or maybe not use the Mrs Pinky!), M-Audio/Air can be used to provide effects banks like Serato do with isotope and Akai can bring a Force Prime out with green livery and menus.
The killer move is to then add all this to Denon DJ/Numark/ion/Rane controllers and it will only cost them development time. No licensing, just time that the devs spend on making it happen. Development cost could be higher initially but as EngineOS will be the main driver, having all under one roof with Serato DJ as an extra makes the future quite fun.
You are probably saying that just because you are a Serato user lol. Serato is OK but it’s not that great either. In the long term for Denon DJ to have its own in-house developed performance software will pay off, just like Rekordbox has done for Pioneer DJ, and I’m convinced Denon will do a much better job. I’d be surprised if this isn’t already under development.
I’m a Serato user myself and having the option to plug in my 15" Macbook with proper keyboard and screen estate is crucial for my mobile gigs, that’s the reason I am desperatedly waiting for Serato support (Prime 2) as my only other option would be to buy and keep two seperate devices to enjoy both standalone and controler mode. Quite irritating that only the bulky units (Prime 4, XZ) support this.
I would absolutely enjoy using a Denon Engine DJ solution, but we can’t wait 2-3 more years until it’s getting released and stable enough for operation, so Serato as interim / additional solution for all Prime devices would be helpful indeed (VDJ is too expensive, Traktor focused on their own hardware and RB a closed system). But I am also sure that Engine DJ is under development already.
It certainly is with Serato, because they didn’t make it possible to perform searches directly from the Prime hardware. You can pay a monthly subscription to VDJ rather than buy it, if you think it’s expensive (your Prime 2 was much more expensive).
I don’t need to perform searches directly from the Prime hardware. The matter is about having a proper laptop keyboard and screen for my 8-9hrs wedding gigs (only). If I go for my bar/club/edm gigs, I don’t need any laptop at all anyway.
You can stick with your VDJ if you enjoy it, but thank you, I am not interested, neither in paying a monthy subscription until the cow comes home, nor having to re-analyze my entire collection. And yes, paying an additional $300 to make a $1300 AiO work with DJ software is expensive. That’s why most people prefer having either a plug’n’play-ready Serato option and/or own Engine DJ solution.
I agree, and while VDJ may be a nice swiss army knife working with pretty much any controller, the collaboration and convenience between Engine and SDJ is much closer, e.g. being able to import and work with the database/Metadata and even flexible Beatgrids without any hassle. This makes it a smooth bridge solution until Denon releases it’s own DJ software (which I would certainly give a try)
Then why did you buy it? Surely that’s the whole idea with the Prime range. Built in screen, and the knobs and buttons to search directly on the unit. Therefore it makes sense to have that same convenience when using it as a controller. I’d happily use my Prime standalone at any event. I don’t see why a wedding requires a laptop but a bar gig doesn’t.
The concept of subscriptions is that you don’t need to pay “until the cows come home”. You can pay when you need it, so if you know that a gig is on a certain date, you pay the sub to cover you for that date. Also VDJ imports Serato data (cue points etc) so no need to redo them. Analysing is lightning fast, so that’s not an issue either.
Do they? I know a lot of people who would rather use the software of their choice, than use something that was bundled, simply because it was free.
Then try to tackle a 8-9hr wedding gig with music genres ranging from rock to techno and 100-150 music requests on a small 7" screen which can display 5-6 tracks at once. That’s very different to a short bar/club gig with a fixed genre (like Deep/Tech-House), very few requests and prepared playlists you can use, for what an entirely standalone use is perfectly fine. Ymmv or you never did proper wedding gigs yet, but I would love to buy a portable AiO which I can use both with or without laptop. Also I was talking about Serato/VDJ<->Engine and not Sertao<->VDJ. And yes, most people do. That’s what had led to the inital success of the DDJ-SX and later the Rekordbox models.
In the end this discussion is drifting offtopic, I will stick with Serato and/or Engine DJ, once avaiable, you can enjoy VDJ, which already is.
I tried to get on with VDJ for a while, really going in under the hood and asking questions on the forum to get it to work the way I expected, but it didn’t happen. It is undeniably very powerful DJ software but IMO it fails because:
It’s massively overpriced at $299 for the full license. According to Digital DJ Tips’ 2021 DJ Census findings, VDJ is the fourth most popular DJ software closely behind Traktor, yet Traktor costs $99 but you get a free copy if you buy some of their products.
