To give this headline some context — there’s a particular digital record pool that’s been… ummm persistent in asking us for a review, to the point of emails arriving at personal addresses. So the question arose of whether we should review it or not. The internal conversation went like this:
To explain — we’re either too old school for digital record pools, or too niche in our tastes. So we’re hardly in a position to say what makes a good and bad experience with one. That’s right — we hold our hands up when we don’t know about something.
So this seems like an ideal opportunity for the hive DJWORX community mind to help us in our quest to create the definitive music pool group test. To clarify – we’re talking about DJ specific promotional music services that offer a wide range of fully legal and licensed music and video that you download and keep for a monthly subscription. We’re not talking about streaming services, but the digital equivalent of a record pool where you actually got to keep the music. Think Promo Only or DJ City rather than Spotify or Pulselocker
OVER TO YOU
So which ones do you use and why? What features do you look for? Are you driven by price or selection? Or both? We’re especially interested in covering smaller more niche ones too, especially as Jared is hoping to find one that services his more Industrial tastes.
After mixing your community feedback with our own opinions, we’ll create a list of pools and a criteria by which to rate them. And then we’ll approach each one and see if they’re up for giving us access for the purposes of the group test. It’s highly unlikely to come up with e generic “best” pool, but we can at least give you a comprehensive list of what’s out there.
Remember — the end result will only be as good as the feedback you give, so get involved. We’d hate to complete the full thing and then get “I can’t believe (insert pool here) wasn’t included” comments. And feel free to drop a line to pools@djworx.com if you want your pool to be included.
Nice to see you guys use Slack too ;)
I’ve never used one. I stick to Soundcloud and sometimes YouTube for my music discovery.
Doesn’t everyone use Slack? ;)
Everyone does!
Not Me
Never used one. Found them completely useless
I’m signed up for the beat junkies record pool…
It’s not the cheapest but find it the best for me.
Coming from a boom bap hip hop DJ side of things I found that I would download 90% of the content that was up on the site.
It wasn’t all boom bap hip hop but they seam to only upload the better tracks so along with the “boom bap” style hip hop there was Trap, house , skratch tools , jazz , funk , disco etc.. But it was the better tracks in the genre.
I feel that they have a bit of curation/quality control going on compared to other pools and probably the style and track selection that the beat junkies are know are reflected in their pool.
I’ve been a member of franchise , 12inch and a few others in the past but they all seam to upload a lot of terrible music and was only downloading about 10% of the content.
*ignore me, i can search their library. great feature that EVERY pool should have. Check out our library, and then sign up.
I’ve used Crate Connect, Club Killers, and 8th wonder. Currently using Franchise but would prefer DJcity. DJcity is expensive.
How is DJcity expensive? DJCity is a $1 a day Hector that = $30 a month. Shit in the 90’s and early 2000’s I was buying vinyl that was $15 to $30 or MORE a week come on man EXPENSIVE….?
Ill contribute to my limited and current experience. I have all the gear to go out and play but lacking the music. I tried to torrent music from pools and download songs and albums little by little. I’ve also been in a Promo Only record pool that was paid for by a company I worked for in the past. Reflecting on the past, I found relief in not having to hunt as much pop tunes and just set them up to how the set would complement each other. Other than the pop stuff that pays the bills, i don’t trust pools for my niche genres.
I have used several in the past and just finished chatting with one of the guys at MyMp3Pool.com. For starters, there is no pool that will be everything to everyone. Some do better with some types of genres as opposed to others. I have been a member of DJCity, MyMP3pool, & Zip DJ as well as I used to use Promo Only when they were only on CD subscription. Here’s my take.
Promo Only: From what I remember from their CD subscriptions (no doubt their online is similar) You get almost all the music that charts between their various releases. They cover a very wide range of music from Top 40 to Urban to Latin to Dance. They just send you the music so you don’t have to worry about tracking the music down. When I was using their CD service, very rarely did somebody ask me for something that I didn’t have or at worst it came on the very next month’s CD. With the online service, I imagine it would be even faster. I think though if you are looking for a lot of remixes, this may not be the place for you. I think you will probably find mostly official label remixes. They can be pricey with the basic music subscription starting at $40USD/month and the full music subscription at $50/month. They also offer music videos. I don’t know if you can get back catalog stuff from them or only what they are currently releasing.
DJCity: I’ve been a member of DJCity for quite a bit and they really seem to have a lot of what I personally play which is Top 40 remixes and EDM, Hip Hop, Twerk, Dubstep & Trap. They have a really good mix of official remixes and bootleg remixes from various DJs and most of their remixes are pretty quality, depending on what you are looking for. The downside to DJCity is that they don’t have as much pop, rock or any country music. So if you are a mobile DJ, you could not rely on them to provide you with that type of stuff, but if you are a club DJ then this could be one of your go to pools. The other downside is that while not terribly expensive $30USD/month, you have to pay in 3 month increments, so $90 every quarter with no monthly option or discount on longer subscriptions. They have a app that lets you do your digging on your phone which can be handy, the only problem (and maybe this is just my phone) the music stops when the screen goes to sleep. But you just click on the songs you like and then it puts it a list that you can download later.
