Disco, Yet Another Virtual Twin Deck

fair
key review info
application features
  • Dual Audio Player with cue/nudge/fastforward/pitch/pitch bend functions.
  • (4 more, see all...)

These days, computers can be used for just about anything, and they are becoming an integral part of the digital lifestyle. Disco is a program that turns your computer into a virtual mixing table.

What it does Disco is basically the virtual version of a DJ's twin deck. It combines the mixing possibilities of a twin deck with the on-demand music capabilities of a well-stocked iTunes library.

Track woes Basically, in the top half of the Disco Window you have the twin decks with all their afferent controls, while at the bottom you have the contents of the music library. As expected, it can work with playlists and you can also manually load certain tracks.

You can sync the library to your iTunes one or keep them totally separate and only load up certain tracks. However, it is important to note that the program is not extremely fast in importing tracks, so importing thousands of songs can take a while. Another important fact is that Disco is nowhere near as useful as iTunes in finding certain tracks. There is no browse mode, meaning everything is in one huge list and there is no embedded search field, meaning that you have to press the search button and type the information in the relevant fields to find what you are after.

To load up a certain song in one of the two decks, you can either use the load button which brings up a contextual menu which can be very awkward if it is heavily populated or just use drag and drop to import something from the library area.

Twin Decks The program does a perfect imitation of the devices commonly used by DJs. But in doing so falls into the same pitfall as calculator programs. What is the point of blindly imitating a pocket calculator in look, feel and functionality, or, in this case a twin deck? The computer can play tens, if not hundreds of tracks at the same time, not to mention add much more processing and effects than just a simple crossover slider and some bass and treble knobs.

The crossfade playback option is built into iTunes, and is easy to activate and set to certain duration. Sure, it offers less manual control, but at the same time it is a thousand times easier to do. If you were to activate the Automix option, you would pretty much have the same thing as iTunes set on crossfade playback.

Programs like this one have been around for many years and all do pretty much the same thing, with little, if anything, to distinguish between them other than looks and some minor, obscure feature.

Half-Baked There are certain features in the program that could have been nice, but fail to please in the end. One example is the full screen view that only works if the resolution is set to 1024x768. At a resolution bigger than this, the size of the window is locked horizontally which is a real pain because you are not using available screen space and have the song information crammed in that list.

Other examples are how you cannot have the computer speakers or headphones act as a monitor and have the master sent out over airport or another port, how you cannot use a scroll wheel on the mouse or keyboard to move the sliders.

The Good A simple way for people who want to play DJ without having to buy expensive hardware.

The Bad Doesn't do anything particularly good, remaining very much a mediocre piece of software.

The Truth A DJ twin deck software like any other, its kind has been around for many years and will probably continue to be around for many years. Nothing spectacular or even different.

Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:

Review image

user interface 3
features 2
ease of use 4
pricing / value 2


final rating 2
Editor's review
fair
 
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