The DJ world is currently experiencing a digital world shakeup due to the advent of new types of digital media formats including MP3’s, these have given birth to a new era of different DJ mixing software packages and different software control devices, all of which have been specially designed to create a more natural and rewarding experience for the DJ when they are interacting with their digital media.

Believe it or not, DJs can now store thousands of music tracks on a hard disk drive, USB memory stick or even an iPod device, all of which can easily be put into a laptop (PC or Macintosh) where the tracks can easily be manipulated by the DJ using different mixing music software. The DJ can now achieve high-quality results that by far exceed the possibilities with analogue media such as vinyl records.

This concept of being able to make a digital media track has been around quite a few years, but having the ability to totally control the track and even perform live DJ sets has only recently been made possible. With the latest computers, it is now possible to allow conventional vinyl turntables and normal DJ CD players plus DJ mixes to be used as a controller for an entire new breed of DJ computer mixing software such as tractor DJ, Virtual DJ and of course, M-Audios Torq Connectiv DJ performance/production system.

By using DJ mixer software you will have the ability to control the computer whilst mixing just like you would if you were using two decks/turntables and a mixer. You will have the ability to start songs at the end of the previous one so that they are audibly seamless. This will create a mix between the music tracks. Also, with BPM DJ software there will be countless extra features, and it will give you the ability to perform some very clever beat mixing, beat matching, and loops Sample effects during the mix of two tracks and even within the song itself. You will have the ability to place a sampled vocal loop into the song; this will create some really exciting remixes of existing tracks.

With some of the latest DJ mixing software packages that are available, such as TraKtor and M-Audio, or even with the free DJ software packages, it has been made very easy and very straightforward for you to use standard audio formats such as MP3 or WAV tracks and load them into the software ready for mixing. One other advantage you will have with digital media tracks is that you will be able to manipulate both the tempo and pitch of the song in a way that avoids the analogue problems of speeding up the record and the vocal pitch of a song increasing. This is because with digital media, you have the ability to lock the pitch while increasing the tempo or speed of the song. This makes mixing two songs together a lot simpler.