One of my pet hates (and that’s an understatement) is how the different DJ software products have entirely different music libraries. And those libraries don’t talk to each other either, unless coerced with prejudice. But Alchimie Zinc approaches the task from the most logical angle — sort your music out at a file and folder level, push it through Alchimie Zinc, and out the other end comes a Serato Library. And with v1.1 comes the ability to do the same with Traktor 2.6 as well.
First some words about Alchimie Zinc:
System Requirements
Alchimie Zinc™ is compatible with:
- Windows XP, Windows 7, Mac OSX (10.5+)
- Java 1.6 or Java 1.7 is required (NOTE: Java 1.7 is preferred and will enable additional features)
Overview
As DJ’s we know that time is your most valuable resource.
If you are a Pro DJ, or a DJ hobbyist you spend countless hours, days and even months arranging your valuable music collection on your hard drive, and removable storage devices. Why should you have to duplicate this process in various applications? Are you frustrated with adding new songs to your hard drive and then having to deal with the tedious steps of adding all the crates and subcrates again in your DJ Application? We at Alchimie, as DJ’s, have contended with this issue ourselves and have decided to create a tool to remedy this issue.
Alchimie Zinc™ allows a DJ to use their “existing” Hard Drive file structure to sync music into two of the most popular DJ applications on the market, “Serato Itch”, “Serato Scratch Live”, “Serato DJ Intro” and now “Native Instrument’s Traktor”. With a simple graphical user interface your DJ Management needs are met with the click of a button.
Alchimie™ has many features that are sure to save you valuable time to get you back to doing what you do best….Performing.
Essentially, Alchimie Zinc™ maintains a list of “Media Roots”, these are Folders/Directories that you add manually or simply drag and drop from your file system. These “Media Roots” correspond to crates in your DJ program. When you are ready, you can then synchronize this list (along with all sub folders) into your Serato or Traktor application in mere seconds. This feature in and of itself can potentially save hours, or even days of tedious setup – but that’s not all!
Whats new in Alchimie Zinc™ Version 1.1.207 (Current Release)
- Native Instrument’s Traktor 2.6 compatibility: After many requests from the Traktor community, Alchimie Zinc™ now syncs to “Music folders” in Traktor.Note: “Import Music folder at startup” must be selected in Traktor configuration to view the synced folders.
- Simultaneous Sync: Alchimie Zinc™ will now automatically sync to multiple locations with a full Serato database Structure. No matter where your media is located, Alchimie Zinc™ will correctly write the Serato structure only to the drive containing the media. This largely eliminates the need to manually select the drive in the configuration each time you want to sync to a different location, such as an external drive.
- Dynamic Preview: You can now preview the selected song or multiple songs at once within Alchimie Zinc™. Previewing multiple songs allows for comparison of loudness and frequency information. With Java 7 or above, the preview will show a dynamic Decibel/Frequency chart while playing. This allows the DJ to compare volume levels of the selected songs to ensure it is not to loud or lower than expected. The frequency display allows the DJ to recognize elements of the song to be equalized or the range to be eliminated to produce an effect. NOTE: WAV, AIFF, MP3, MP4, AAC, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, non-DRM WMA (Windows only) and Apple Lossless (ALAC) formats are supported for Java 7, Java 6 allows preview of Mp3 only.
- Alchimie can now recognize and sync FLAC files to SSL/Itch and Serato DJ.
- Large library Sync: Alchimie Zinc™ can handle larger libraries of media across multiple drives and sync them to the correct locations. For example, you can drag folders/directories from five different drives to the sync window and sync to all locations…. simultaneously. Alchimie Zinc™ will sync and create the necessary Serato structure across all 5 drives.
- Option to collapse all crates after Syncing.
- Many stability & performance improvements throughout our code base to keep you as productive as possible.
It certainly has my attention. Anything that allows me to have a one-stop shop centralised library is worthy of a look. And look I will, in detail to see if it offers me anything over iTunes that caters for my relatively simple needs.
Alchimie Zinc video competition
But that’s not all. Alchimie wants to see how you use Zinc in your workflow via the medium of video. There are some easy rules to follow, but the winner gets a Numark Orbit when it comes out plus a bunch of promo for you and your DJ life. 2nd place gets a Decksaver of their choice plus a 3rd place prize of a t-shirt and refund for their original purchase.
You can get the full story on the video competition right here. Good luck!