It’s that time again – the Mixxx team is proud to announce our latest release, Mixxx 1.10.0 Beta.
For those who don’t know, Mixxx is free, open-source DJ software. Think Firefox for DJing. Download it at http://mixxx.org
The short list:
Massively improved vinyl control support. (almost a total rewrite)
Use Serato and Traktor vinyl at the same time – awesome for DJ handoffs.
Needle-drop hotcues
Track selection via lead-in
single deck vinyl control
4 Sampler decks
Beatlooping, Quantization of loops, hotcues, and beatloops
beatgrid adjustment tool
Microphone support
New sync features
Vinyl scratch widgets / waveform scratching
Traktor library importer
Many library usability improvements.
Mixing engine efficiency and quality improvements
up to 4x latency improvement depending on CPU and audio hardware.
Fixes to a couple of MIDI mappings (VMS4, SCS1d/m and some others)
This is less than half of the new stuff we have – check out the blog post:
Screenshots:
We fully recognize that we’re lagging in both features and support over commercial products – and that’s why we want your feedback because if we don’t know what’s wrong we can’t fix it.
thanks for the info. the pace at which mixxx is improving is nothing but impressive.
will give 1.10 a test run and will post bug reports and stuff through the channels you mentioned. but even prior to testing, i can say the following: for me, the most important thing is a good out-of-the-box experience. specifically, i would want my S4 controller to work (ideally, in NHL mode).
Yea, this is a major downside with Mixxx. We don’t have cash to buy every controller (especially the more expensive ones) so if a mapping exists – it’s likely contributed from a user and not QA’d by the team.
“Mixxx Certified” controllers are ones that we are able to QA to make sure they work perfectly.
We use donations to the project to buy controllers – so if you want to put money towards getting your controller supported we welcome that sort of thing. One by one, manufacturers are starting to send us pre-release units so hopefully this situation will change over time.
We’re working on supporting HID/non-MIDI devices, which is what it’ll take to get the S4 and friends working in NHL mode. The NHL protocol is not documented (as far as I know) so we will have to reverse engineer that.
We have a preliminary mapping for the X1 here. I believe that it only works in OSX and Windows, though .
Unfortunately, another one of Mixxx’s weak areas is effects – and since the X1 has a strong emphasis on controlling effects this makes it a little less than useful.
We’re working on a really nice effects system written from the ground up to support a lot of use-cases (Traktor-esque built-in effects, LADSPA/LV2/VST plugin effects, etc.). That won’t be ready until Mixxx 1.11 (early 2012) or Mixxx 1.12 (late 2012), though.
How easy is it to route through Ableton to run effects through there? It’s pretty straightforward in traktor on the surface but it turns out to be pretty difficult to get it to actually work. And does timecode work out of the box on a DB4? Hmmmmmmmm…
So: On Linux – dead easy using JACK – just plug the output of Mixxx into the input of whatever other program you want to sync it with. AFAIK Ableton runs in wine
On OSX – no idea? JACK “works” on OSX but I have no idea how well. SoundFlower might help here. Due to licensing isssues we can’t include Rewire support.
On Windows: Don’t think it’s possible currently.
Timecode works out of the box on pretty much any soundcard (of course, the higher quality the better). The worst you will have to do is apply a software pre-amp (a slider in the Mixxx preferences) if your soundcard doesn’t have one in hardware (I’m almost sure the DB4 has one).
Mixxx has the same timecode ellipses that are the standard for showing timecode quality so you can easily tell if something is amiss with your setup.
I’m assuming you have a DB4? Try it out and let us know how it works! It’s not like it’ll cost you anything.
Will check it out this weekend. OS projects like this give me warm fuzzies so even if I don’t use it full-time I’ll gladly donate some funds.
Things I’ll be looking for are customizable UI, sound quality and latency and MIDI mapping tools. EFX are not a priority for me but would obviously be a major plus to the masses…plus VST support. Integrating other softwares I suspect is going to be a big plus, i.e. easy audio routing and MIDI clock send/sync.
Cheers
The DB4 arrived tonight, I’ve been playing with it a couple hours so far. I’ll definitely give Mixxx a spin and see how it goes. I run OSX so will see how easy it is to route to Ableton as well; this could be a very interesting solution to the Traktor timecode problem.
OK I installed and tried out the DB4; timecode is not working, at least I can’t figure it out yet. I think I got the routing all right, and the timecode sends some kind of signal in, but it doesn’t affect the playing track at all, and the timecode ellipse is just a red blotchy blur. It gets closer to an ellipse if I set the mixer input to audio (instead of USB) but it’s still not an ellipse, it doesn’t affect the playing track, and all I can hear in the speakers of course is the timecode whine. Only played around for a few minutes so maybe I’m missing something; will have to troubleshoot a while to see if I can get it to work.
…And I’m canceling all of my plans tonight. My laptop runs ubuntu 10.10 and I have Mixxx running on it already, I’ve been waiting for this version to be released
Might have to give this a shot since I’m sure I’ll be itching to use timecode with my inferior non scratch certified mixer
Also I like the overlapping waveforms a lot especially for timecode, much better than a phase meter in traktor. That’s one thing I always preferred about SSL.
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