Direct Music Service - The Full Review
Hello!
A while back I wrote the DJTechTools article Top Online Record Pools For DJs: 2013 Edition and I am slowly getting around to reviewing the various pools suggested in the comments.
Other full reviews (DJForums): ZipDJ, DJCity and Late Night Record Pool.
What is Direct Music Service?
"Direct Music Service, or DMS, is an online promotional mp3 record pool for professional DJs, producers, radio mixers & music directors. We are the industry leader in DJ Friendly intro edits and the originators of many editing styles such as acappella outs, quick hitters, acapella loops, & more." - DMS
* Specialized in exclsuive reedits.
* Updated every weekday.
* Majority of files are 320 Kbps MP3s.
* A massive back catalogue of music from the 1950s right up to today.
"DMS has always prided itself on supplying quality DJ Friendly edits for songs that are hard to mix or need more precise edits. So while we offer all decades and genres of music, the key to what we do is giving you easily mixable versions of these songs that previously were difficult or impossible to mix in & out of as well as all the current club & pop hits." - DMS
The Website and Features
The Layout
Direct Music Service was recently revamped 100% from scratch so if you have used it before things have changed. The website features filtering and searching options on the left hand side, advanced searching and menus across the top, the actual music in the large main content area, and a persistent preview player at the bottom of every page.
The design of the website is extremely clean and easy to navigate with virtually no clutter or unnecessary content. The main catalogue which is the most important part of the website dominates the page as it should and the column headers follow you as you scroll down the page incase you forget what each column contains. The columns include the date added, the year the track was released, the artist, the title, the editor (all in house and exclusive edits), the BPM, and the action menu that includes the preview button/download button/and "wish list" button (save for later). Each column can be sorted either ascending or descending.
The catalogue unfortunately doesn't include any breadcrumbs (artist, year, etc are not clickable links) and the website is not designed to be used with multiple tabs but the powerful advanced search compensates.
Score: 4/5 - Would like to see breadcrumbs and tab friendly design but the website is very well done.
Charts
There are no charts per say but they have a powerful sorting tool for their "Top Downloads" section that lets you choose the genre, decade, and time period. For example, you could choose the top downloaded over the last 6 weeks from the House tracks released in the 90s.
Once you've filtered the top downloads or selected "all genres" to see the entire top download chart you can filter the list further by date added, year, artist, title, editor, or bpm.
Score: 4/5 - I like to see actual charts but the sorting options for the top downloads make it very easy to find popular music using lots of criteria.
Previewing Tracks
Each track has a preview button which is somewhat unnecessary as clicking anywhere on the row in the track browser will start the preview (may be a bug in the new design). The previews range from 44 seconds to the entire track and I'm not sure why some get snippets while others get the whole shebang but in any case there is always enough of a preview to get an overall idea of the track before you download.
The preview player is located at the bottom of the page and is persistent. That is, as you navigate around the site and even while changing pages the preview will continue to play. The player also includes an expand button that brings up a history of songs you've previewed during your current session and you can download or favourite tracks directly from the preview player.
Score: 5/5 - The previews are high quality and the persistent player and ability to download directly from the history is a great feature.
Feedback
Direct Music Service does not require feedback or rating of tracks before downloading.
Score: not applicable
Downloading
Downloads can be initiated either from the track list or the history in the preview player and the files are downloaded individually.
The speed of the downloads is comparable to Beatport and other major music distribution websites and an average sized MP3 will download in seconds on a high speed connection.
Score: 5/5 - Fast and easy.
The Music and Selection
Selection
The releases can be sorted by the following genres:
* Pop
* Hip Hop
* R&B
* House / Electro
* Rock / Alt
* Indie / New Wave
* Disco / Funk
* Reggae
* Country
* DJ Tools
The DJ Tools can be further sorted by:
* Short Edits / Quick Hitters
* Hype Edits
* Transitions
* Acapella Out
* Redrums
* Loops
* Samples
* Party Breaks
* Blends / Bootlegs
"DMS is an edit based service, so you won't find radio versions, instrumentals, or acapellas. We do, however, offer a WIDE array of edits for creative mixing ranging from regular 8 bar full length intros to short edits to acapella outs to hype edits to authentic sounding custom re-drums to transitions to loops to samples and more. Most of the edits from our editors are exclusive to DMS." - DMS
The clean version exist for most of the songs I searched for along with at least one edit; for Rihanna - Diamonds there was a Clean version and 12 edits ranging from "aca out" to "transition 128-100".
DMS is not typical remix/original distributor like a lot of other pools as all of their edits / mixes are done by their team of exclusive re-edit/remix artists. In cases where you find popular remixers like Dave Aude or Jody Den Broeder they have been further edited by the DMS team to adjust the intro/outro, add aca outs, and so on.
The selection is absolutely huge and at the time of writing they have 18,338 files in their catalogue, 139 of which were added in the last week. The catalogue is perfect for open format DJs and commercial club DJs.
A quick click into the "1960s" section and I was presented with Steppenwolf, Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, and Johnny Cash without even scrolling. I have never seen oldies like that from a digital record pool before. (Note: The ones I checked were all edited with re-drums, or "short edits")
A personal quibble: as a House DJ I'd like to see House separated from "Electro House".
Score: 5/5 - The selection is huge and the number of edits and mixes is extensive. There is also an extensive oldies collection which has also been edited for DJs.
Technical Things
File Format: MP3
Bitrate: Majority 320 Kbps, the odd 256 Kbps.
ID3 Tags: Yes - Standard format.
Out of the test batch of files I downloaded all of the files were 320 Kbps and they all had complete ID3 tags.
Score: 5/5 - Standard stuff for most modern digital pools.
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