I used to do offline mixes with a (partly generated) shell script that calls several sox instances to do the mixing/tempo change/volume adjustments. As a CLI person, I liked that approach, although I would be happy for something a little more streamlined. I wonder if anyone knows an offline mixing tool in the spirit of KISS, without a GUI? I guess Csound would be a better backend then sox, but I lack the fluency in Csound to do that...

https://mixxx.org for a FOSS (read: somewhat enshittification proof) alternative.

Interesting! This product looks to be the spiritual successor to MixMeister Fusion, another app that I used to use to make offline mixes back in the mid-late 2000’s.

The Apple Music integration in dj studio is currently completely nonfunctional for me on macOS. I get a listing of tracks in my library but I cannot use them even after downloading locally.

Looks interesting - only to see I have to convert my whole flac library

This is the best thing I've seen on this website all week, what midi controllers do you suggest. I'm a very amateur musician and this feels perfect for making fun chopped up remixes of some of my music.

That's a well-made software. You only use web assembly and custom JS ?

woah, insane domain name cop. and the app looks awesome, nice!

That's so great, incredible how it can connect with everything basically!

Indeed, you actually bring two as links don’t always work and flash drives tend to die in most unexpected ways.

Besides this whole ‘get it from the streaming app’ business is indeed best suited for bedroom deejays. Everybody who cares about their craft as a professionL cuts VIP versions and dubplate loops that don’t get released on these platforms at all.

The real recent (~10 years) breakthrough in this area was/is that mixer producing companies (hardware vendors) would start implementing two CUE channels so that people can work better in a back2back session. A real game changer.

Yep, almost by definition most DJs play unreleased stuff that wouldn’t be on streaming services for years.

This is different. This allows DJ software to utilize Apple Music as a library. You would still need DJ software to actually make a mix.

However, for your use case, if you're already using Apple Music, you can set start and end points on individual tracks (Get Info on the track, Options). This is nondestructive, but not specific to the playlist so you'd have to turn it off again to hear the full track, and your export options are limited to burning to CDs.

This is different. Apple just allows 3rd DJ software to use their streaming catalog.

These software are designed for "live" mixes, not like a DAW where you can build it up one by one and "render" it.

Technically you don't need hardware for DJ software, but I would say is frustrating without. Here is a free example software (without apple music integration) https://dj.app/

I believe this is one thing Tidal is designed to achieve. I just jumped ship to it from Spotify after getting fed up with garbage getting floated up in sponsored recommendations. Supposedly you have access to stems for some of the library, and compatibility with a fair few DJ platforms e.g. Serato

This basically allows certain DJ apps to play 2 streams at the same time.

Yes:

“”“ The popular DJing app djay by Algoriddim already offered Apple Music integration since last year, and additional platforms that are now supported include AlphaTheta, Serato, and inMusic's Engine DJ, Denon DJ, Numark, and RANE DJ. For example, you can now access the entire Apple Music catalog in AlphaTheta's rekordbox app for iPhone and iPad.

"Apple Music support has finally arrived," says the release notes for today's rekordbox update.”””

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/25/dj-with-apple-music/

That would be cool but I don't think this is going to help a ton until I can throw my own mix or something I got off soundcloud into my apple music library and actually have it work.

See https://rekordbox.com/en/2025/03/apple-music-support/

There is a compatability chart with their various gear.

Would be an absolute bumper feature for bedroom DJs. Good excuse to dust off the decks :)

> The feature is integrated with DJ software and hardware platforms AlphaTheta

They called out AlphaTheta, so here's hoping that it is. That would make my decision to move off of Spotify for personal streaming even easier

* Five years ago, Spotify got rid of this in 2020.

Note that this isn't anything particularly groundbreaking, most DJ software already supports multiple streaming services (Soundcloud, Tidal, Beatport, Beatsource, I'm probably missing a couple). This is just another integration you can choose from.

Also, Algoriddim's Djay (otherwise not a particulary important player in the market) had Apple Music support for some years now, so I'm guessing the real story here is some sort of an exclusivity contract has expired.

Yeah someone at Apple Music must have looked into USP / market differentiator checkboxes, where Spotify skimped out of more permissive/expensive? licensing contracts that would allow for that home use DJ use case.

In most countries you need special licensing for public reproduction of copyrighted music anyway. That use case is not covered by your private streaming subscription. It´s just a means to get the media.

Came here to say this. I've always been a happy Spotify customer, but this is something I really liked when it was available. Makes me question my subscription a bit.

edit: I see there's a tier that does allow stems again now! https://tidal.com/DJs

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Licensing indeed. For a time VirtualDJ allowed stems for Tidal streamed tracks but were required to disable it.

https://www.virtualdj.com/forums/254722/VirtualDJ_Technical_...