Bread-and-butter FX are p¡ss poor in VDJ, specifically reverb and delay. Third-party VST plugin support is not very good as plugin configuration is not saved, so you have to adjust plugin params ever time you load the plugin (or restart VDJ).
The custom mapping system could be much better (like Deckadance).
Constructive criticism is never well received by forum veterans. Obvious problems with the UI are always remedied by crappy third-party skins that simply trade one set of problems for another. Third-party plugin support is always used as an excuse for poor stock FX.
Personally, I’m much more interested in Denon developing their own software in-house tailored 1:1 to their controllers and players than a third-party swiss-army knife. I mean, it worked out extremely well Apple and Pioneer DJ, for instance.
LOL I was probably DJing at weddings when you were still playing with toy cars.
I’ve played at weddings. I’ve played in bars etc. IMO the type of gig makes no difference.
@scoox the millions of VDJ Pro license holders don’t think it’s “massively overpriced”. For a professional working DJ, who spends large amounts of money on tools of the trade, $299 is almost insignificant, especially considering it’s a one-off payment for a lifetime of use.
If you bought all the Serato plugins, to enable Serato do do what VDJ does as standard, you’d end up paying the same price - $299, so clearly Serato puts the same value on those functions as Atomix.
I guess there will always be cheapskates, or people who regard software as lower value than hardware because it’s not a physical item.
There’s nothing wrong with VDJ’s standard effects. The echo echoes, the reverb reverberates and so on. The naysayers tend to expect the FX to be indentical to those in rival software. Why? Hardware effects are not all clones of each other, so why should software ones be?
The VST support is a huge advantage in VDJ. None of the other “top name” DJ software allows use of VST (and VSTi) plugins. With those, you’re stuck with what they provide. Not an advantage.
The VDJ UI does not have “obvious problems”. It’s designed really well IMO. The huge advantage VDJ has over the competition is the ability to change that UI and customise it to your own tastes/needs. You can’t do that with Serato, Traktor or Rekordbox. The alternative skins are far from “crappy”. Many are written by either the Atomix team members themselves or members of the community with talent for graphics design.
You’re right, I do use Serato so I’m a bit biased. That said, I don’t think what applied to Pioneer DJ with the roll out of Rekordbox DJ will necessarily apply to Denon.
When Pioneer rolled out Rekordbox DJ they already had a near monopoly with their CDJs, and had a range of best selling Serato controllers that would be compatible with Rekordbox DJ. Rekordbox was already the de facto standard library preparation software, so the addition of being able to perform using that same prep software with controllers people already had was incredibly appealing because it erased the need for keeping two libraries updated. One for the club/CDJs and one for their controllers.
Denon right now is not in that position, at all. It does not have the market share that Pioneer has, so rolling out yet another DJ software is very risky. (It was risky for Pioneer too, but they had some things going for them as I mentioned above). Unless “Engine DJ” somehow provides exceptionally better features and performance than Serato I highly doubt it’d be successful, as it’ll only appeal to DJ’s already using Denon. Even if “Engine DJ” matches Serato, and included support for all the InMusic hardware, I highly doubt many DJs would switch.
Just think about it for a second, why would DJs not already in the Denon ecosystem switch to a Denon “Engine DJ” software? They’ll still only be able to use their own gear and would still have to maintain a separate Rekordbox library if they want to play in venues with installed gear. Unless Denon somehow achieves parity in market share with Pioneer, I really don’t see a reason for any DJ using VDJ/Serato/Traktor to move to “Engine DJ”.
One thing that really drew me to Denon was its promise of being able to import other software’s libraries. It took a while, but I feel like with 1.6 Denon has pretty much delivered on that promise. Now, if only we could export changes back it’d be perfect.
The only real way for Denon DJ to take the crown from Pioneer DJ is if their library was 1:1 compatible with Rekordbox, so that a DJ only needs to keep one set of collection data that works everywhere. That is currently not the case because Denon DJ does not implement Memory Cues, for instance.
Once they make a system that offers the exact same functions and similar layout as Pioneer DJ gear plus all the extra Denon DJ goodness (streaming, etc) and the lower price tag, people will have no trouble jumping ship. And yes, Denon will need to initially copy Pioneer in order to beat them.
