Jon Turi / Engadget

Even the full Serato DJ Pro software pack is usually limited without an add-on controller plugged in, but with the Play expansion pack you get the full DJ experience, as long as you’re fine using a mouse or keyboard to perform. The layout includes multiple decks, filter controls and waveform views. That means you can prep sets and make mixes when you move away from your DJ setup to take some time on the couch, or soon enough even somewhere outside of your home entirely.

Serato’s free Play expansion pack offer is only available during the month of May for DJ Pro or DJ Lite users. After that, it returns to its normal price of $29. You can also visit the company’s “keeping busy” landing page for how-to guides, giveaways and other special offers.

Other items of note include the addition of Ableton Link support, for syncing your timecode across other devices and an Auto Relocate feature so you can find tracks on-the-fly if they’ve been moved. And later this spring, the Beatsource Link direct-to-device streaming services will be supported. 

On the iOS side of things (sorry Android users), you can use Mobile Library Sync to wirelessly transfer your Rekordbox library from your desktop to your phone as long as you’re on the same network. This works even if you don’t have the cloud subscription. There’s also direct-connection support for some CDJs and XDJs, letting you play your tracks on those devices without any importing or exporting required.

The three new subscription plans available are Free, Core and Creative. The free mode is limited to in-computer use only, unless you have a controller that includes a hardware-unlock. You don’t get DVS capability (without that licensed controller) or the new cloud sync functionality here and some of the existing features are limited. Next up is the Core subscription which costs $7 a month if purchased before July 13, 2020 (when it goes up to $10). This lets you use any Rekordbox-supported DJ equipment, including DVS but lacks cloud sync, remix effects and sampler sequence saves. The premier subscription is called Creative and includes full functionality across the board for the introductory price of $10 per month (or $15 after July 13, 2020).

Those already using this beat-making software get the addition of Auto Chord Mode, which lets you create 2 – 7 note chords from a single note, no previous knowledge of music theory required. There are also improvements to the song view, quantized cue points and the Serato DJ library view. However, this update seems primarily geared towards providing inquiring minds the opportunity to use the software for free, with only some of the full edition’s features disabled.

Users taking advantage of the free version will be limited to four decks, four scenes, a single audio track and can only export MP3 files. You can’t automate filters either, so let’s just say it’s a chance to practice that live set where you actually have to perform in the moment. The single audio track — where you can import an entire song for editing — lets you work on DJ edits for your set, but you won’t be able to stack a variety of full tunes together for more complex results.

Serato Studio 1.4.4 is available today, with a 14-day full-feature trial and an always-free option with reduced features. If you’d like to get the full version, it’s available as a $10/month subscription or $200 outright purchase.

The core layout of Serato Studio remains the same, but you get to choose between the beat-making or DJ edit environment when you launch the application. Your library and track layout are always found at the bottom regardless, and are easily toggled from side to side. The beat-making and new audio track layouts occupy the top section of the screen and these toggle vertically depending on which track layer you’re on. Overall, it’s a pretty fluid way to navigate through the sections on a single screen.

You can import songs from your library via drag-and-drop, but unlike before, you can add the entire tune to your song layout. If the tracks are, say, an old disco tune that doesn’t lock to a consistent beat grid, you can fix that with a little tweaking. You can also change the key or tempo for those tracks with some interesting results.

The audio tracks editor includes a slicer that chops up your audio file into equal clips of up to 64 measures long, similar to Studio’s scenes although those max out at 8 measures each. You can also use the endless slicer to create segments that span from a clip’s starting point through to the end of the track as a single chunk. Additionally, you can drag your cursor to manually reduce a clip instance’s length in the track layout. All these features make it easy to do simple edits like changing the intro or removing portions of a track that don’t work in your set. This new flexibility in Serato Studio begins to narrow the gap between it and fully functioning DAW apps, but more importantly becomes an incredible DJ edit tool.

There are plenty of little updates scattered throughout, including a dedicated solo button right next to the mute feature for each instrument or track layer. Cue points will also be placed on the first down beat for tracks, saving you the extra effort if that’s what you prefer.

Serato Studio 1.4 is available to download now for the $10 monthly subscription or outright purchase for $200. If you’ve already used up your trial on the previous version of Studio, have no fear, all trials have been reset so you can hop in for an additional 14-day test run of this new version with full audio track capability.

Loops, cue points, effects, time stretching and key detection with Pitch ‘n Time plus loads of instruments and samples help you create song blocks that you can then arrange into a single timeline along the bottom. It’s not really meant to take the place of a more advanced digital audio workstation (DAW) but it can help new users lay out a song’s framework more easily and in a workflow similar to what DJs already use. People with production skills already under their belt can use Serato Studio as a way to quickly sketch out new ideas — especially with stem file exports on the short-term roadmap.

“By building on what DJs already know, we’ve reduced that steep learning curve commonly associated with music production, which means less time hitting technical roadblocks and more time actually making music.”
– Nick Maclaren, Chief Strategy Officer at Serato

Since Serato’s business model is focused on DJing, it’s no surprise that it has tailored Studio to work well with DJ hardware including its jog wheels, pads and knobs. The on-screen layout echoes the device’s setup, with a central view split into left and right segments (like a two-turntable setup). Each of these have volume sliders, filters and keypads that correspond to the ones on either side of your controller, making it a relatively familiar workspace. There’s still no manual or comprehensive help screen available yet, so you’ll have to make do with hover tips for clarification and plenty of experimenting.

On the right segment is the stack where you can add drums, samples and instruments — and there are plenty of these included in the beta software package. Notes can be recorded live or drawn into groups of up to four looped measures. (That’s currently the maximum length of what they’re calling “scenes” by default.) Each scene is a tab, and you can copy them to add the next stage of complexity or easily create blank ones for breakdowns, changes and such. These tabs are what you’ll drag to the song view along the bottom to lay out your track. Adding a new row of sounds to any scene will add the same row across all of them, so in that way it’s similar to most DAW layouts, except that here you’ll have to jump to another tab for changes, rather than continuing in a single uninterrupted line from start to finish. It’s primarily a loop-based creation tool, after all.

The left segment is where you see the details of each sound from your scenes. That includes instruments, drum kits and samples. The sampler is one of the more powerful and unique tools here, and seems to include much of the functionality from Serato’s recent Sample product that works as a plugin with other DAWs. Here, it’s built into the workspace and since Studio can access your Serato library (when you toggle from song view to library view at the bottom), it’s easy to drag in tunes from your collection, use existing cue points or find new ones to start playing segments. Each sample has its own filters and adjustments including key, tempo, attack and release.

Serato Studio supports VST plugins and MIDI devices, so if you happen to have keyboards and other controllers beyond your DJ gear, they should work easily. I dusted off and fired up an old Oxygen 8 keyboard, downloaded a well-outdated driver and was ready to play right away. The initial Studio Beta includes plenty of sounds, drum kits, samples and effects to get going without the need for anything else. Plus the drum kits have preset beat layouts from a variety of styles to get you going until you craft your own. While you can also draw from your Serato library, you don’t actually need to have Serato DJ to use Studio. You can drag audio files from your desktop and work that way.