We saw Pacemaker have a go at Spotify integration within its Djing app earlier this year, but now a far bigger player has added support for the music streaming service to its iPhone and iPad mixing solution. The new version of Algoriddim's djay puts Spotify right at its heart, and for a lot of people, this will be kind of a big deal.
Bottom line: you can now DJ with the entire Spotify catalogue, and if you watch the video above, you'll see that Algoriddim appears to have done a pretty good job of enabling you to manage this 20 million-track library from within its app.
djay can also help you to choose music that works together using the Echo Nest 'track matching' technology, while the Automix Radio feature means that you could, theoretically, simply sit back and let djay create one endless, seamless mix for you. You can easily share the playlists of your Spotify mixes via social media, too.
Sugar Bytes effects
Other new features in this version of djay (2.5.1) include more than 30 effects from acclaimed plugin developer Sugar Bytes (these are offered as in-app purchases), a new samples pack by Milk & Sugar, and various workflow improvements. You also get support for a number of hardware controllers.
djay 2 for iPad is available now on the Apple App Store, and is currently priced at £2.99/$4.99. The iPhone version of djay 2 is being offered free until 29 May. You'll need a Spotify Premium subscription if you want to use the streaming features (a free 7-day trial is being offered to all users of the app).
What's not entirely clear is whether or not there's an offline Spotify mode - so that you can mix using your downloaded playlists when you haven't got an internet connection - but we'll try and get an answer on this. UPDATE: You can't use downloaded playlists - the Spotify support is streaming only.
The bigger question, of course, is whether this is the beginning of a wider shift to streaming within DJing apps. In a lot of users' eyes, putting Spotify together with NI's Traktor DJ would be something of a dream ticket.
“An enhanced application that is nonetheless reassuringly familiar and reasonably priced”: Native Instruments Traktor Pro 4 review
"The last 5 or 10 per cent drove me crazy - at one point I had about 130 mixdowns... I’ve come to realise that the perfect mix doesn’t exist": Ben Böhmer on overcoming perfectionism in production
