Beatport Launches New DJ Web App Beatport DJ

Beatport has launched a new DJ web app called Beatport DJ. The new service works together with Beatport Link so you will need a subscription to one of their pricing tiers in order to gain access. These aren’t cheap:

This means that for USD 14.99, you would have full access to the Beatport LINK library, plus a ready-to-go web app to DJ with.

Features

Beatport DJ looks & feels like any other professional DJ software solution on the market today. Beatport is not necessarily marketing it as a competitor to Rekordbox or Serato, but more as a companion software, to be used to discover new music and try out mixes on the fly. As such, it can certainly rival the existing solutions.

Any playlists you build, cue points, and hot cues you set in Beatport DJ are instantly transferred to any Beatport Link integration you have on other platforms. The obvious weakness is of course the fact that the Beatport pool will probably only be a part of your DJ music collection, so you still will need to do extra for other tracks that Beatport Link doesn’t carry.

If you want to use the software as a standalone package, that is possible but challenging. Unless you plan to DJ with your laptop only, Beatport DJ only supports one controller natively as of now: the Pioneer DJ DDJ-200. Any other gear has to be midi mapped manually, something few DJs will go through the trouble of doing nowadays.

Early conclusion

If Beatport is already a big part of your DJing ecosystem, Beatport DJ is certainly interesting, especially if you already have a Link subscription. If not, it might be a good incentive to consider a subscription, as anything that can make music discovery and prep a more enjoyable experience is a big plus.

In my opinion, and certainly at this beta stage, Beatport would do good at opening up the beta to everyone, and not only those that own a Link subscription. Yes, I know you can get a trial subscription, but that is already a barrier that many people aren’t willing to jump. My approach would be to open the software itself to everyone, but with a limited catalog of free tracks to those that don’t have a subscription.

Let’s see how it evolves!