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My displeasure with the plethora of library formats is well known, but it seems that Next Audio Lab’s Rekord Buddy may well smash down at least one wall — the one between Traktor and Rekordbox — with some style, provided you’re on a Mac.
Trying not going to re-rant over old ground again, but my core issue is that unless you use the basic library tools afforded to you by Apple’s iTunes, you have to commit wholeheartedly to a particular piece of software with little in the way of translation, other than the handful of 3rd party library wranglers. But what Rekord Buddy promises is a smooth 2-way conversion between Traktor and Rekordbox.
This doesn’t appear to be some half -arsed conversion either. You can choose tracks, playlists or whole libraries, and also decide exactly what metadata to shift across as well, including beat grids. You’ll still have to generate waveforms internally of course, as that kind of thing is beyond the scope of data translation. Well right now it is anyway — most things are just a matter of time.
Unity approaches?
I understand why different software companies use their own libraries, but it’s not good for the end user. Ultimately, they all provide the same end result, deployed in more or less the same way. It’s not like the Traktor Library offers anything radical over the Rekordbox, Serato, VDJ or any other library for that matter. But the increasing number of products like Rekord Buddy shows us that a time will come where there will be one product (that should be called Unity or Conduit or Ultimate DJ Library Translator Pro) that will allow you to repurpose your lovingly crafted library into another format at the press of a button. It could even go as far as bouncing changes in one automatically through all the others.
We’re a little way off that right now, but given that there are Traktor/Serato translators (Alchimie Zinc is one, and NI’s own is here), it seems like Rekord Buddy should be able to do a 3-way translation soon enough. Seems that Virtual DJ is missing from the translator game though, unless anyone can tell me otherwise.
Take the Survey
In a bid to help shape future versions of Rekord Buddy, there’s a survey for you to take on the site where you have the chance to win an iPad Mini. It’s painless and quick, and simply asks a little about you (no names necessary) and what you do and don’t like about your current DJ software. I did it, but in my own name, so I’m not expecting to win an iPad Mini, but simply offering a little help.
Buying Rekord Buddy
So there you have it — one more barrier eliminated between opposing libraries. I don’t know if Rekord Buddy does a perfect conversion just yet, as I don’t have a Rekordbox library of any note or size. But I’m looking forward to hearing your experiences. Remember, Rekord Buddy is Mac only right now and can be grabbed from the App Store for $7.99/£5.49.