Serato recently announced its latest beatmaking app called Serato Studio. It takes the streamlined workflow philosophy found in Serato DJ Pro and applies it to a music production environment. Serato Studio is great for DJs who want to take their first steps into beatmaking without having to learn an entire digital audio workstation from the ground up.
It has lots of features that beginners and even seasoned producers will find useful, and in this piece we round up five of our favourites.
5 Top Serato Studio Features
1. Familiar interface
Serato Studio has a unique workflow for production that will make sense to digital DJs because its layout is reminiscent of Serato DJ. It’s got left and right “decks” at the top, and a library at the bottom. The left deck is where you edit and manipulate sounds, the right deck is where you sequence those sounds, and the library section at the bottom is where you find and load your sounds from.
2. Compatibility with existing DJ controllers
One genius move by Serato is the integration of Serato DJ controllers. DJs who already own a Serato DJ-compatible controller can now use the same controller to create music. The performance pads for each deck controls important parts of the software while maintaining a workflow that is similar to how DJs already use the controller when DJing.
The standardised layout of most Serato DJ controllers means a wide array of different controllers will work, and Serato is promising upcoming support for most controllers.
3. Solid library of built-in sounds
A production app isn’t much without good sounds to create with, and Serato Studio doesn’t lack in this department. Serato Studio comes with a wide selection of drums, instruments, synths, and effects – exactly the kind of sounds a DJ looking to produce different types of beats would need to get started.
4. Comes with pre-made drum patterns for different genres
A big hurdle for many new producers is understanding drum programming, and Serato has simplified this process through the Make Beat feature. At a click of a button, users can pick a pre-made drum pattern from different genres of music as a starting point and then edit them to make the drum patterns their own. It’s a great way for producers to get started, and it still allows them to add their own personal touch later on.
5. Play In Key mode lets you make music without knowing theory
Over time, DJs gain the instinct of which songs sound good together, but unless they have studied music theory it may be hard to translate what sounds good in their head into their own productions. The Play In Key mode makes this easier for DJs by removing notes that are not in the proper key so only notes that would sound good together are playable. This minimises guesswork and helps new producers get their ideas down quickly.
Finally…
Last year Serato surprised many with its Serato Sample plugin that simplified the sample chopping workflow when producing. It has taken that same straightforward workflow philosophy and applied it to the music production process with Serato Studio. You can tell Serato spent time thinking about DJs trying to make this kind of transition, and built features around this to make beatmaking as easy and intuitive as possible.
Have you tried Serato Studio yet? What do you think of this beatmaking app? Let us know in the comments.
Joey Santos
