Ultimate Guide: Mastering DJ Techniques with PCDJ Deckadance Version 2

PCDJ DEX 2 is our DJ Software that mixes audio, music videos and karaoke. It’s a very robust and featured-packed DJ mixing software designed for the professional DJ that wants to offer the full multimedia experience to their clients and club patrons.

Sometimes thereare features of our flagship DJ software that are lesser known and documented, but are equally handy to know. I’ll try highlight a few each week via a new blog post, so please keep checking back!

DJ SOFTWARE TIPS AND TRICKS FOR PCDJ DEX 2:

• Increasing or decreasing font size in thePCDJ DEX 2 browser: Making the font size larger in the browser (or smaller) is easy. Simply click on ANY track within any of your playlists or the database and click the “+” key on your keyboard (next to the Backspace key) to increase the font size. Everytime you click “+” the font will increase one point size. Clicking the “-“ key will do the opposite, decreasing font size by one point.
• Extended Desktop Mode For Video and Karaoke Output: Make sure your computers resolution settings are set to EXTENDED DESKTOP before you open DEX 2 in order for it to properly detect the secondary display on startup. Click HERE to watch a video tutorial on setting up your computers display for extended desktop.
  Once you’re in extended desktop mode, open up PCDJ DEX 2 . Click “Enable Video” under the video tab to open up the floating music video mixing window. Now, click on the very top bar of the floating window and “drag and drop” it onto screen 2. You will be able to drag the box off the right hand (or left if that’s how you’ve set it up under your resolution settings) side of your screen so it’s displayed on screen 2. Now click the “Full Screen” button at the bottom of the floating video mixing window, or double click the middle of the screen, so it jumps to full screen on your secondary display. Now you’re all set!
  Also, if you plan to continually use the same screen 2 setup every time you PCDJ DEX 2 , you can exit out of the application with the screen 2 video mixing window at full screen. Next time you open DEX 2 it will automatically fill screen 2 with the video mixing output window. If you plan to use a different screen 2 setup (or not at all) next time you fire up DEX 2, then be sure to exit the secondary full screen mode before closing PCDJ DEX 2 (so this by clicking on the screen 2 video mixing window and click “Esc” on your keyboard)
• **BPM Sync-Start Feature:**BPM and Waveform Grid based beat sync has is a well published and use feature of PCDJ DEX 2 . BPM Sync allows the our DJ Software applications to not only match the song in the opposite decks BPM with one click, it also snaps the song on beat so the beats and lined up perfectly with one another. One of the hurdles of mixing songs seamlessly is the perfect blend of one song on top of another.
  One feature PCDJ DEX 2 has that many other DJ software products don’t is “Sync Start”. To use this feature simply have a song playing in either DECK A or DECK B in PCDJ DEX 2 (or Decks C or D if you’re using 4 deck mode) and while the opposite deck is stopped/Idle click SYNC on that deck. It will start playing immediately, and providing the beat-grid is correct it will play right on beat. Providing your Beat-Grid and BPM’s are spot on, you don’t even need to cue up in your headphones to mix-in on beat.
• Preview Any Song/Video In The Browser Case Player: Did you know you could fast-listen and preview any track in your library in DEX 2 without loading to one of the decks? Go into options in PCDJ DEX 2 , click on the Audio Tab. Whatever channel is selected for HEADPHONES will automatically work for the browser case player. If you’re using a 2 sound card setup, than what you have selected for Additional Headphone/Preview Device will be used for the case player output.
  Once this is setup, to use the case player just double-click on any song within the library to play in the case/library player and it will output directly to your headphones. This is also great to use in production for your DJ gig, since it’s easier to fast-listen to the song via the case player and add it to a playlist instead of having to load to a DEX 2 deck first.
• Disabling “Allow Automix On All Lists” Makes Automix Pick Exclusively From the Automix Default Playlist: When “Allow Automix on any list” is enabled under the general tab in PCDJ DEX 2 options, Automix will play from any list you’re in within the DEX 2 browser. The caveat here is that you have to make sure your cursor and “focus” remains in that selected list so that automix will continue to play from there. If you for instance do a search, or click on another list to browse tracks, automix will play and pick from there if you’re not careful to select the list you were previously mixing from before automix is ready to select the next track to play.
  If you uncheck “Allow Automix on any list” under the general tab in options DEX 2 will always look at and pull tracks from the default “Automix List” under playlists (this is there by default on initial installation of DEX 2). So no matter where you are in the application, in whatever other list etc, Automix will mix from the Automix list. You’ll also notice that songs are removed upon being played from the Automix List (which isn’t the case when automixing from any other list or the browser). So the list will automatically get shorter, making it easier to track visually where you’re at in your list and how many tracks are still queued up to be played.

This concludes this week’s “DJ Software Tips and Tricks” DEX 2 edition. I hope to make these posts at least twice a month. If you have any questions regarding any of these features please post in the comments below! We’re also looking for blog contributors – with some benefits. If you’re interested please email me at submit@pcdj.com

Related

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