Transcription
Recordbox DJ is probably one of the most comprehensive DJ softwares available on the market. And if you are just starting out as a DJ or a brand new DJ, you're probably going to find the software quite overwhelming to begin with because there are just so many different settings, features, and functions available within the application. In this video, I'm going to run through my top 10 settings to help elevate your experience when using the application. Let's get into it.
Okay, so for this demonstration of the 10 settings that I'm going to show you, we're going to be using a DDJ FLX4 and also the free plan in Recordbox. As I mentioned in all of my videos, I have never subscribed to record box. So everything that is available here is available in the free plan.
So first and foremost then I'm going to show you how to switch on and off the crossfader. A lot of DJs, unless they're scratching, will never actually use it. And because there's no crossfader on and off on the actual FLX4, it can actually get pretty annoying if you accidentally nudge this. Of course, it disrupts the volume and yeah, it's just very very easily done. So, in order to switch this off, what you're going to do is come to the mixer uh panel of record box. Now, that is on the top menu. So, see here at the top uh next to the record panel, you show hide the mixer panel. And then what we're going to do is just switch off the crossfader by toggling off the blue boxes that are highlighted. So they will now be grayed out. Of course, if you want to switch it back on again, you just toggle them back on. And that will switch off your crossfader. So you don't need to worry about accidentally nudging it.
Second setting that I'm going to show you then is phrase information. Now along this waveform at the top here and the big waveform that runs down the middle, you can actually uh display all of the phrase information which can actually help you to mix phrases more accurately. To do this, open the preferences menu here. And then first and foremost, you want to come to your analysis menu and ensure that phrase is ticked here. So just make sure that it's analyzing the phrases. And then what you want to do to switch it on is move up two um menu items um on the left sort of menu to view and come to layout. Scroll down and you'll see a phrases box here. So if I toggle phrase on the full waveform you can see here now underneath this waveform we have got all of the phrases that it has analyzed for this track. So, the breakdowns, the intros, the chorus, etc. If you want it to display the labels, come to layout again and toggle this um final menu button on. So, you got the actual labels. And if you want it to run up and down the playing waveform, you just select phrases enlarged waveform. And there you can see it running down the um the left hand side there. So you can see that as I jump through the track, it changes color depending on what section of the track you are in. So that can be very useful for helping you to mix phrases.
Next up, we're going to go and I'll show you how to do some track analysis. Now, of course, when you drag and drop tracks into record box, um this can be um really annoying for beat gridding. Um, I find record box standard analysis is pretty awful when it comes to mapping out beat grids. Now, what you can do to improve the accuracy of this is come to analysis and then on the first menu here, the track analysis, toggle this high precision beat grid analysis on. Now, do bear in mind this will take longer to analyze your track. So, if you're literally just downloading some tracks and you're rushing to get to a DJ gig, I wouldn't recommend this cuz it can take a little bit longer to do it. However, if you have got time, I highly recommend that you switch this on.
Next up, we're going to talk all about spinbacks. Now, if you want to do a spin back on the FLX4, of course, the jog wheels don't actually have a whole lot of tension. This makes spinbacks pretty difficult. However, what you can do is you can come to the preferences once again and then go to the controller section. Go to the deck menu and scroll all the way down to the bottom and you will see here the spinback length menu. So, by default, it will be set to normal. If you select the drop down this, you can then set it to long. And then, let's just jump to the end of the intro. So, it does a much longer spin back. So, it enables you to do that a lot uh for a longer period of time, much like if you have a lighter jog wheel setting on a CDJ.
Setting number five is also to do with the jog wheel and the um the kind of vinyl setting. So, if you come to preferences, come to controller and the deck section once again, and then you've got you come down here to the vinyl speed adjust. Now, of course, by default, if it's switched off, it's going to be a very sharp start and stop on the play pause. Okay. However, if you want it to respond a lot more like a vinyl turntable, come to the touch brake setting and then just turn that up a little bit. Let's just so you can see it. I'm going to turn it up pretty much all the way. And now what will [Music] happen? So you can see there it almost like switches off as if you're powering off a turntable. So, this is quite handy if you want to do those James Hype style um kind of tricks with a with a tight loop. So, that's pretty useful. The other thing that it will do is if you press play, but yeah, you get the idea on that. You can also do this to the release and start as well. So it will then wind up as if the turntable is powering back up. [Music] So So it's the opposite of the um of the stopping one. So that's where those settings are. So have a play with those. You can be really quite creative.
