Ground breaking new DJ technology arrives on the iPad & iPhone
Algoriddim, the company behind the popular iPad application Djay have today announced the release of Djay AI which includes the Neural Mix technology. Neural Mix allows for the live decomposition of tracks, allowing the DJ to mix the various elements of a track. Breaking any playing track down into three stems, the DJ can now create custom mixes or isolate certain parts of a track, unlocking a new world of creative possibilities.
What is Neural Mix?
Algoriddim Djay Neural Mix works with any track loaded into a deck, including video files and streamed songs. The system uses the immense power of the Bionic processors found inside the iPad Pro and iPhone 11 to apply AI technology to the analysis of tracks. The AI technology reacts much like the human ear, focusing in on certain aspects of a track.
Neural Mix then separates the track into either two or three individual channels. The three band system splits the songs into a drums channel, a middle channel for harmonics and finally a vocal channel. The simpler two channel system simply creates an instrumental channel and a vocal solo. The visual waveforms of a track can also be split to show the individual tracks created by the Neural Mix. These react to the DJ mixing them, fading with volume to let the user know which elements are still live. This basically allo0ws DJs to create an acapella or instrumental of a song live in the mix.
Each channel features it’s own volume fader, with shortcut buttons for solo, mute and switch. These controls are shrunk into a simple crossfader set up when using other performance features. This allows the DJ to blend the Neural Mix without losing other features.
What can you do with Neural Mix?
Neural Mix works on all the modes inside Djay, allowing DJ’s to mix and combine elements from up to four tracks at once. The elements of these tracks can also be mixed with the inbuilt sequencer (looper). All the Neural Mix controls can also be MIDI mapped onto a controller. We particularly enjoyed having the solo buttons added to the performance pads, allowing for a vocal solo at the press of a button.
Creating mashups has never been easier, no longer are DJ’s reliant on the availability of finding instrumentals and acapellas. The Neural Mix will create those edits for the DJ on the fly. The DJ can then EQ, Key Shift, apply effects and perform with the tracks live with no lag or drop in quality.
Using Algorddims sequencer to trigger the inbuilt sample packs allow a DJ to make a remix on the fly. Don’t like the drums on a track you’re playing? Silence them and record your own custom drum pattern in with the sampler. The creative possibilities are endless.
How does Neural Mix sound?
The sound quality on the isolated sections differ from track to track. We found the mastering of the original track plays a big part in how well the technology is able to separate the music. Tracks with moments of isolated vocals, drums or instrumentals seem to improve the outcome of the Neural Mix.
We found modern pop songs and dance tracks worked superbly well, allowing Neural Mix to create fantastic sounding stems. Songs without clear vocals however, such as those found in tech house, muddle the output, creating artificial warping sounds.
Overall Neural Mix is shockingly good, producing stems of tracks that are perfectly fine to sample over other tracks. Neural Mix creates acapellas of a very similar, if not better quality to those produced in a DAW on a PC. Creating stems of this quality, on the fly whilst DJ’ing, is nothing short of utterly amazing.
How do I access Neural Mix?
djay for iOS is available as a free download on the App Store. Users can upgrade to djay Pro AI, including access to Neural Mix ™ and an extensive library of sounds, loops, and visuals, as a subscription via in-app-purchase for $4.99 / €4.99 / £4.49 per month. A free trial of the full Pro subscription is available to trial the new features.
Neural Mix works best on the Bionic series of processors found in recent Apple Devices. Algoriddim recommends using an iOS device with an A12 Bionic chip or later. This includes iPhone XS or later, iPhone SE (2nd generation or later), iPad Pro 11‑inch, iPad Pro 12.9‑inch (3th generation or later), iPad Air (3rd generation or later), and iPad mini (5th generation or later).
Neural Mix is also supported on iPhone 7 or later, iPhone SE (2nd generation or later), iPad Pro, iPad (6th generation or later), iPad Air (3rd generation or later), iPad mini (5th generation or later), and iPod Touch (7th generation or later).
Will the Neural feature make it to Djay for MAC? Or do limitations exist that will prevent that?
Hopefully sometime soon! It’s heavily reliant on the Bionic chips inside the iPhone/iPad’s however we have heard rumour that Algoriddim are trying to bring it over to the Mac!