Virtual DJ

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on October 18, 2012

Gone are the days when you had to haul expensive, large equipment to a wedding or party to crank out the tunes. Now that music has gone digital, you just need your computer and an expansive MP3 playlist. And with Virtual DJ, you can mix and scratch your tunes like a professional to be the life of the party.

Now, we don't have a lot of experience with DJ software, but we think it speaks to Virtual DJ's smart design that we were able to immediately drag and drop a track to play. The program immediately pulled our iTunes playlist and other music files from our PC and displayed them in a tree menu for easy browsing. We selected a track and dragged it to the deck. Once it started playing, we were able to virtually "scratch" our track using our mouse to turn the dial. We did find it a little cumbersome to turn the dials with just our mouse; mixing hardware might be a good investment if you are serious about spinning. Virtual DJ includes dials that let you applying various effects, including backspin, beatgrid, and overloop. You have two decks so that you can start playing one song and have the next one ready to go to make a smooth transition without interrupting the music. Blue and red sound waves at the top of the window representing each deck let you visually mix your tracks. For any newbies out there, an ample online Help guide will answer any questions you have beyond the normal setup, but we found ourselves quickly becoming comfortable with the program by just playing around with the dials.

Virtual DJ does install desktop icons without your permission. You'll also want to pay attention during installation, or it will install a toolbar and change your default search to Ask.com. However, it does uninstall cleanly. We recommend this program for all user levels.

VirtualDJ:

Publisher's Description

From Atomix Productions:

With more than a million new downloads every months, VirtualDJ is the most widely used DJ software, and the uncontested leader of non-timecode digital DJing. It has been used around the world for the past 10 years by bedroom DJs and professional superstars alike to rock millions of parties, and has been chosen by leading DJ brands such as Pioneer, Numark, Hercules, Denon, Gemini, or Vestax, to be included with most of their digital DJ controllers. With its cutting-edge beatlock engine, your songs will always stay on the beat, and you can work your mixes incredibly faster than any other DJ. The automatic seamless loop engine and synchronized sampler will let you perform astounding remixes on the fly. The video engine lets you mix and scratch music videos or karaoke as easily as audio. With NetSearch and MusicGroups, you will stay on the edge of the musical trends. And with the versatile VDJScript language and hundreds of downloadable skins, you can tailor your software to your exact needs. Whether you are a professional experienced DJ, or a music enthusiast, VirtualDJ is all you need to get the party started.

What's new in this version: Version 7.4 adds our new ContentUnlimited subscription plans, full compatibility with Windows8 multi-touch surfaces, dozen of new controllers native compatibility.