- A slick, mature, customisable interface.
Easier harmonic mixing, and
a new event scheduler feature
that lets you sequence
music, videos, and images.
This is Virtual DJ 2020.
It's the latest version
of the Virtual DJ app
for PC and Mac,
and it's an update to Virtual DJ 2018,
which was released a year ago
at the time of this filming,
and by the time that you'll watch this,
it'll be available to download
over on the Virtual DJ site.
So basically, we got a chance to test it
right before it dropped,
and in this first look
video, we're going to focus
on three standout features of this app.
First is the spiffy new
and mature interface,
it looks really professional,
especially when you compare
it to earlier versions
of Virtual DJ.
Next up, we're going to check out
the advanced harmonic mixing feature
that lets you automatically
sync the musical key
of two or more songs,
and finally, we'll check out the new
event scheduler feature,
which is something cool
for mobile and pro DJs who do events
that are heavy on background
music, voiceovers,
and DJ idents and stingers.
Now, give this video
a like and let me know
what you think in the comments below,
especially if you're using
a different DJ software,
and whether or not these new features
make you want to hop aboard.
Without further ado, let's get to it.
All right, and here is the new interface.
A little bit more sombre,
a little bit more muted
in terms of colours, and
the graphics are also
a little bit flatter, I would say.
Of course, we're taking a look
at the pro layout currently,
and can use this drop down to
check out the other layouts,
which we will do later on in this video,
but right now, let's just
focus on this for now.
The layout is still pretty much the same,
you've got your two
decks are right in here,
your waveform display at the top,
as well as the browser
over here on the bottom.
Now, let's add some music so we can see
what the new waveforms look like,
and just before we load
music from our hard drive,
again, streaming is a big
deal in Virtual DJ 2020.
It can click on online music,
and you've got access to all
of these streaming services.
You've got iDJPool, VJ'Pro for
video, Digitrax for karaoke,
Deezer, you can also connect
Deezer if you want to
play music from streaming,
SoundCloud's in here, Beatport
link is in here as well,
and I've also got like
an offline locker in here
for the streaming services over in here
that do allow you to save tracks
over in your offline cache.
Right, so, let's go to local music.
Going to go to iTunes and,
let's add a song in here.
Mermaids?
Or,
yeah, how about this one?
'Kay, cool, so,
let's try loading this on the left deck.
'Kay, you've got your blue
waveform over here at the top,
and
let's try this one.
I like this song.
Okay, cool.
So this is what it looks
like with the songs loaded,
and still,
the interface, it just looks,
again, really mature, not too flashy.
It's kind of understated, and I like that
just because, you know,
when you're at the club,
you don't really want to
see a lot of flashing lights
and all that stuff while you're DJing,
you just want to focus
on what's important,
and I think, by having a
predominantly grey interface
over here with only
some stuff highlighted,
like the play button, the queue,
as well as the waveforms,
it allows you to just be
able to zero in quickly
on the information that you need
in order to perform.
So let's try this out,
I'm going to hit play.
(steady beat)
Awesome.
And the slider over
here let's you zoom out,
or zoom in on the waveforms.
And the cool thing about Virtual DJ 2020
is you can customise the way
that these waveforms look,
just go to layout, and
go to waveform display,
and you can change these if you like.
Just take a look at some
of these setting here,
Rhythm Enhanced gives
you half the waveform
so you can see the spikes.
You can also take a
look a Mirrored Rhythm.
So this lets you overlay the full waveform
on top of each other, for
your spinning with two decks.
And you've got Full Spectrum,
which is what we had earlier,
which is the default.
All right, so let's jump
back to the beginning again,
here we are.
Now, apart from that, we
can also change the colour
of the waveforms, so right
now we've got Monochrome,
that's why we've only got
two colours for the waveform,
so you can go Full Spectrum.
Now you've got these colours,
which lets you see how
the sound energies are,
like in terms of bass,
trebles, that kind of thing.
If you go multi-color,
yeah, so now the colour
scheme is different again.
So yeah, you can toggle these
depending on what you like.
I kind of like the Monochrome look,
so going to keep it like that.
Zoom out a little bit.
Now, I can also
reposition the waveforms,
let's say I want it below the decks,
kind of like how you have
it in the extended layout
in Serato DJ Pro.
So I can have it looking
like that if I want to.
I think this is really awesome
because it just gives you
a really quick and easy way
to modify the layout
without having to download
another skin.
Of course, Virtual DJ is known
for its user-generated skins
as well as skins provided by the company.
Basically, you can go online,
download just about any
kind of skin out there,
you can even make it look
like a CDJ if you want,
or like a pair of CDJs and DJM mixer.
