Dual player with crossfade for "easy" DJ

[NightInAgharta]

PRELUDE
This is what happened:
Some friends of mine and me wanted to make a party for the "Carnevale". I started to create a super mega playlist for the party but I wanted to "live mix " the songs. Yes, I've found a lot of plugins that automatically crossfade the songs but I wanted to have more control about this. I've found some free DJ software in the net but my playlist was in Mediamonkey and they couldn't import it. It was really huge and it was so boring to recreate it in the new player.
So I had the idea: "WHY THE SUPER MEDIAMONKEY's DEVELOPERS don't add this great feature to their already great player?"
TWO players, one on the left, one on the right and a simple SLIDE CURSOR to crossfade among them. Of course it needs an option to send all the playlist to one of the two players or to send the songs of the playlist alternatively to the player A and to the player B with the option to auto-advance or to stop when the song ends waiting for a manual start.
A little sample:

[Peke]

@NightInAgharta
Me as a DJ in always wanted that feature, that was the main reason I made MM fan site ow my own and add several Radio Features (after stopped DJ-ing in clubs I worked as Radio DJ) which can be easily used and add some of features you need, Direct control of Crossfading and Automatization crossfading via scripts or enhance Gapless playback is not possible in MM for now. There were several suggestions but without real solution.
Both you and me will have to wait until some solution is found. Main disadvantage is compatibility support to Winamp plugins that are not made for multi threading environment, and windows management of DLL loading that limits our way to explore that field

[NightInAgharta]

Thx for the answer.

I don't know how MM works internally, the thing I know is that I can run 2 instances of MM and they works fine. Both play and I can ear music coming from them. With 2 audio cards I can send each output to a different card.
Winamp has some plugins that are able to drive two different instances of the player and crossfade between them.
MM is quite compatible with winamp.
So, if the plugin works with 2 winamp players and MM is winamp compatible it should works with 2 MM. If I embedd 2 MM players in a single application frame and I embedd the code of the plugin too everything should work.

It seems simple.

Surely it isn't.

[Peke]

I must say that you are partially right and one thing is common in your posts.
Constant of repeating of "TWO WINAMP" and Third party app that embed and control both. The goal that we seek is functionality that two+ separate controls of playing is embed in MM not starting two MMs, I have made Example player engine few years ago (Not released to Public) that uses Winamp Plugins and controls it from one exe by twisting/overriding Windows management for loading DLL files and made available that One APP load and allocate memory for same DLL twice+ times, but it was too unstable and CPU Mem demanding

Check my fan page and see what I wanted to accomplish with several apps there.

[Teknojnky]

Peke, why not implement a simple secondary player (with it's own now playing) that does not have full plugin support that can be cross-faded/mixed with the main MM player.

[NightInAgharta]

I repeat: I don't know how MM or Winamp works internally, I never tried to develope something for them, but I thought something like this (please forgive me if I thought a great idiocy )



The solution of to have a simple second player without all the features is not good because both players should share the same output plugins and visualizations (I need to use visuals and sound processors plugins).

Another way to implement it could be this one:



Both player are winamp compatible and they can have their own plugin section or share the same. Thei should have a different output plugin to be perfect (this will permit to send the output to a different audio card)

I think this way MM won't lose the plugin compatibility. It just will double the player section.

But, repeat, maybe I'm writing idiocies.

[NightInAgharta]

Well, however I've found two good way to do a little DJing:

1. SQRSoft Advanced Crossfading plugin (you can find it here: http://www.sqrsoft.com.ar/ that auto crossfade amond the tracks of the playlist (with a decent effect)

2. the easy-but-good free DJ software from Native Instruments: Beatport (I export the playlist from MM in M3U format and use it in BeatPort.

But to have it inside MM would be a dream...

[ted]

Since a little while I use MM as well. This programme contains a lot of nice features and in a good quality. This topic of having a dual player has already been discussed in 2005. It is now 2007 and I was wondering if there has been any progress?

Maybe you can have a look at www.mp3tunes.nl where you can find such a programme with 2 players. I am not sure if you can compair the software with MM but I think it is worthwhile to look at.

