Time has flown in the world of technology, but for DJs it’s always crept at a slower pace. When CDs became mainstream, the 12” single still reigned supreme in the DJ booth. During the iPod era, DJs packed their CD wallets full of bangers. And now? As DJs plug their USB sticks into the decks, the world at large is streaming their favourite tunes. But, as professional DJs begin to contemplate streaming, is the bridge between DJs and the music-consuming world finally narrowing? Has the DJ industry finally caught up?
No. But the future does look promising!
Streaming vs Owning DJ Music
Streaming is definitely shaping up to be a viable option for the DJ industry, but a few things are holding the movement back. The biggest of them being reliability. Not that support from the big players isn’t there. There are legitimate streaming service offerings on pretty much all of the DJ platforms out there, as outlined in our music streaming guide, however, the core of the problem can be summed up with a single word: Wi-fi!
With the UK not scheduled to be fully fibre-connected until 2030 at the earliest, we have a long way to go before we can expect DJ booths to offer a reliable internet feed to their equipment as standard practice. Service corruption of the music streaming sites is another major threat to consider as they could close without notice, delete part of their music library or simply go offline owing to technical difficulties. Imagine trying to convince an audience that your streaming site just needs a little time out for maintenance at the peak of your set!
Streaming partners such as Beatport and Beatsource have higher-tier subscriptions which allow an offline locker storage facility of up to 1000 tracks but you will never own them outright. Having locally stored music is, therefore, still essential for DJs.
DJ mixing vinyl on a traditional set of turntables.
So where do DJs download their music in 2024?
iTunes was a great starting place for DJs, serving the widest range of general commercial tracks. It’s not as prominent as it was, but Apple still has a store tucked behind their music streaming service, Apple Music. This way, you can still get the same access to the colossal iTunes back-catalogue! Don’t have an Apple ID? Amazon Music offers a similar service. These digital music stores are perfect for getting ad-hoc tunes in a very convenient way, but for the working DJ, there are far more effective, time and money-saving methods of sourcing and downloading fresh material.
DJ Pools
A solid recommendation from us is to join a DJ pool. Gain access to an all-you-can-eat buffet of tunes for a monthly or quarterly fee. This offers DJs the best value, as paying for music on a track-by-track basis quickly exceeds the cost of any pool membership.
Pools provide a wealth of material to bulk up your music library. Most offer multiple versions of tracks, including clean and dirty versions, acapellas, instrumentals, and exclusive edits and remixes, often created by in-house teams who tailor them to specific mixing styles. Therefore, finding the right DJ Pool that complements your style and sound as an artist is so important.
This can take a little time but the investment is crucial. Your chosen DJ Pool will be the place you go to get the majority of your music, plan your mixes and essentially build your sound as a DJ. It’s not unusual for DJs to subscribe to several pools to get a wider scope of styles, sounds and exclusive benefits.
Some examples of the pools making a splash on the DJ scene are as follows:
DJ City
As one of the longest-running pools, DJ City know a thing or two about catering for DJs who want exclusive and fresh remixes of top 40 and popular tracks. With extensive playlists and tracks curated and hand-picked by specialists in the US, UK, Germany, Japan and Latin America, there is a real authenticity to their selection. However, they do have strong leanings toward hip-hop, R&B and Latin music.
Although most genres are represented, dance DJs may find that DJ City’s offerings come up a little short, especially considering that the majority of their library has a time-limited life span with many tracks only being up for six to twelve months before deletion.
Whilst this does give the pool a record store-like charm, it can be limiting if you are looking to bulk out your back catalogue. The advantage of this, however, is that the store has more real estate for new material, and this is an area where DJ City shines. With daily uploads and curations, this is a proven pool for getting exclusive edits of new material plus you won’t be caught wanting for any resurgent old-school anthems as they frequently upload throwbacks, especially if they are making waves in the industry.
At £90 quarterly, there’s not much flexibility when it comes to financing your subscription to DJ City. For those wanting a trial first, they do often run promotions where your initial month costs £10.
Inside the DJ City Record Pool
BPM Supreme
At nearly the same age as DJ City, BPM Supreme has cemented its reputation with many DJs, ourselves included, as a reliable pool. They have a healthy breadth of music genres with superb track availability and include a comprehensive back catalogue for collection bulking. To their credit, they are endorsed by countless household name DJs and have a great pricing structure which can be paid monthly, giving you more flexibility over your subscription.
BPM Supreme’s broad representation extends to most sub-genres of dance music and hip hop and their extensive catalogue is not time restricted, unlike with DJ City. What they do have in common with DJ City is their expert back-end team of music editors. You will find no shortage of exclusive re-rubs and edits to give your crates a dash of secret sauce!
Track sorting is fully taken care of with filters for BPM, genre, key and more. All tracks are 320kbs MP3s and are quality tested and edited where necessary so you can be sure that everything is DJ friendly.
BPM Supreme costs £19.99 per month or £29.99 per month if you want access to their music streaming service. If you choose to join their service use the code ‘CROSSFADER’ for 20% off your first month subscription.