But it's nice to have
this tweaking capability
right from the main interface,
just because, yeah, you can modify it
depending on your mood, depending
on what you want to see,
and depending on the situation at the club
or wherever you're spinning.
Okay, so let's just bring
it back to this setting.
Now, let's take a look at
these other
options.
Show Gridlines, it just
lets you see the grid-lines
with
greater clarity, 'cause now you're seeing
the entire grid-line as opposed to
just the tics at the top and
bottom with the waveforms,
and you've also got a
bar counter over here.
Really really handy,
this is something that
has been around in previous
versions of Virtual DJ,
and actually that's something that I like
in Rekordbox DJ as well.
You can have this on too if you like.
Cool.
Now, you're probably wondering,
"Hey, I want to see vertical waveforms,
"where are the vertical waveforms?"
Well, you can just go
over here to Scratch,
and now, voila, you've got your
vertical waveforms over here.
While you use this slider
over here to zoom in or out
of these top waveforms,
you can just change the
resolution using that slider,
but over here for the vertical waveform,
all you need to do is to just to use
your mouse's scroll-wheel
or your touch surface,
if that's what you're using,
in order to zoom in or
out of the waveform.
Okay.
And now let's take a look
at colour scheme here.
So right now we're using
the default colour scheme,
if you click on Contrast,
it's going to be a little
bit more contrasted,
so it's a punchier image.
You can go to Dark Mode,
so it's even darker,
so if you're playing in
a really dimly lit club
and you don't want your
screen just like, you know,
brightening up the entire DJ booth
or your face,
this is a nice layout to use,
and of course, you can just
use the brightness setting
on your laptop, of course,
but having this option
here with an easy access
is a nice touch.
And finally, if you are DJing
on the beach or outdoors,
you got a barbecue, or maybe
you're playing a festival,
you can use daylight mode,
and it inverts the colours,
so this is perfect when
spinning under direct sunlight,
'cause you're going to be able
to see what's on the screen,
as opposed to having to
cover or block out the sun
with your hands, or putting a shade on top
of your laptop screen.
So let's just jump back
quickly to default mode.
Let's take a look at the other
customisation options over here.
You've got Jogwheel Display,
and right now, we're
seeing the needle position,
let's just play this back,
so you've got the needle
position over here.
And we can change that to text,
and now it kind of looks
like the virtual decks
in Serato DJ Pro, right?
The other one is needle plus text,
and now it really looks
like the virtual decks
in Serato DJ Pro.
(records scratching)
Cool.
Yeah, I just like
scratching using the mouse,
but the cool thing about Virtual DJ,
and this was featured in Virtual DJ 2018,
is that it has loaded
scratch effects over here,
let me just show you how that sounds like.
(records scratching)
Yeah, I can just press these
pads and make scratches.
Yeah.
So, cool little feature.
Other customisation options in here,
so we've gone through the Colour Scheme,
we've gone through the Waveform Display,
we've gone through the Jogwheel Display,
now let's take a look at the Beat Counter.
Currently, we've got Phrase Bars.
Let's try the Phrase Circle.
And now you see these two circles pop up
at the top of your screen.
This tells you the phrase,
and it helps you in your beat mixing
just so you know when to
drop the next track in,
and it always counts in 16 beats.
16 beats is equal to four bars.
Cool.
Now let's take a look at
the other stuff in here.
Remove Show on Waveform,
suddenly you don't get
those bar info anymore.
Cool, so that's what it
looks like in two deck mode,
now if you go to four decks,
you've got your other
decks here at the bottom.
Let's just add some tracks in there.
I kind of like this,
it sort of looks like Traktor,
just because you only have
the waveform over here,
you don't have a spinny
virtual deck graphic.
It's a nice way to just keep things
a little bit more compact.
Very very cool.
And easy to get into and to navigate.
All right, so back to two-decks mode.
Cool, so we've taken a
look at the Pro layout,
let's take a look at the
other layouts over here.
Let's check out Controller LE Skin.
Now, I've used Virtual DJ
with a Numark Party Mix,
and that's why I get this
Numark Party Mix looking skin.
So, really, it kind of looks
like the hardware, right?
You've got sync, cue, play buttons,
jogwheel over in here, as well as your
four performance pads, on the deck.
All right, so let's get
out of party mix skin,
and let's take a look
at the starter skin now.
So this is if you're
just new to Virtual DJ,
you don't need all the
complicated or advanced features
of the pro layout, so this
is what you are seeing.
You've got this turntable
graphic over here,
then you've got these
waveforms over here at the top,
which shows you half of the waveform,
just so you can see the
transience a little bit better.
And of course, everything
works as it should.
