AI and DJing: How Artificial Intelligence Can Help You Inside the Booth and Out
How can AI help you DJ?
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Curious about AI and DJing? Find out what artificial intelligence can do to make you a better DJ – or at least make your DJ life easier.
AI and DJing
Artificial intelligence is seemingly everywhere these days, from your DAW to your air conditioner. Unsurprisingly, it’s also in the DJ booth with AI now available in all manner of DJ equipment and software – so much so that you may not be aware of just how ubiquitous it has become.
With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of all the ways that AI can help you as a DJ, from stem separation to track management and all points in between, and even things like self-promotion. It also doesn’t matter what kind of DJ you are or your setup. Whether you’re a club DJ, scratch DJ, a hybrid one who blurs the lines between DJing and live performance, or even a vinyl purist, there’s likely some way that AI can help you.
Before we get started, a word though about AI and DJing. AI remains a contentious issue, especially in DJing. This article is not meant to promote artificial intelligence for the DJ, just to present what is available. AI is a tool that you can use or ignore as you see fit.
AI and DJing: Stem Separation
Stem separation is probably the biggest AI contribution to DJing to date, with the functionality now available in pretty much all DJ software – and increasingly in hardware like standalone DJ controllers.
If you’re unfamiliar, stem separation uses AI to analyze a track and then break it down into its disparate parts, or stems. This is usually vocals, bass, and drums, but as AI gets better it can get more granular. How well it does this depends on the algorithm. None are perfect and all will give you artifacts of some kind but in a busy mix this may not be noticeable. The difference lies in what you can do with the stems – send them to effects, for example – and how quickly the AI can generate them.
Where things get clever is the implementation of stem separation in DJ controllers. Rane FOUR, which uses Serato, has dedicated buttons for acapella and instrumental stems as well as the ability to add effects to stems. The just-announced Rane ONE MKII has stem buttons for each deck as does Performer. Denon DJ’s Prime 4+ lets you take advantage of Engine DJ’s stem separation technology. AlphaTheta’s DDJ-GRV6, on the other hand, has Groove Circuit, a hardware-only drum feature that lets you swap out drums with loops – and all live.
AI and DJing: Mix Assistance
Beat sync has been around for more than 20 years now and in hardware form for more than a decade. The ability to force two or more tracks to run in sync predates artificial intelligence but AI has taken it one step further. Should you wish, AI can now do all your mixing for you.
By analyzing track BPM, key information, and identifying patterns in songs, AI can not only get two tracks to play in sync but it can even choose the best tracks to mix and create transitions between them. Software that currently supports automix functionality includes DJ.Studio, which is more DAW than performance software, djay by Algoriddim, and Atomix Virtual DJ.
AI and DJing: Song Selection
Along with all of the technical skills that a DJ has to master, there’s also the skill of reading the dance floor. Knowing what song to play and when will come in time, but if you’re a beginner or want some pointers, a number of DJ apps offer AI song selection functionality.
Algoriddim can suggest songs based on the current one playing, as can AlphaTheta’s rekordbox with its track suggestion functionality. Rekordbox can also generate intelligent playlists for you. If you’re unsure of the energy of a track, Mixed In Key can analyze your music collection and assign each track an energy rating, which can then be imported into DJ software with metadata.
AI and DJing: Track Management
One of the best ways that AI can help you as a DJ is with track management. AI is really good at pattern recognition, after all.
A rising star in the world of DJ AI apps is Djoid, which can help you create playlists, group tracks by genre and energy, and more.
If you’re a rekordbox user, you can use it to auto-assign cue points to tracks based on ones that you’ve already entered. It can also recognize where in a track vocals start and end.
AI and DJing: ChatGPT and Other Large Language Models
Lastly, you don’t need to buy (or subscribe) to DJ-specific software to take advantage of AI. Large language models like ChatGPT can do a lot – and for free in many cases.
Need help putting together a playlist? Some DJs have reported using ChatGPT to suggest songs for their playlists. This could be especially useful for a wedding or event DJ looking for songs outside their usual genres.
There’s also a lot of non-DJ work associated with the job of being a DJ that ChatGPT can help you out with. Not everyone is a writer. If you need press releases, promotional social media posts for gigs, or other kinds of communication and you can’t be bothered to write them yourself (or you need ideas for formatting and tone), large language models are great for that. It can also spellcheck and clean up your grammar.
What do you think? Is AI a useful tool for DJing? let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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One response to “AI and DJing: How Artificial Intelligence Can Help You Inside the Booth and Out”
Always nice with new features but for me half the fun is to beat sync by ear and select my own tracks. It’s a kind of high that still 30 years later kicks the same.