Next up, we have the Q analysis. This is a minor setting, but here in record box 7, we have this really annoying Q analysis um playlist that is locked unless you pay for a subscription. I absolutely hate it being there. So, if you want to remove it, all you need to do is come to view um come to layout and you see all these check boxes here and you can just switch off the Q analysis playlist and that just removes it from the menu. Um, the other really cool thing as well, just very quickly whilst we're on this layout, if you don't use streaming services or maybe you do use streaming services, you can toggle which ones it will display on the menu on the uh the left hand side. So, if you don't want all of these little these little annoying icons, see down here on this left hand side, you can just toggle those on and off in the uh in the view menu in the layout section of the view menu. So just um a good one to to know.
Next up, let's talk all about hot cues. This is setting number seven. Now with record box, by default, when you have hot cues set up, they play as soon as you hit one of the buttons, which can be a little bit annoying. Now, by default on Serato, these are actually gated. But in order to do this in record box, you're going to have to adjust one of the settings. So, in your preferences, once again, come down to the um controller section of the um uh yeah, of of the menu. Scroll all the way down to the bottom and then you'll see this hot Q menu. And then it says here, during pause, gate playback is applied. toggle this on and then these almost become like little drum pads. So you can come up with some really creative um you know combinations on that depending on how you've got your hot Q set up. So it behaves a lot more like a standard Q versus just like a hot Q so to speak. If you hold down the hot Q, it will play for as long as you've got the button depressed and then as soon as you release it, it will just pause the track once again.
Next up is a really crucial setting. It's the eject load lock. This is setting number eight. So again, controller menu in the preferences section. Come to the eject load lock menu, which is at the top of the deck menu. And then I would always have this on lock. This basically just means that I've got it unlocked at the moment. So you're playing a track. If you load in another track, it will stop playing and then start playing another track, which can be really annoying. It can mess up the whole set. See how it just loaded it and started playing it? That that can absolutely ruin it. However, if you have eject load lock on and you set it to lock and if you try and load the other track and it says there, look, load lock not available during playback. So, I would always recommend having that switched on, of course, depending on how quickly you're able to change tracks and also how uh how much you trust yourself really. So, just be aware of that.
Setting number nine is the microphone controls. Now on the FLX4, of course, you have got a microphone input and a microphone level and attenuation on the back. However, the settings aren't that great on it in terms of EQing the microphone, uh, talk over the the stuff that you find on more high-end mixers, but it is available in the software. So if you come to the mixer panel, activate that. You can see here on the left hand side we have got some microphone um settings. So you can adjust the low, mid and high EQ. You simply just click and drag depending on where you want those set to. You can switch the microphone on and off on this setting. So that is going to be very very useful if you haven't got a switched microphone. So, it's going to be pretty annoying if you don't have a switch microphone having to constantly adjust the volume up and down, especially if you've set it for um a specific sound system. So, in this panel, you can simply switch the microphone on and off, which is good. There's talk over, which basically ducks the sound as soon as the microphone gets a signal. Um, very useful in certain situations. And we also have three effects. So you can put a reverb onto um the mic and echo. And you can also pitch your voice up or down if you want to sound like a I don't know a bit squeaky like you've just inhaled a balloon or something. So that could be pretty useful as well. So those are the microphone settings just there. Really useful, quite powerful. It wasn't available on the um on on the previous version of record box, I don't think. So that's pretty useful.
And then finally, setting number 10 is stems. So in the preferences, if you want stems, okay, what you want to do is come to extensions at the bottom and then if you want to enable stems, you just toggle this on. Now, if you haven't done this before, it will download stems onto your laptop. You need to be aware that with stems you're going to need quite a powerful processor in your laptop because it does use up quite a lot of memory um when it does it. It is quite a powerful tool. Um but yeah, Stems is available there. I do have a fuller video on the channel about using stems and how to actually map stems to the actual buttons on your DDJ FLX4. That is 100% possible. But yeah, so if you enable the stems function, you've then also got two um specific settings. You can either prioritize the sound quality. When stems first was released with um record box, everyone moaned that it was rubbish, the sound quality was awful, but now you can prioritize the sound quality. It has got a lot better. And you or you can also prioritize speed. So um if your computer is perhaps not that powerful then I would say prioritize the speed by enabling stems. You then on the uh main interface you can see there we have um got the three drums, vocal and instrumental parts. So there some more percussive elements. But do check out my full video on how to map the stem individual stems buttons to your DDJ FLX4.
So there we have it. my top 10 settings in record box DJ. I really hope that you have found this video useful and insightful. Let me know your top settings in the comments down below. As ever, please do give me a thumbs up for the YouTube algorithm. Subscribe if you haven't done so already. Check out the video up there if you want more detail about stems and how to map it to the buttons on your FX4. And I will see you next time.