djay partners with Spotify, adds 20 million tracks, takes iPhone and iPad mixing and matching to the clouds

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By Rene Ritchie
last updated

djay, the Apple Design Award-winning music mixing app for iPhone and iPad, has just been updated to version 2.5 and the game-changing news is this — they've partnered with streaming music service Spotify and their 20 million track library and, what's more, created technology that lets you quickly, perfectly mix and match all of it. Imagine an old school DJ crate filled with vinyl. Now image it's bottomless. Now imagine a selection of perfectly matched songs is always on the very top just waiting for you to grab and spin. That's djay 2.5.

Karim Morsy and Michael Simmons gave me a short demo of the djay + Spotify integration — a good thing because I have absolutely no musical talent whatsoever, and Spotify is not yet available here in Canada — and what they showed was mind blowing. djay has a long history of making very physical, very complicated music mixing methods and concepts incredibly digital and incredibly elegant and that's exactly what they've done with Spotify in djay. You do need a premium Spotify account to access the 20 million tracks, but that's not only an incredible bargain for the material, its an incredible resource for anyone who wants to mix music. Your Spotify account is then instantly available to you, on the virtual turntables, at your fingertips, and works just like local music.

  • Hear Karim talk about all about djay on the Iterate podcast

Thanks to the echonest and Intelligent Song Selection, even if there's a track you've never heard before and down't know how to mix, djay can suggest other track that match it perfectly so your flow never gets interrupted. If, like me, you can't mix to save your life, djay can even do the mixing for you with Automix Radio.

Spotify integration also allows for an entirely new, cloud-based way to share your personal mixes. All another person needs is a Spotify account of their own and, once you share your mixes, they get all the music along with it. No need to hunt down and buy all the individual tracks. It's just there.

There are also additional effects and, of course, all the great stuff that was in djay 2.0.

djay is incredibly thoughtful, incredibly smart software. It's so good, terrible as I am, when I play with it I can close my eyes and see myself in a club, lights flashing, speakers pounding, people dancing... And for a brief moment I can imagine what it must be like to create something as beautiful as what real DJs do everyday. That's the power of the iPhone and iPad, and software like djay.

And now it's in the cloud so anyone with an account can not only have the same dream but live it. Amazing.

djay 2.5 is available for iPhone and iPad now. The iPad version is currently on sale for $4.99 and the iPhone version is on sale for the unprecedented price of free. Sprint, don't walk to the App Store.

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.