A peek inside the BPM Supreme record pool
Zip DJ
Zip DJ are directly affiliated with many major record labels so if it is upfront access to the freshest sounds that you want, this is the pool for you! A good all-rounder, ZipDJ has a huge back catalogue and a great mobile app which allows you to download your chosen tracks as a zip file for unpacking later when on a more appropriate machine.
Self-proclaimed at providing the best promotional music for club and radio play, this pool really delivers on the latest sounds. It’s the closest thing to grabbing a white-label or test press of a tune before its general release back in the heyday of vinyl DJing!
All tracks are fully ID3-tagged ready for your DJ software of choice and are 320kbps MP3 as standard.
ZipDJ is $50 per month with an initial 30% discount for your first month and further discounts if you commit to multiple months’ service upfront, for example, if you sign up for 12 months of service, the price drops to $35 per month.
Zip DJ’s Record Pool Web Platform
Digital DJ Pool
The main strength of this pool is that you get a personalised feed based on your followed record labels, artists and DJs so you can gain inspiration for your own crate building by checking out what music they are downloading. As one of the cheaper pools, this is a popular choice for DJs wanting a more budget-friendly option.
All tracks are 320kbps MP3s and are tagged with Serato cue points and overviews meaning the time-sensitive DJ need just drag and drop their files into Serato.
Track sorting is fully comprehensive with filters for BPM, key and genre and even record label, plus all tracks have mixing suggestions to inspire exploration. The amount of DJ charts and genre charts etc is exemplary with daily updates. Users also get access to a social media platform via the inbuilt DJ network.
Digital DJ Pool has over 40 genres to browse and has a strong emphasis on their DJ network, showcasing daily top download charts and biographies of their heavy-weight users.
Pricing is $20 per month with an initial trial of $1 for 5 days of access to see if the pairing is right for you. The cost gets lower if you commit to more upfront, for example, their yearly cost is $180, saving you 20%.
Digital DJ Pools Interface
Which DJ pool is best for you?
It may take some time to find the right pool, as there are plenty to choose from, each with a unique angle. It’s worth considering what your needs are; do you want your pool to specialise or generalise? Will you join more than one pool to get specialised content whilst also having access to a healthy selection from across the board? Use the trials to get a feel for the pools’ vibes and value propositions and see if they align with your needs.
Some DJ pools you come across may not have the same polished interface as the bigger ones. It’s still worth giving these a look as they may host exclusive material. A good example of such a pool is the seriously niched Crooklyn Clan Vault. They specialise in house remixes of hip-hop tunes. Despite their dated user interface, they have a loyal following of DJs as the music hosted on their pool cannot be found anywhere else. For those who want the material, forgiving the dated UI of their website is easy. DJs who subscribe to Crooklyn Clan Vault may also join a more mainstream DJ Pool to access more commercial offerings.
No matter the DJ pool, or pools, that you join, there will always be tracks that you can’t source so will need to look elsewhere. This is where the DJ music sites come in; to help you get those elusive tunes for a one-off fee!
DJ Music Websites
Beatport
The biggest name for dance music downloads. Responsible for informing of the clubland top 10 for multiple dance genres, Beatport’s best-selling charts are looked to as a benchmark by many other DJ music sites and pools.
As the largest digital DJ music store in the world, Beatport is a convenient one-stop-shop for all of the dance music you could possibly want. Track browsing is intuitive with plenty of search options and features for filtering. The tracks cost roughly 99p for a 320kbps ID3-tagged MP3 file and £1.69 for a lossless WAV or lossless id3-tagged AIFF file, pricing is also subject to VAT.
The leading music store for dance and electronic music genres
Junodownload
Similar to Beatport in its breadth of music coverage but also includes an extensive hip-hop and r&b selection. You may find that navigating Junodownload bears more fruit than that of a typical music download website as they have invested heavily in promoting music through expertly placed blogs, podcasts and artist/DJ charts which all encourage exploration of their site and its music.
Although the cost per track is amongst the highest of all the music sites, it bears noting that discounts are available to members who shop with them frequently, plus the downloads are not subject to taxes as with Beatport so tracks can work out cheaper than on Beatport depending on the region that they are being purchased. The typical cost of an id3-tagged 192kbps MP3 file is 83p, an id3-tagged 320kbps MP3 file is £1.16 and for their lossless files (WAV, FLAC, ALAC and id3-tagged AIFF) are £1.65 per track.
One of leading MP3 music stores
Trackitdown
As Specialists of dance music, Trackitdown‘s representation of sub-genres is good, but not the biggest we’ve come across. Their track selection is strong for historical releases but upfront music takes a little while to trickle onto the site. This is easily overlooked when considering that they are the cheapest music download site of their kind! The cost of a lossless WAV file is 99p and the cost of an ID3-tagged MP3 file at 320kbps is 79p. The savings don’t end there as they have a great membership scheme where WAVs become 79p per track and MP3s become 63p per track. Membership costs £10 per month in the UK.