Does it stem in real time? That is can you use it to do karaoke on an arbitrary song as it streams?

It works on serato

My understanding is none of the streaming services integrated into DJ software cover licences for public performance. Just as you don't get that when buying a track from beatport etc.

FWIW, I've never had an issue with playlists synching between mobile and desktop. I have had other issues in Apple Music, most annoyingly when tracks are randomly replaced by other versions of the song, but you might reach out to Apple support on this one if it happens regularly.

Not necessarily, Rekordbox mobile never supported all of the streaming services supported on Rekordbox desktop.

There's no skill involved in pitching the two nearly-identical-in-BPM tracks and nudging them into rhythm.

Put any sync button DJ in front of a proper CDJ setup, give them a couple of hours to practice and they will be able to pull off a set.

Most importantly: it is the least important part of the job. Nobody in the crowd gives a shit about whether or not you're using the sync button, it makes no difference to them. They're not there to stare at you, most of the time they can't even see what you're doing.

There are even vinyl DJs around.

You can use sync, but I don't think it's that widespread.

If that person tells you things again, I wouldn't take their word for it.

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This is specifically about extending the Apple Music streaming license to cover DJ software. If you already own your own music (DRM-free digital or physical), you can already use those tracks with your DJ software.

I've been able to mix together tracks from Apple Music (the service) I had on a playlist with wav files I've added in the past to... Apple Music (the app) straight from rekordbox and they worked fine.

I have been able to do this with Djay Pro since before this announcement. Not sure if it's now also on other platforms but it works great with Djay even for my own titles cloud synced through Apple music.

If that's all you want you can very easily do this with a cheap mixer and two devices capable of streaming.

The venue pays a license fee to play music. Not entirely sure how they work out how to distribute the pay though. Lot easier with streaming but with physical media and music on USBs I'm guessing they just use the sales data on music and split up the licensing assuming what's being sold roughly matches what's being played.

No that’s not a law. Typically when DJing the venue is responsible for paying the ASCAP and other licensing fees. As long as the DJ didn’t pirate the music they are free to use whatever source of the music they want.

The fun part is paying ASCAP and BMI doesn’t guarantee you have the rights to play any song, just most songs. So you’d have to look up if the song you want to play is in the ASCAP library before you play every song. And if they don’t have the song you must contact the artist/label and get permission before playing it. Obviously this isn’t practical. But it illustrates just how difficult it is to be compliant with copyright law.

There are many rights involved and I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the venue pays ASCAP and BMI for performance rights, which covers the mechanical and songwriting royalties no matter how the DJ gets them. This new feature fills in a licensing gap with respect to the license that Apple Music extends to the DJ.

As someone who's just beginning to learn to DJ, and already subscribes to Apple Music, I will admit that I agree with you.

However, for me, the benefits of what Apple introduced here outweigh the costs: I don't have to purchase all of the songs I want to mix. As a beginner, this is huge. I can experiment with making mixes with nothing but my laptop, my Apple Music subscription and a copy of some free software like Serato Lite. I'm far from being at the stage where I know which songs will make a good mix just by listening to them, so being able to experiment for "free" sounds great.

People concerned about the issues you raised are always free to buy the music they want to mix, either physical copies, or WAV/MP3 downloads. Additionally, I'd like to point out that other streaming platform(s) such as Tidal already integrate with DJ software like Serato.

I'll add that I frequently buy LPs or CDs from my favourite artists. Just because I subscribe to a streaming service doesn't meant I don't believe artists deserve fair pay for their work. I've actually found dozens of new artists I like thanks to Apple Music (and bought hard copies of their music and/or attended their concerts.) Though, I think fewer and fewer people are buying physical copies of their music, which is a trend I don't like at all.

Overly nihilistic view. As someone who was a working nightclub DJ for 5 years, these kind of tools lower the barrier for entry into the hobby and trade and also serve as a great backup plan.

It’s not intended as a replacement to a curated collection of white labels, bootlegs and edits which you build up and over years.

The large catalog of mixed DJ sets on Apple Music is the main reason I’m considering switching from Spotify.

probably the execs are all stuck in the 90s

Apple has this in the form of a poorly-marketed feature called iTunes Match ($25/year). https://support.apple.com/en-us/108935

I no longer subscribe to Apple Music, but I have 169.5 days of purchased music that I can stream anywhere. Tracks that exactly match an entry in their catalog are presumably just represented as a pointer, and tracks which aren't available in Apple Music are uploaded.