I hope it will be possible to have this great feature in your player.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Ted

[rjbur]

I too have been on the hunt for a True DJ Plug In for MM.

I also use SAM Party DJ...
http://www.spacialaudio.com/?page=sam-p ... j-overview

GREAT SCREENSHOTS: http://www.spacialaudio.com/?page=sam-p ... creenshots

Take a look and you will see what MM really needs to provide. This program supports up to 4 players that you can choose to send to one of two outputs... AIR or CUE or even both. If you only have a single Audio Card, then you could send AIR to say the Left channel and CUE to the Right. This works fine as you probably should be in Mono Mode with a PA system being used in a large setting anyway. I now use a dual audio card in by laptop that works great. The sound card is from "Echo Digital Audio" and is their "INDIGO DJ" model.

http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/CardB ... /index.php

I really like MM's interface and I too have generated many play list in MM. The SAM Party DJ program has a few drawbacks as it refuses or does not have an option to sort play list names... Other than this it has allot of great features that MM should consider adding. Each song can have many custom settings as well as EQ, volume, etc that are saved with the song. Also you can beat match the songs prior to fading from one to another. You can also decide to fade immediately the song being played right into the next song if you really didn't like the selection playing and it sounds natural. Look closer and it supports many other radio station like features. WARNING it DOES NOT support DRM / Protected songs and probably NEVER will... there are ways around this... legal ones...

All this said, I still like and have high hopes for MM, but find it too hard to use in a Party DJ situation.... If you really want to DJ a party and and even allow for someone to request a song, you really need to be able to "cue" the song up and listen to it and see if you found the right one, is it appropriate, etc. before allowing it to play next. Yes, I do start with a "Play list," but I do take request and I do like to change my mind or suddenly remember a song that might be great to play next and without the ability to "cue" it up on another player and listen to it first, its like playing Russian Rullet and hoping you picked the right one. Can't afford to do it, so MM is not my choice yet for any party DJ environment. But I will keep hoping and really would rather use MM for all my needs.

Development team... There is a free 14 day trial on SAM Party DJ and if you need more time, then I'ld to buy you folks a copy to evaluate as I really would rather switch to using MM fulltime...

Thanks for a GREAT Product...

Back to th hunt....
Rich

[Peke]

I'm first in line to see that option internally in MM.
Even I made several plugins and utils that was not enough but Close

BTW 5-10 Eur is not big Money to Consider Buying additional sound card.

[JagAC]

I REEEEEEALLY would like to see this feature in MM!! In a party situation, it is so important to be able to start the next song before the current one has finished... This is my most wanted feature EVER for MM... it trumps everything else on the wishlist for me!!

I don't think it needs to be very sophistacted (after all, MM is never going to be a professional mixing solution)... it just needs to be able to play 2 songs simultaneously and each of them to have their own volume control... that's it! : )

As for what to do with the playlist.. I don't think this is complicated either. 2 "players" simply means 2 different marker points on the playlist... they both play through the list from their own marker - after all, it is only ever 2 songs playing at the same time.

[onar]

As a DJ, I would gladly pay more for this feature in MM!

MM has better and most importantly FASTER library management than any other DJ program on the market, irrespective of cost. I think that MM would have a good chance in competing with most if not all already established DJ-ing software, on the merit of speed and efficiency alone!

[GoonerKeith]

I agree with all previous posters.

A dual-player option for MM would be a fantastic addition, especially if it included support for the Shoutcast plug-in and enabled tag information to be sent to the server.

I've searched in vain for something similar for Winamp but with no luck. Like MM, you can have two instances of Winamp running, but not one instance with a dual-deck.

I know some posters have asked for cross-fading as well. Personally, I could live without that as I manually switch my songs when broadcasting my live radio show. Which reminds me of a further addition to my wishlist - would it be possible to add a button within MM that activates/deactivates the 'mic' function in Windows volume control?

[janzak]

Dual player with crossfade is the best upgrade for MM. I do not know how difficult it is to make this addition. But it will revolutionize MM.

[richiefinger]

A little bit of sex wee just came out thinking about this one.
Yeas Please