I’m a terrible DJ (unless you count success by the number of people you can force off the dance floor with one track, in which case I’m a total mix master), but I’ve worked with enough DJs to know the tricks of the tracks. And one of those tricks is the old left-it-at-home routine.
When somebody requests a song you don’t want to play, you say “Excellent song! I love that one.” Then you pause and say “I think I left it at home.”
Now, Djs will have no excuse, becasue the new Pacemaker app will let you spin and mix tunes from Spotify’s huge gazillion-song library.
You’ll need a Spotify Premium account to use it (your iTunes library also works fine, although iTunes Match tracks will need to be downloaded with the music app before you can play them). From there, you can mix, crossfade and scratch tracks, you can auto-match the beats, split the output and use your headphones to cue a track, and a whole lot more.
Everything you need is in the (free) app already, and you can add a bunch of extra features a buck at a time through in-app purchases.
Spotify aside (an awesome feature to be sure), the app is worth it even if you just use iTunes. The flat interface is dead easy to use, with a really neat way to use the various effects: tap one (in the center of each “record” and the circle becomes the control. What’s more, you can use the little pie-chart buttons as sliders, letting you adjust things like bass, treble and gain with one swipe.
Neat touches abound: pinch out on the music waveform at the top and you zoom into a giant version to help you find a part of you track with visual help.
Go grab Pacemaker. It’s free, it’s awesome, and it’s the only way you’re going to DJ on the iPad with like one billion songs. Try carrying those to your gig in a record box.
