Serato DJ 2.1 Public Beta #2: SoundCloud Streaming at 256kbps AAC

There’s a brand new update to the current beta of Serato DJ out (Serato DJ Pro 2.1 and Serato DJ Lite 1.1) which includes what many would consider the holy grail of streaming platforms: SoundCloud. The new public beta is out now – and here’s the first details on it.

Serato DJ Pro 2.1: Soundcloud Added

The main big thing in this public beta of Serato DJ is the addition of SoundCloud streaming support, which was first announced last month at ADE. Serato has beaten the other platforms out of the gate here – despite Traktor and Virtual DJ being mentioned at ADE as well, Serato has very quickly turned around and implemented the platform into their software. We haven’t heard any other news of SoundCloud streaming rolling out in other softwares at all.

When originally announced, the plan was that SoundCloud would stream into DJ softwares at 128kbps – a pretty sad, super compressed bitrate. Incredibly, the beta comes with the good news that the SoundCloud library is streaming at 256kbps AAC. That’s actually a very respectable quality – read this thread on Quora if you disagree.

How Does Soundcloud Streaming Work?

We did a quick test streaming from SoundCloud into Serato DJ Pro, and here are the key things that we think DJs need to know:

• It requires a SoundCloud Go+ account (a 30 day free trial is available, it’s $4.99 a month after that)
• The only “crates” that show up in the Serato library are albums and playlists that you’ve made or favorited
• Tracks are downloaded fully into Serato’s decks – so if you are disconnected while a track is playing, everything is fine
• If you have no internet connection, you won’t be able to load any SoundCloud songs (no offline saving)
• You’re not able to search the entire SoundCloud library by itself. Editor’s Update: Apparently you should be able to search the full SoundCloud library using the search field in Serato DJ, but we were not able to in our test install.

Official Changelog

Here’s the official changelog from Serato HQ for this beta of the software:

New Features

• Added streaming support for SoundCloud Go+
• Added reverse for Rane Twelve (by pressing Cue Mode + Play/Pause)

Other Changes

• Fixed an issue where associating a video file to a TIDAL streaming track only persists per session
• Fixed an audio smoothing issue with Rane Twelve when scratching at a slow speed
• Fixed a blank line on devices with screens when viewing a crate
• Fixed missing drop-down arrow on collapsed TIDAL crate icon
• Fixed a potential crash when using TIDAL
• Fixed a potential hang on exit
• Updated translations

How Do I Get The Beta?

It’s the same areas on the Serato DJ forums as the previous Serato DJ 2.1 Beta – and you can download it directly from there. There’s two beta forums – one for Serato DJ Pro 2.1 and one for Serato DJ Lite 1.1. Once you’re in the appropriate fourm, go to “Downloads and Release Notes” and you’ll find the new betas.

As always, any beta version of a software should be used with extreme caution! Don’t play gigs with betas unless you have a backup setup. This is doubly true with new features like streaming DJ tracks – which are relatively untested. Try it for hours in your studio before you even begin consider using it in the “real world”.