AlphaTheta has just released Rekordbox 7, the latest version of its platform for preparing and performing music on Pioneer DJ and AlphaTheta DJ equipment. It boasts new music discovery features, auto cue, and a smoother user experience – but still the same old so-so real-time stems. Here’s what you need to know…
What’s New?
The main changes are under the hood: The company says it now uses half the resources of the previous software, making it faster and smoother, and hopefully meaning it will be a better experience on older or less powerful laptops. For Apple users, there is now native Apple silicon support as well.
There are some meaningful changes that you’ll notice immediately, though, so let’s talk through those:
Browsing & discovery improvements
In the browsing and discovery parts of the software, there’s now a collection filter like on CDJs. They’ve improved the way you can browse music inside streaming services. And they’ve added an intriguing collaborative playlist feature for working with others on DJ sets.
There are also AI-driven track discovery features, which they’ve named Streaming and Collection Radar, for making it easier to hopefully pick a great song to play next.
Preparation (Export Mode) changes
Over in the preparation mode, i.e. export mode, the dual track feature has been greatly improved with beat jump, auto gain, EQ kill, key shift and sync, and deck lock so that you can far more easily work on transitions for your sets.
Learn to use Rekordbox like a pro: Rekordbox Made Easy
There is also a new auto cue feature, which will add cue points to your tracks based upon your criteria to save you having to do so manually (if you’re not too precious about where cue points are on your music, that is).
UI tweaks
The user interface is largely unchanged, although they’re now using icons in the media browser, which look smarter. However, there is one big change, which is in the settings panel. It now looks a lot nicer, and crucially, there is a search function, making it much easier to find what you’re looking for.
One change that we particularly like (that isn’t immediately obvious) is that you don’t have to have hardware plugged in should you be a DJ that has a version of Rekordbox that relies on that to unlock certain features.
Now just registering your product in the software is enough. So for preparation features such as the new dual player (which previously would have required plugged in hardware, in some circumstances) – that’s no longer necessary.
Does it deserve the leap from 6 to 7?
I suppose the big question is: does it deserve the Rekordbox 7 jump from Rekordbox 6? The jury’s out on this one.
Under the hood, the changes are much needed to make it a faster, smoother piece of software. And I guess that the engineers at AlphaTheta would argue that that in itself warrants the leap.
But the one thing that everyone who’s ever used it would like to see improved is the stems function, which is currently woefully poor compared to all other software. And to go from version six to version seven without addressing that issue seems to be inviting criticism.
Finally…
Hopefully 7.1 will introduce better processing to make the real-time separation of vocals, melodies, and drums sound as good as they do on rival platforms. For now, though, Rekordbox 7 is available immediately.
More info over on the Rekordbox website.
Phil Morse
