Rekordbox 7 – new features – everything you need to know
Rekordbox 7 is almost here!
Over the last couple of months Pioneer has released a beta version, which was only available to paid subscribers.
DJs could give Pioneer feedback so they could implement it in the final version.
The exact release date of Rekordbox is not announced yet.
But my suspicion is it will be around June of 2024.
Apple silicon
It was long overdue, but Rekordbox finally supports Apple silicon!
Apple silicon was announced back in 2020, and Pioneer finally caught up.
You can now use the native speed of Apple silicon, without having to use the Rosetta conversion layer.
Besides the inconvenience of Rosetta, the only thing this helps with is the speed of analyzing tracks.
But in most day-to-day use, you won’t notice it.
Automatic detection of Cues
Finally, pretty much every DJ software on the planet (Serato, Virtual DJ etc) had this feature already.
But now Rekordbox supports it as well: automatic detection of Memory Cues and Hot Cues.
In a very convoluted way, you could do it Mixed-in-key already.
But is was far from fast, convenient or accurate.
Regretfully Pioneer put this feature behind a paywall: you need a subscription to use it.
So you still need to use Mixed-in-key to do it (because it has a one-time-fee).
In order to use it, you need to re-analyze your songs.
Just right-click on your tracks and choose Analyze.
Although the positions aren’t bad, they are never at the places I want them.
So is it useful? Or at least useful enough to buy a subscription for?
No, not really.
Learn how to master hot cues and memory cues here … yes, manually … in a way that is actually useful 🙂
Collection Radar
A little help to find new track suggestions, is always welcome.
Here is Collection Radar and Streaming Radar.
It allows you to find similar tracks based on the track you are playing or have selected.
A feature that Virtual DJ had for years already, but nice to have in Rekordbox as well.
You still need to set criteria like you would with related tracks.
How useful it is in day-to-day use, is yet to be seen.
If these algorithms work as well as Netflix’s or Spotify’s, they are pretty much useless.
Algorithms generally tend to improve over time.
Especially Spotify’s has become more useful.
User Interface: more buttons, yay!
The User Interface has gotten an overhaul.
That is always nice.
Overall, it looks a bit cleaner.
One of my biggest complaints with Rekordbox was the amount of buttons.
But a bigger complaint was the size of buttons.
Well, the amount of buttons has increased and the size decreased.
I think that’s a downgrade.
The menu on the left looks much cleaner and buttons easier to click.
New decks in export mode
We had 2 deck modes in the export mode: 1 deck and 2 decks.
Now we have 2 and 4 decks, which can horizontal and vertical.
And a browse-mode.
New preferences screen
This might be the best feature about this whole update: the new preferences screen.
I don’t know about you, but I always have to google Rekordbox settings, because I can never find the right one.
The new screen is nicely organized and categorized.
And you can Search now!
Virtual DJ had this for years, Rekordbox caught up.
The great Pioneer paywall
Since Rekordbox 6 Rekordbox has become a milk cow for Pioneer.
And more and more features that are slightly useful (vocal detection, automatic cue detection) are hidden behind a $120 a year paywall.
The $120 version is the frugal plan.
The downside is that companies that operate with subscription plans almost never benefit the user.
A great example is Adobe with Photoshop.
Photoshop hasn’t become better software over the years with more feature, it has become expensive!
(okay, I have to admit the generative AI features are pretty cool, but other than that, what has changed over the last 10 years in Photoshop?)
Before, companies needed to fight with each other over features and user-friendliness.
Every version needed to be better and more innovative than the previous one to make users pay.
But with a subscription model, that need is totally gone.
Conclusion: is Rekordbox 7 better?
I haven’t decided yet.
Yes, the new features are nice.
Yes, the improved performance for Mac is nice.
Yes, the improved UI looks nice.
But to be honest, it’s more of the same.
Not that it is necessarily a bad thing, because Rekordbox wasn’t bad software.
It just wasn’t GREAT software, either.
So little has changed since version 6, that I can’t say that version 7 great, it’s just ok.
We have to use it, because it is software for industry standard hardware, not because it’s great.
I’m still a big fan of Virtual DJ, which is great software in my opinion!