7Digital
7Digital fills the lossless, high-fidelity void that iTunes used to suffer from. Here you’ll find MP3s at 320kbps costing around 99p per track, or at a discount if you commit to an entire album. The star of this show, however, is the lossless FLAC options. FLAC files can be downloaded in 16-bit and 24-bit. The cost is £1.59 for a 16-bit FLAC file and £2.39 for a 24-bit FLAC file with discount available for purchase of an album. It is worth noting that not all tracks have both FLAC options. Most popular music is represented here and the breadth of the selection is similar to iTunes, but with an emphasis on buying albums, preferably as 24-bit FLAC with PDFs of supporting booklets.
Bandcamp
A treasure trove of independent music where the artists get paid directly for every purchase. Bandcamp allows artists and independent record labels to publish directly to their site. In doing this, the middle man is removed meaning the music reaches you without any major record label involvement. Rest assured the tracks sound professionally polished and can be purchased as both 320kbps MP3 or lossless FLAC files, and, in some cases, on physical formats such as vinyl and cassette. Artists set their own suggested donation prices, but the costs are reasonable and in line with other music download websites. Most music genres are covered, including most electronic dance genres, plus hip hop, r&b and jazz right through to rock and metal.
Bandcamp is a treasure trove of exclusive edits, remixes and self-released artists
Alongside joining a DJ pool and purchasing music from various music download websites, a lot of DJs source great material for free!
Do you need inspiration?
Choosing which songs to look for, knowing what’s hot right now and discovering the latest bangers can take some time. Luckily there is a community run website called 1001 Tracklists which can help you fast track this process. We love this website for discovering what our favourite DJs are playing and hunting for the latest tunes. Please note, you cannot download music from this service, it’s simply a place to get track titles and artist names.
Promotional material
Billed as the industry-standard professional promo platform, InFlyte is a very useful tool, used to get early access to future bangers for established DJs. DJs subscribe to InFlyte for free track mailouts from record labels. You need an invitation to join InFlyte and before your membership begins you will be verified as a professional DJ so will need to provide your social media details to their admin. Once a member, simply approach the record labels of your choice and ask to be added to their InFlyte mailing list to receive promotional material before it is released commercially for some exclusive road testing.
Where can I download DJ music for free? – Free download links
Free Soundcloud downloads
With a little dedication, you can scour the web to find some absolute gems in the free music download links. The most popular website to do this with is SoundCloud. Search your favourite artists and check their uploads. Many are offering at least one of their tunes for free with a download link embedded underneath the track waveform. There is a knack to finding these; the free download links are usually time or download frequency limited so you’ve got to become a true scout to get the good stuff!
Take inspiration from your favourite artists and explore who they are following for alternatives that may have escaped your attention. When you find anything that takes your fancy, simply repeat the above step and watch your music collection build.
Free music from artists
A more direct but equally effective method for getting hold of free, and sometimes even exclusive, music is to contact artists directly. This comes with a major asterisk and it reads as follows: Make sure you have something to say and something of value to offer! For example, you may really admire an exclusive tune or ‘dubplate’ you heard a DJ drop. Reach out and tell them that you think it’s awesome. If it’s not still in the battle-weapon phase of its life, you might suggest that you’d love to drop it in your own sets. Let them know if you intend to put it on your socials in some way. You may find that all they want in return for sending you the tune is that you credit them. That’s it! You now have an exclusive dubplate only being played by one or a handful of other DJs.
If you follow just a couple of these suggestions, your music library will multiply in no time, and as you gather momentum, you may find that sourcing tunes becomes addictive!
Streaming your secondary source of music is of great advantage, too, as it is a fantastic resource to cater for on-the-fly requests and the like. When technology allows, perhaps the script will flip and your core music selection will reside with streaming services and your locally stored tracks will serve purely as a backup for any worst-case scenarios that may arise. Until then, unearthing those gems to download, many would agree, is a DJ’s duty; a time-honoured practice integral to the DJ experience.
See inside some of these services!
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Creative
Thanks for the article.
My tuppence-worth (as someone just starting out):
ZipDJ is great for new release of dance tunes from all sorts of genres – and releases mostly go back to about 2020, with very little back catalogue. Pretty reasonable rates for the amount of downloads I’m pulling from it (sometimes up to 20 a day – more if I’m looking for a specific artist’s work)
Crateconnect feels like it’s focused more on the American market. They are pretty good for Reggae new releases though. Used it for a month; after that I didn’t think I would get as much use from it as ZipDJ.
Beatjunkies: Just started a sub there, and they have a lot of catalogue music and remixes, not quite as curated as ZipDJ or Crateconnect. But has a comforting DIY old skool feel. Loads of hip hop but a lot of other genres, but also very US-centric.
I would like to find a decent source for new worldbeat and jazz-tinged stuff and am giving DJCity a try now. But so far they seem very pop-centric. Any suggestions welcomed!
By the way, I don’t think trackitdown is operating any more. But thanks for the tip on 7Digital, I’ve been looking for an alternative to Amazon and Apple.