Cool.
So that's starter.
Now let's take a look at essentials.
So now this is a hybrid
between the starter layout
and the pro layout, so you
get a little bit more control
over here on the decks interface,
and now you've got the stacked
waveforms over in here,
as well as different
graphics for the mixer.
So let's take a look at performance.
And, in performance mode,
basically, you don't have
the deck graphic anymore,
so it really is just the waveform
and the controls for the waveform,
as well as the data needed
in order for you to DJ.
I kind of like performance mode,
because it strips back the interface,
makes it looks a little
bit less cluttered,
and the cool thing is
I'm still able to change
the way that some of these graphics look,
so let's say I want a
bar counter in there,
I want a different colour scheme,
I could change it if I want to,
and I can also change the decks if I want.
Make it really small,
or, you know, if I feel
like maybe I want to
see those virtual decks again,
I can just go back to full,
and now I've got these
nice-looking and streamlined
virtual deck graphics.
So it's really cool,
I like these new features
in Virtual DJ 2020.
Again, looks a little bit more mature,
a little bit more sombre and understated,
and to me, that's great because,
again, I don't need
super-duper flashy graphics
while I'm DJing, I just
need the information
that is pertinent to
me to be eye-catching,
and in a digital DJ scenario,
the most pertinent information for me
would be the waveforms as
well as the information
that is covered in the virtual decks.
So there is a high
degree of customisability
and tweak-ability for the interface
straight in the default
UI of Virtual DJ 2020,
and again, I think that is a
really good design decision,
just because it gives you so much power
to customise the way
that the interface looks
before you start DJing,
without having to look for skins online,
or spending a lot of time
designing your own skin
just so it looks the
way that you want it to.
And that's a big plus in my book,
because, again, what really matters
in a piece of DJ software is
how the DJ software performs
and how stable it is,
and Virtual DJ has been
pretty stable for a while now.
That's why it's one of the big four
digital DJ apps out there,
it is stable, it's got
a tonne of features,
some features haven't even
been out on other DJ apps,
stuff like Sandbox mode,
which basically lets you rehearse a mix
in your headphones without the crowd
being able to hear it, just so you know
how that mix will sound
before you even execute it,
and you know, stuff like this,
it falls really within the
wheelhouse of Virtual DJ.
The app really is one of
the first to implement
new and exciting features when
it comes to digital DJing.
If you're talking about music streaming,
Virtual DJ was one of the first DJ apps
to integrate that.
They had the content unlimited service.
You used to be able to spin from Spotify,
it even had Shazam
integration in the past,
I think that was with Virtual DJ 8.
I don't see it now over
here in the browser section,
so maybe that's gone,
but they did have that before,
and now you've got a bunch of
other new features as well,
that have just been added
over here in Virtual DJ 2020,
and we're going to spend
the remainder of this video
talking about those new features.
All right, so one of the new key features
in Virtual DJ 2020 is called
Advanced Harmonic Mixing.
Basically, what this
does is it automatically
matches the pitch or musical key of a song
that you've got playing.
So let's say you've got
this track over here.
(steady beat)
It's in the key of G, and
I've already added this song,
and it has been matched automatically
by Virtual DJ 2020 for me,
and it puts it in the key of C,
which is a complimentary key,
so now, whenever I play this,
hit sync,
I can mix these two
and
it decreases the chances of
them clashing in terms of
harmony.
And that's what harmonic
mixing does, essentially.
It allows you to play two tracks together
and they would sound like
they are a good fit musically,
even though you've got two tracks
that are in the same tempo, for example,
if you mix them and they are
in different musical keys,
or keys that are clashing,
it sounds weird, it sounds off.
Whenever you're doing harmonic mixing,
basically, you're playing songs that have
the same musical key,
or are in complimentary musical keys.
Now in other DJ software,
you do have that key sync feature already,
but this is the first
time that it is really
being implemented as an automated feature
in virtual DJ.
And it's been around in Virtual DJ 2018,
it was in beta, I believe,
and in this current version,
it just works pretty well.
Now, of course, this is provided that
you are only shifting between
minus one or plus one semitones.
For example,
let's try to add a different song in here.
Okay, so now, this is in F-sharp minor,
and this in G,
if I click on key,
I get this pop-up,
Smart Key Match only
applies if the key change
is within plus one or minus one semitones,
if you want to adjust
the key more than this,
you can select it from the
drop down menu manually.
So no, this isn't going
to work just because
it's in a totally different key,
even though it's in
F-sharp and this is in G.
They're still not in the same range
because one is in the minor
and the other is in major.
Now, if you really do
want to key match this,
all you need to do is
click on this drop down
and choose the right one.