MyMp3Pool: I’ve been with them off and on and they have really good value for the money. While they do tend to have more Hip Hop, they also have a lot of other stuff and you will find the occasional rock or country track on their. I have been told that they are looking to diversify more musically which would be great. They do offer a lot of throwback tracks that have intros and outros added and they do offer videos as well (I can’t speak to their video selection as I use Traktor). They have an Ok mix of both official label remixes as well as bootleg remixes but not nearly as many as say DJCity. For me personally, I find them to be a very good secondary pool right now. Like DJCity, MyMP3Pool also has an app that works in a very similar way to DJCity’s.
ZipDJ: Its been awhile since I’ve been a member of ZipDJ but from what I can remember, they had the widest selection of music besides Promo Only. Their website was very busy and it took alot of getting used to. They had a very good mix of label remixes and well as bootlegs, but definitely leaned towards the label side of things. You would search the files and select what you wanted and it went to sort of a shopping cart. When you were done, you would click on a button that would put all your songs into a Zip file and send it to you. Overall ZipDJ is a really good balance of music, but it can also be the most expensive if you don’t do the yearly subscription $420USD/year all at once or $50 month to month.
There are other pools out there that I haven’t gotten around to like Franchise, ClubKillers, DMS, Late Night and BPM Supreme. Don’t forget remix services like Xmix and Full Tilt Remix.
who the hell would waste money on nothing, thought these things were long gone
I’ll bite. Where do you get your music from?
I’m biting too.
from music sellers, not from air, you buy air, i buy real material
bootlegging music?
Looking for a good one for country, I need new and older country. Prefer not to use Promo Only…anyone have any other country music pools?
iDJPool offers a country-only option for only $15/month. Would be good as an add-on to another pool that lacks country. IDJPool is also great in general. FTP bulk downloads are nice.
https://www.countrydjpool.com/
I used DJ City for a little while but I found all the dance remixes sounded like “#Selfie” so I cancelled my subscription.
Promo Only. DJ City is dope, very dope, just had a very long history with Promo Only, and its never failed me. They tend to have the most versions of a song as well, which is useful.
bpmsupreme.com $20 a month for mp3, also does video. They do Country, Rock, EDM, Hip Hop, Latin and have a nice collection of 80s & 90s
Given that I’m a mobile DJ that plays for particular kinds of crowds, I rely on three pools: (1) ZipDJ, which has a wide variety of genres, as others have said, but also because it provides super useful, dynamic, user-defined charts that facilitate keeping an eye on what’s becoming or has been popular over different time frames, from this week, weeks and months ago, this year or last year–this has been really handy; (2) Direct Music Service DMS, due to their archive of old music, going back decades, in addition to more variety of edits, not just remixes, of both current and old tracks; (3) Latinos Unidos, for Latin genres, which have minimal presence on ZipDJ and practically zero on DMS. — But, I must also admit that I still have to follow what’s showing up and moving in and out of charts on Traxsource and Juno, though less on Beatport, where I can get tracks I really like far sooner, a bunch of which give me an edge in a lot of shows.
I use Live DJ Service which, if I’m not mistaken, is run by Benzi from TWRK. It’s cool, but it’s not updated constantly. He’ll drop large batches every few week so or so and he usually has everything I need hip-hop wise. It was either run with them or go back to Zip DJ and Zip DJ was getting pricey for me at the time, but they did have a wider selection and if I remember correctly you could search by BPM or at the very least it was listed so I could skip through for songs I needed (hip-hop around 95 BPM seems to be rare these days). They definitely had more clean/radio versions which was useful for weddings. Now I have to risk it with the dirty/club versions I have and hope nobody gets offended. I’d really like to try Beat Junkies’ record pool and possibly DJ City’s in the future.
DJ City for audio, Xtendamix for video. The only downfall for DJ City is that there’dls no reggae/soca.
I’ve seen this topic a lot recently…
I haven’t used a record pool myself. I know people who have or do.
They get access to tracks for a monthly service fee.
If whitlelable from Serato counts as a record pool I can say I’ve checked it out. Wasn’t really my list of artist style whatever you wAnt to call it.
Not saying some of the tracks I play on a personal aren’t maybe on a record pool somewhere.
I’ve played tracks found on soundcloud at some point. I’m guessing that’s kinda like the record pool service in a sense.
Anyway I would say test drive it for a month or so and if it’s useful… Why not?
People are going to give streaming media a try at some point. Some will like it and some will call it the devil and blaming it for ruining djing etc etc etc.
