I think it may be best if I give a little background first. I love most EDM club music and briefly had some decks back in the days when vinyl was your only option. I gave that up after a few years because I struggled to develop the necessary skills and muscle memory to DJ effectively (I am absolutely not a “natural” DJ). In the first Covid lockdown I treated myself to a DDJ 400 and fell in love with DJ’ing for pleasure and could while away countless hours building, practicing and playing sets. Being tied to a computer was proving a little restrictive, so after reading many reviews on the Mixstream Pro, I thought it perfectly met my requirements (Rekordbox import being key) and decided to purchase one. I migrated my Rekordbox library with 8,000+ tracks, 100+ sets with approx 12 saved loops/cue points per set. I love the look and feel of the Mixstream Pro, the hardware is amazing and I like everything about it. My challenges are with certain aspects of the Engine OS software, where I would appreciate guidance and how to best navigate.
None of the challenges I am experiencing are new and have all been documented somewhere on the forum. The main areas impacting me personally -
- Locked Beat Grids that cannot be amended
- No auto leveling of the audio volume (I didn’t even know Rekordbox was doing this)
- Not being able to label cues via the hardware
As I mentioned, I am by no means a natural DJ, but I take great enjoyment from spending several hours working out how to best mix just two or three tracks. I will spend this time tweaking the beat grids and tend to use quite a lot of que points, which I label with brief instructions for myself. I also tend to mix a lot at the break and the drop, so I often use Sync (please temper your ire) to free me up to focus on other areas that I enjoy more than beat matching (though I can beat match perfectly well by ear thanks to cutting my teeth on vinyl). Because of this, my setlists that were working very well on Rekordbox now often surprise me in Engine OS because it unexpectedly is out of time and/or is noticeably louder/quieter. I have no way (that I am aware of) of fixing these issues so that it doesn’t happen next time round. As I mentioned, I often label cue points (e.g. “filter in slowly”), which makes creating new sets more challenging, but this is a relatively minor gripe.
Ultimately, I have found that using Engine OS (compared to Rekordbox) has somewhat sucked the joy out DJ’ing for me. I do love the hardware and Engine OS does 95% of what I want perfectly. I do really want to get over this speed bump and I am very open to taking a different approach if it overcomes my issues.
- Locked Beat Grids that cannot be amended - Do I need to ditch the Rekordbox import all together and start from scratch within Engine OS and recreate my sets and cue points? Sounds painful, but I am willing to put the time in if it is worthwhile?
- No auto levelling of the audio volume - I believe there is nothing native in Engine OS for this, so do I need to look at external third party tools for that?
- Not being able to label cues via the hardware - I tend to spend a lot of time doing this and do a lot of stopping and starting (and using beatjump on Rekordbox) as I am finding my way around a set and make the labels as I go. I cannot do this on the hardware and I struggle to replicate this in the desktop version of Engine OS without the controller, as I cannot get the same “feel” for how things are working. What is the best solution here? Pen and paper and transcribe on desktop later?
Apologies for the long post, but I am keen to begin enjoying the potential that the Mixstream Pro and Engine OS clearly has, so I am interested in what advice people who may have been in a similar position can offer.
Thanks!