Engine DJ 5.0 on Linux under Wine – custom patches

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I’ve been working on getting Engine DJ 5.0.0 running reliably on Linux under Wine, and after a bit of digging into Wine’s source code I’ve ended up with four patches that together seem to make it usable for me.

A few caveats up front: These patches touch Wine’s file locking and drive management internals, which means they are messing with write operations. They work for me and I’ve tested sync to a real exFAT SD card, but this is lightly tested hobby work, not a production release. If something goes wrong with your library or your card, that’s on you. Back up your Engine Library, and music, before trying any of this. You’ll also need Linux command-line confidence to build Wine from source — this is not a download-and-run situation.

Source and build instructions: djzogmelbourne2/wine-enginedj: patches for wine that make it work slightly less bad with Engine DJ v5.0 – Codeberg.org Continue reading →

engine-mixx playlist exchange for ENGINE DJ and MIXXX

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One minor frustration with the Denon ENGINE DJ software is it can export m3u8 playlist files but it cannot import them. But it can import xml export files from it’s almost direct competitor Rekordbox.

This is a command line and (Linux) GUI tool for managing conversion between these formats, assuming you have an “anchor” config that places the same files in different filesystem path conventions for different operating systems.

It’s early days and a bit rough and only lightly tested so far, but it solves this issue for me.

Since m3u8 playlists are quite widespread this is not only useful for MIXXX, though it was made with MIXXX in mind.

https://codeberg.org/djzogmelbourne2/engine-mixxx

 

The DENON PRIME GO as main DJ device, one year on

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I’ve had the DENON PRIME GO now for just over a year. It replaced my Linux laptop / MIXXX / Pioneer DDJ-SB2 setup, which was great – but I’d had the occasional cryptic crash on stage that was near impossible to replicate in my home studio and debug effectively.

I feel I haven’t abandoned Linux as the ENGINE OS DJ platform is an embedded Linux appliance under the hood – though it is not open source.

TLDR:

Great sound, convenient, reliable. Not perfect, but more than good enough. I’ve played a bunch of shows of various sizes using this device in the last year and it has delivered. It lets me enjoy the music and have fun.

I had one hardware failure with it – the cross-fader stopped working, but not while playing “live”.  Denon/DJCITY repaired this under warranty, which took about 6 weeks.

On to the details….

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SOUND SYSTEMS OF MELBOURNE web page

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Check out this informative SOUND SYSTEMS of MELBOURNE webpage by El Gran Mono, featuring Minirig and a whole pile of info on some of the amazing Sound Systems that make up the rich scene in Melbs.
To quote the page itself:

In early 2020 we worked with Geelong-based illustrator Rick Chesshire to create our FIELD GUIDE TO THE SOUND SYSTEMS OF MELBOURNE, a limited edition print sold via our website. Based on the UK SOUND GUIDE and other similar sound system pictorials, this was the first attempt at cataloguing sound system culture in Australia.

Melbourne is a city synonymous with the arts and below are some of the sound systems which contribute to the rich vibrancy of this culture.