I still use Serato’s Whitelabel. I complain that some promo tracks aren’t available in my country (France), even some years after their release.
I posted a thread about it but no solution was brought to date. Labels lik Cash Money Records and Interscope are the main ones blocking the access to interesting promo tracks. I’ve found dope old school reggae hip hop tracks i’ve been searching for since 20 to 22 years ago (Mega Banton, Born Jamericans, etc…). Most of the tracks available here ain’t hot for the crowds (bars, clubs, private events).
I tested trackitdown.net once and had the possibility to download a track and it messed up. The support hasn’t been helpful and i never had the track.
Like most of those using Beatport, i had the first 10 promo tracks some years ago but never made any purchase after.
I might lean towards iTunes. I still buy physical products (records, cd’s and dvd’s).
The Beat Junkies Record Pool seems to be the best (only) one for a non EDM dj.
I throw my own events/parties and primarily use: Beat Junkies Record Pool for the crate digger and real Hip-Hop, RnB, Jazz, Soul, classic reggae boombap head I am. Digitaldjpool & MyMp3Pool for the EDM, Pop & Top 40 stuff.
Direct Music Service (DMS). It’s pretty comprehensive. Just wish it had acapellas. Speaking of which who has good acapellas in their pool?
Djcity has acapellas and they are on top making DIY acapellas check em out!
DMS has a big issue with their older tracks not being quantized. Loops come out all fucked and and some of the intro’s are 12 bars instead of the standard 8. Alot of their music says 320KBPS and still sounds like shit man, I swear I had to run through all of the tracks I downloaded from them and listen for audio quality. DO NOT USE DMS.
If there was something focused on DnB/Dubstep/Future/Footwork/etc. I would be interested but the mainstream stuff just doesn’t do it for me. As a promoter, perfomer, and podcaster I value the promos I get via email but it would be nice to have a few more. I’d happily pay for such a service as well.
what email service do you use for that mate so hard to get future man
Well I am based out of NYC and have close ties with Djcity since I help them out in the New York Offices as well have my own edits and music on there too. Before I had those ties. I was a member of mymp3pool.com (I have my own personal edits on there too), Franchise record pool and DMS out of all the pools if I had to rate them DJcity #1, Mymp3pool #2, DMS #3 and Franchise Last. My opinion you shouldn’t rely on one pool or source to get music. If you really want to be a good and expand your horizon musically you should get your music from several sources. I use a combination of above and other sources as well.
One last note some pools are just not just music pools but offers news, reviews and much more such as DJcity. I was just part of their big New York City Networking event and it was dope :)
P.S. DJcity has a good house selection and alot of people don’t know about it either. You just have access to the UK vesrsion of the site here http://www.djcity.co.uk/ and if you are already a member of the DJcity pool you also have access to the music thats on there too just a tip :)
thanks for that UK tip. One of the biggest reasons I always tend to cross them off of the list is because I’m more into house than anything else.
As a DJ, the more sources the better, just pick the tracks that suits you and your crowd. That being said, I am a Video DJ and here is how I source my material:
– Pools > http://www.Smashivision.net for dope quality club tracks + http://www.Xtendamix.ca for the extensive backcatalogue of classics and current stuff too. These 2 are the best for VJs period point blank!
Sometimes I will prefer the audio edit of one over the other, no set rules.
– My own material/edits that which you can find on my website http://www.djresqvideomix.com : A lot of reggae dancehall, urban, house, rock, funk, soul, ….. a few acapellas and dj tools too.
– Other video DJs and DJs, Labels, Artists > networking is key to be up to date and to have something different from the rest.
Peace out, ResQ
damn i never tought my avatar would be so big, i want to remove it but i cant, feel free to delete it mods :)
LOL
I user xmixdigital.com, Ultimix & Funkymix and cdpooldigital.com (club and dance)
For as long as they won’t offer WAV or AIFF format, I won’t join any record pool.
Currently using Digital DJ Pool. I like them, but they sometimes sleep on hot new releases, and don’t have a lot of fun, original remixes like DJ City.
The company I work for uses PrimeCuts Monthly. They’re at primecutsmusic.com and they cover the Top 40 and Country charts (I live in Central TX. There’s no escaping it). They’ve been adding in “Dance” and “Urban” tracks as well. More recently they’ve been adding “EZ Mix Edits” where they loop some of the track at the beginning and end. There’s also a weekly variant if you want your tracks faster.
It may not play well for the hep cats doing clubs and house parties, but if you’re gonna play in Texas…
BarBangerz.com
Just found this thread and figured I would throw in my 2 cents. I have used Promo Only, zipDJ and DJ City but I would give the edge to zipDJ. They have pretty much all I need and are quite current with promos. Many I get there before Beatport. Deffo suited for the house and mainstream DJ but also have a decent selection of others. Ultimately, try a few pools and pick the one you think is best for you.