MacOS High Sierra 10.13 Is Here: Can DJs + Producers Update Yet?

A brand new update for macOS is out today, High Sierra. With the new version are a host of new improvements to the operating system across the board. But as usual, DJs and producers should hesitate! We’ve collected the latest details on problems and compatibility with Serato DJ, Rekordbox, Traktor, and others in today’s article.

Before we even start this article, here is the usual DJTT disclaimer about anything new: don’t rely on new software/hardware/anything for important gigs without serious testing. Updating to the latest version of MacOS might be tempting, but think twice before you do it with the computer that you DJ or produce with.

Will My DJ Software Work With macOS High Sierra?

Many software developers in the music industry space historically don’t use the developer preview beta period of apps to test compatibility. Instead, these companies tend to wait until the official release to test, certify, and update their software.

Here’s a quick summary of what we know so far, as well as additional explanations. We’ll update this article as more information comes out.

Serato DJ

Right now, Serato is asking their users to wait to update to 10.13:

macOS 10.13 High Sierra has been released but is not yet supported in Serato DJ. We aim to complete testing and confirm compatibility as soon as possible, so please do not upgrade until we announce official support.

If you have already updated to macOS High Sierra, you may have had some trouble installing the driver for your hardware. This is due to a new security feature that requires user approval before loading new third-party drivers. Please read our ‘macOS High Sierra 10.13 driver install issue‘ article for more information.

We are grateful for any feedback on any issues that you may encounter using macOS High Sierra and encourage you to open a ticket to report them, here.

Please note – if you choose to use the macOS High Sierra 10.13 release with Serato DJ, you do so at your own risk. Please be aware that to resolve issues you may need to roll-back to a supported macOS operating system.

Traktor

Native Instruments have been burned in the past by macOS updates, so it was encouraging to see a few emails to their beta group that indicated that they already were testing on High Sierra. In the current 2.11.1.22 beta (get access to Traktor betas here), the testing is complete – and the release notes include this line:

Complete: testing on final version of macOS High Sierra

Aside from the beta update, there isn’t yet a public announcement or release of the new version. In practice, some DJs on the Traktor forums already report that they haven’t seen any issues even with the released version of Traktor – but be careful.

“I installed the GM release candidate for High Sierra last week and have not run into any problems with Traktor or my S5.” – kokernutz (user on NI forums) 

Rekordbox / Rekordbox DJ

There’s very little information so far from Pioneer DJ about their software. Despite a brand new update (version 5.0) just a little over two weeks ago, there’s no indication that High Sierra plays nice with it. The official comment on Pioneer forums are pretty underwhelming:

Denon DJ

Denon DJ notes that their DJ / preparation software is “fully compatible with macOS High Sierra 10.13”. Additionally, there’s a list of supported hardware on their site – which includes most of their more recent releases.

Others:

We’ve collected a number of notes from various other companies about their products’ compatibility below: