If not why not ..

Ean Golden recently started a thread on the DJTT forums about "What is missing from Digital Djing?". Being the verbose type I throw in my share of words in various replies to this thread already, but I want to organize my thoughts a bit more and also integrate some of the excellent points raised by others in the thread. So what am I missing? The key thing to me is flexibility. The top software products for DJs are mostly self contained applications that don't play well with others.

It seems this is more method than accident for Traktor Pro seeing how NI chooses to make their already questionable (I will never get tired dropping this link) config export format even worse by now even adding some wierd encoding on top. VirtualDJ seems to be one of the few that actually tries to be open. They have added various internet aware tools and their config format seems a lot more sane. I cannot comment that much on Serato, but I have not heard much of an indication that they behave different than NI. A couple of apps due support things like VST plugins and/or MIDI clock and all of them of course support MIDI in some form or another. Here again VirtualDJ pushes ahead with proper scripting support (though I never used it, so I am going by the specsheet). Actually as avid readers of my blog know there is another contender, which is Mixxx, which also features a well defined config format, scripting support and they are working on adding support for LADSPA effects. They also have skinning support to you can tweak the interface to your needs and screen sizes.

What I imagine as the perfect gold standard in terms of flexibility is an app that lets me freely position things inside the app, that supports multi monitoring (a sore point in all DJ apps), touch screens etc. That lets me script not only the MIDI part, but all interaction. This would enable me to create a separate app to assist in music selection for example. Of course it should be vector based like Ableton, so that everything can be resized perfectly. The last point is going to perfectly lead me over to the hardware side of things: I do not want to be limited by MIDI anymore!

MIDI is ancient, its well defined. But the defined controls simply do not offer the resolution that todays hardware could easily reach. Its also not bi-directional by nature, which is why the APC40 has its own proprietary protocol. the VCI-300 also comes with its own proprietary HID based protocol. This is all quite annoying because it means software makers need to do extra work for each such device. It seems to me like OSC would be the perfect fit, however there seems to be a missing layer on top that standardizes a bit more what kind of messages to expect for the different physical and virtual controls. Without it something like MIDI learn is simply not really possible, at least not with the ease we have with MIDI today.

In terms of control, I want to see more smaller controllers that play well with others. The magnets that allow you to put together the SCS.3 system is a nice touch for example. However we are all limited by our numbers of USB2 ports. Heck one of the main reasons why I am not upgrading my main laptop right now is that Apple just dropped the expresscard slot on their 15" line which I so dearly need to add another 4 low latency USB2 ports. I am not sure if USB3 will better address the issue of latency when using hubs or daisy chaining. I sure hope so. Speaking of the SCS.3 I want to see more innovative approaches. Physical knobs and faders are here to stay, but touch surfaces and screens bring new dimensions to the mix. Things like the Wii controller or Smule also show that pretty much everybody part can be leveraged. And I would love to see more foot controllers but please without a 1/4" or XLR plug!

So in term of hardware I am most excited about the SCS.3 system, the Ohm64 and Monome controllers due to their open development approach and all the music apps coming out for the iPhone.