The words “Engine” and “Prime” send chills down the spines of Team DJWORX. Without painting vivid pictures of scenes in the Worxlab, Dan and myself were at various levels between facepalming, open-mouthed disbelief, and throwing things when reviewing the first release of Engine Prime. And with each tiptoeing release of Engine Prime, we make sure that sharp and heavy objects are out of reach when we fire up the newest version. Thankfully, observing lockdown means that only cups of tea are in grabbing range when firing up the newly released and significantly updated v1.5 of Engine Prime.
There’s such a lot of words — Denon DJ must be pleased as punch with this release:
ENGINE® DJ DROPS SUBSTANTIAL ENGINE PRIME SOFTWARE UPDATE PACKED WITH NEW FEATURES AND NEW BPM DETECTION ALGORITHM
Engine PRIME v1.5.0 adds a brand new Sync Manager, metadata batch editing and track preview, making it easier than ever to prepare music for use on Denon DJ’s Engine OS enabled devices.
Ft. Lauderdale FL, USA (May 26, 2020) – Engine DJ, a leading developer of cross-platform DJ software solutions, today announced the availability of Engine PRIME v1.5, marking the desktop software’s largest feature release to date. This update greatly simplifies the process of transferring music to media devices with an all-new Sync Manager. The update also introduces a significantly improved BPM detection algorithm, track preview, batch editing for track metadata, local collection backup and restore functionality as well as a number of additional usability improvements and stability enhancements.
Engine PRIME v1.5.0 is available today for all users as a free and recommended update. Highlights of Engine Prime v1.5.0 are as follows:
Sync Manager
Transferring music to a media device is both simple and fast thanks to the new Sync Manager feature. The Sync Manager window enables users to select multiple Crates and Playlists to export to any connected media device with a single click. It also indicates the space needed for the selected Crates or Playlists as well as the available space for the selected media device. Performance data such as hot cues, loops, and beat grid changes made on Denon DJ Engine OS hardware can also be synced back to the Engine PRIME collection.
New BPM Detection Algorithm
Built from the ground up, Engine PRIME 1.5 features a brand new BPM detection algorithm. The new analysis process is lightning fast and provides highly accurate results. When analyzing music in v1.5, users will find both BPM and beat grid downbeat placement are far more accurate than previous versions. *tracks will need to be reanalyzed in Engine PRIME v1.5 to utilize the new BPM and downbeat algorithm.
Track Preview
Users will appreciate a more efficient and fluid way to preview tracks when managing and preparing their music. The track list in v1.5, features a new column for quickly previewing tracks without loading them to the deck. Track preview playback is activated just by clicking on the overview waveform in the track list. The preview waveform column is scalable and provides hot cue markers to help users quickly identify tracks that have already been prepared.
Metadata Batch Edit
Editing track metadata information in Engine PRIME v1.5 can now be done to multiple tracks simultaneously. Users can now select a group of tracks for editing, click the field that needs updating and apply that change to all selected tracks. Batch editing from the track list is intuitive and a big time-saver when it comes to tidying up various sized music collections.
In addition, v1.5 brings the following notable enhancements:
- Local Collection Backup and Restore
- Improved Beat Grid editing
- Deck Eject
- User Preference support for the Denon DJ SC6000/M, PRIME 2 and PRIME GO
Download and the full release notes for this release are available via: denondj.com/downloads
“This update is a big step forward for Engine PRIME,” said Jason Stout, Product Marketing Manager for Engine DJ. He added, “our aim with each software release is to provide DJs with useful tools that improve and speed up the preparation process. Sync Manager, track preview, and batch editing are all massive time savers that enable the DJ to spend less time preparing and more time in the mix.”
And these are the releases notes:
Release Notes | Engine PRIME
Version 1.5.0
New Features:
- New Sync Manager – export music to media devices and sync performance data back to Engine PRIME
- New highly accurate BPM detection algorithm
- Added the ability to preview a track from the library without loading to a deck
- Added the ability to batch edit track info for multiple tracks simultaneously
- Added local Collection Backup & Restore functionality
- Added the ability to eject a track from the deck
- Added user Preference support for PRIME 2 and PRIME GO, SC6000/M
Fixes and Improvements:
- Improved Beat Grid editing
- Fixed an issue where BPM adjust buttons were still useable at minimum & maximum supported BPM values
- Fixed an issue where double click to load would fail after application is first initialized
- Fixed an issue where crate aggregation prohibited new crate creation in the local collection
if crates on the external drive have the default name(s)
- Fixed an issue where Traktor, Rekordbox & iTunes could not be sorted by key column
- Fixed an issue where Static & Dynamic time settings where not displayed properly when switching between elapsed and remaining time
- Fixed an issue where connecting a media device during packing process would temporarily causes crate/playlist structure to render incorrectly
- Fixed an issue where ‘Update Available’ was displayed when no update was available
- Fixed an issue on Windows where the “Do you want to quit?” dialog box would change size if a job was running
- Fixed an issue where track info would be cleared for missing tracks
- Fixed an issue where an Apple Music App playlist would be empty if it’s highlighted before the library update is complete
- Other various stability enhancements & improvements
I’m not testing this right now
I’ve always had a policy about testing free software. It doesn’t make sense to eat into my valuable time when you can download it yourself and answer your own questions. And… well… I don’t have any flash or USB devices at home. They’re all at the Worxlab, as is the SC5000M, and I’m pretty strong on observing the lockdown.
That said, I have fired it up, and it does feel immediately better. My first impression is the analysis is blisteringly fast, and without detailed checking seems accurate too. That’s the first impression that Engine Prime needs to have.
It’s worth pointing out at this point that this will only import rekordbox 5 data. It depends on having the rekordbox XML file exported, and rekordbox 6 doesn’t do that anymore.
If you want to know more, you can download v1.5 today and check it out for yourself.
UNRELATED THOUGHT
Wouldn’t it be a marketing wheeze to only release product with prime numbers? Here’s a useful list to choose from.