PureDJ is a novel proposition from iMect, the makers of DJ Player. Their plan is to get back to basics and create a new iOS app that strips away the bells, whistles and general frippery that has infected improved DJ software. And they’d like your help to get the balance right.
There no arguing that the core requirement of DJing is incredibly simple — 2 decks with volume, EQ, and pitch control. That’s it — anything else in the art and skill of DJing can be considered an extra. In the digital age however, you need a few more controls to represent decks in a useable form.
If you check out the list created for PureDJ, they’ve actually been a bit more generous that I would have been to more accurately represent a basic setup, but perhaps this list is more in line with CDJ use. What it does lack however is a great slice of what the Seratos and Traktors (and DJ Players) or this world bring to the table.
How pure should PureDJ be?
Over to you. How far back would you strip PureDJ? If you can imagine emulating vinyl use, where you probably only had a couple of bags to flick through, organised in no particular order, you’d have to find your track and manually put it on the platter, and then manually beatmatch the tracks. Should the track library be manually sorted by dragging tracks into order? Should you have to drag the tracks to the decks rather than pressing a simple “Load A” button press? Remember, this is about taking away features to get to a bare minimum, instead of adding cool new things.
What will be fun is seeing how quickly people realise just how much they have come to take for granted and depend on the features constantly pushed before them. When you think that you might have to do without loops, cues and sync, suddenly you realise that your definition of keeping it real is quite some way from reality.
Anyway, kick this around, see what you all consider to be pure DJ features, and discuss how this can be implemented in an iPad app.