Mixo, the cloud-first DJ library tool, has added the ability to export your library straight to Rekordbox USB, ready to plug into Pioneer DJ and AlphaTheta standalone gear. In other words, you can prepare and organise your music in Mixo and then walk up to almost any club CDJ or standalone player in the world without ever opening Rekordbox.
Added earlier this year, this feature has been refined to be pretty flawless according to our students who use this service, so much so that it is now slick and accurate enough to work as a real alternative to the official route. Mixo v2 also exports to USB for Engine DJ, which works the same way – your tracks and library transferred to a stick, ready for Denon/Rane/Numark standalone hardware. So whichever standalone ecosystem you play on, Mixo can get you there.
Escaping the platforms… with a platform
Why does this matter? Rekordbox export to USB is the route most DJs use to play in clubs without a laptop. You prep at home, drop your tracks and cue points onto a stick, and the gear in the booth reads it. Mixo offers a workflow where you do all of that without going anywhere near Rekordbox itself. But unlike other software that lets you do this (Virtual DJ, Djay Pro etc), with Mixo that same workflow lets you play on anything else too. Prepare once in Mixo, then export to Rekordbox USB for the Pioneer booth, Engine USB for the Denon setup, or back into Serato, Traktor, Virtual DJ and the rest for your home gear.
If you are a DJ who is comfortable storing your DJ music in the cloud (Mixo uses Google Drive, One Drive or Dropbox) and happy to trust a third-party tool to organise it for you, that is an intriguing proposition.
So, what exactly is Mixo again?
If you haven’t come across it, Mixo describes itself as a cloud DJ library. You download the desktop app for Windows, Mac or Linux, import your music from your DJ software or local storage, and Mixo uploads everything to your own Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive cloud. You then sync that library to your phone on iOS and Android to play and manage your collection on the go, with cue points, beatgrids, waveforms, artwork and metadata stored in the cloud and synced across your devices. You can build the USB drives from mobile or desktop.
The other half of the pitch is conversion. Mixo imports from and exports to Rekordbox, Traktor, Serato, Virtual DJ, Engine DJ, djay Pro, Mixxx, the iTunes/Music app and more, carrying across playlists, beatgrids, cues and custom metadata. The idea is that you stop being locked into one software’s library format and can move between platforms, or jump from laptop prep to standalone gear, without losing the work you have put into your tracks. It supports MP3, AAC/M4A, WAV, OGG, FLAC and AIFF files.
• Mixo’s paid tier is $7/month. More info on their website here.