Or the one that's compatible,
so in this sense, it is E-minor,
because the relative minor
of G-major is E-minor.
I don't want to get into music theory,
but basically, that's what it is,
and you need to go down two semitones,
and that's why Virtual DJ doesn't do it
automatically for you, so you can do that,
and you can go ahead and
play these songs together
and you would minimise that clashing
of melodies, or chords,
and that kind of thing.
All right, now before we end this video,
let's take a look at the event scheduler,
which is one of the new features
in Virtual DJ 2020.
Basically, what it does is it lets you
line up a series of
commands for Virtual DJ,
whether you want to play
songs in a playlist,
one after another,
or you want to play a video
file after that playlist,
maybe you want to play a stinger,
maybe it's like your DJ name,
or it's a voiceover that you
want to play in between songs,
yes, you can do that now.
Everything is automated so you don't even
have to be behind the
decks for this to happen.
And this is cool if,
say, you're at a wedding
or a mobile DJ, you're at a function,
and you're playing music at a dinner,
you don't necessarily
need to be beat-mixing
during that time anyway,
you just leave Virtual DJ
to do all of that for you,
and you can script everything
over here in the event scheduler.
So let's take a look at that right now.
Just a quick look.
So if you click on that button,
this pop-up is going to
come out to your screen,
just click on the plus icon,
and basically, if you
click on what over here,
this lets you select an action,
and there are a couple in here.
You've got play a file, and
you can click on this one,
and another drop down comes out.
Click on that and it'll give you
your finder, or Windows
Explorer, whatever,
that you're using,
and then you can then pick a
song that you want to play,
you can play a video if you want to,
and over here you can specify
when you want this to play,
whether it's after or
at, then you can just
put a time limit in there.
Click save, and then, now,
whenever I click start.
(rock music)
It'll play this.
So stop, it's great to
audition, basically,
what you've put here
in the event scheduler.
Now, let's say you want to
add something else in here,
just click on the plus
icon, then you can select
a next action, if you
want to play another song,
or another file, you can do that.
If you want to play a
sample, let's say, you know,
you want to add an air horn
or, again, like a DJ drop,
or maybe a voiceover, you can do that.
And then you can just click save.
(air horns)
If you don't add anything,
it starts it immediately.
Now, of course, you can
change this if you want to.
You can just specify a time
over in here, for example.
Say it's 16:40.
Now if you take a look at the clock
over here on the upper right,
let's just wait for it to countdown
a little bit closer to 16:40,
you can even add another action in here
right before the countdown starts.
So let's say I've got a playlist in here
that I want to play.
At, let's say 16:41.
Save.
(air horns)
Okay, so 16:40 on the
clock, this track plays,
and then you've also got
the air horn sample playing.
Now, you can toggle this if you like,
let's say you don't want the
song to be playing anymore,
click on that icon and it'll stop playing.
Now let's just wait a
little while up until
16:41 shows up here on the clock,
and we can see whether or not Virtual DJ
will play this playlist,
and I'm willing to bet that it will,
because that's basically
what the event scheduler
is supposed to do.
Again, if you are a mobile DJ,
you play a lot of weddings,
a lot of functions,
a lot of corporate events,
and there are times
throughout the entire gig
that you're not even mixing music anymore,
you're just playing one track
after another in a playlist,
you can assign and schedule
all of those songs,
those videos, those voiceovers,
and those playlists over
here in the scheduler.
It's really really
neat, it's really handy,
and I think it's going to get
a lot of use from pro DJs.
(uplifting music)
There you go, just like that.
Just like clockwork.
So that's it for the event scheduler.
Now, apart from adding these actions,
you can also do other stuff,
like display a text message,
you can display a slideshow
of images if you like,
and you can even execute a script,
so this is more for those who
like coding in virtual DJ,
who know how to script the engine
and make it do things in particular.
Now, it's a little bit beyond me
because I'm not really that familiar
with the scripting system in Virtual DJ,
but the cool thing is if
you know how to use it,
you can add that as an
event item in the scheduler,
it can execute a script,
whatever script it is
that you want to use,
and then it's going to show up as a part
of this entire schedule.
So again, awesome for
mobile function and pro DJs.
So, that's it for this first look video
of Virtual DJ 2020.
Of course, we're going to do a full review
of this app including all of
its features and functions,
so keep checking back on this channel,
and don't forget to subscribe
if you still aren't a subscriber.
And please, let me know
what you think of this app.
Do you like the new look?
Is the harmonic mixing feature useful?
Do you think the event scheduler is cool?
Let me know in the comments, okay?
Thanks for watching.
Now get good, get out
there, and make the moments.
(calm beat music)
