Holy moley – what is it with iPhone apps recently? Suddenly they seem to have transitioned from simple, single-use oddities, in to fully-fledged killer apps! Case in point: Touch DJ, by Amidio. Now I posted on the release of the app, but had not had a chance to play with it – until now that is!
[note: some of the following terms might seem a bit alien to you if you’ve not DJ’d before, but don’t be put off from reading – it’s still a very good app indeed]
So here is the main UI for Touch DJ, which as you can see, differs from those iPhone apps that choose to use iPhone UI elements/buttons/etc. Amidio have chosen to customise heavily, because (a) they wanted to pack in a lot of functionality and (b) there’s a lot that goes in to the components of a full 2-channel mixing desk setup for DJing.
Above, you can see the waveform of two tracks (one blue, one violet), scrolling bottom to top, and a ton of stuff going on around them. All of these buttons (some obvious, some not so much) give relevant functions whilst you are in the mix, but the key thing is the scrolling tracks that are playing back – imagine you have two conveyor belts that you need to get running at the same speed – moreover, imagine that you need them running at the same speed, AND each bass drum kick must be synchronised too (displayed as a wider line in the vertical stack) – this is the essence of beat-matching.
Once your tunes are running at the same speed, and with bass kicks aligned, you can swap between them, and ‘go in the mix’! However, because there is only one audio output on the iPhone, you need a way to set up the tune that isn’t playing out live, to be at the same speed/sync – this is where the concept of visual mixing comes in – and hence the waveforms!
Now, as a traditional ex-DJ myself, who has used Vinyl and CD decks, the concept was clear, but I have to admit there’s a learning curve here – however that hasn’t stopped the hordes of people on iTunes giving this a positive review – and I’m confident with a bit more time I could get things down perfectly also.
The UI is packed-in, but well organised – everything you could need (nudge, speed up/down, volume, EQ, FX, load track, pause/play, FWD/REV, and so on!) are all there on screen, for BOTH ‘decks’ or ‘channels’ – the all-important cross-fader is the block you can see at the top of the screen 🙂
There are also a couple of buttons that pull up panel overlays, with a stack MORE features on – including sample banks, and social networking features (see pic above). The other pop-up is for loading tracks:
It’s quite awesome indeed how much has been fitted in to the UI, and I guess my only slight criticism (from having been in live mix situations) is that things might be a little too small in some cases – particularly if you are in a darkened room with flashing lights! This is the main reason why DJ kit manufacturers use big old buttons on their hardware 🙂
Overall then, after some brief usage, I’m enjoying the app, and looking forward to bashing out some hot mixes!
Verdict: very good now, likely to be excellent in the near future!
Touch DJ / £11.99 [iTunes link]