Deckadance (often referred to as DD) is a DJ

console Console may refer to: Computing and video games * System console, a physical device to operate a computer ** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device ** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...

and mixing tool developed by

Image-Line software Image-Line Software (commonly known as simply Image-Line) is a Belgium, Belgian software company best known for its digital audio workstation program FL Studio and related audio plugins such as Sytrus and Harmor. Image-Line was founded in 1994. In ...

and acquired in 2015 by Gibson. Initially released in May 2007, it operates on

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, and comes in a House Edition and Club Edition. The latter has support for timecoded

vinyl Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl ...

. Deckadance can be used as a standalone application or as a VST plugin inside VST-supporting software hosts like

Ableton Live Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool for compos ...

. It can host any VST-compliant

effect Effect may refer to: * A result or change of something ** List of effects ** Cause and effect, an idiom describing causality Pharmacy and pharmacology * Drug effect, a change resulting from the administration of a drug ** Therapeutic effect, ...

software synthesizer A software synthesizer or softsynth is a computer program that generates digital audio, usually for music. Computer software that can create sounds or music is not new, but advances in processing speed now allow softsynths to accomplish the same t ...

, and can be controlled by most

MIDI controllers A MIDI controller is any hardware or software that generates and transmits Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data to MIDI-enabled devices, typically to trigger sounds and control parameters of an electronic music performance. They mos ...

History

Deckadance was created by Image-Line as a mixing application for DJs. Image-Line worked closely with DJ and

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

Arguru to develop the first version, which was released for

in May 2007. After Arguru died in a car accident in June 2007, future versions were worked on by the Image-Line developers Arguru had been cooperating with, many of whom are also DJs. Deckadance was made compatible with

after the release of version 1.20.0 in January 2008. The most recent release is version 2.43 from April 28, 2015.

Software overview

;System requirements As of version 1.9, the minimum system requirements for Deckadance on a PC are

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

Vista Vista may refer to: Software *Windows Vista, the line of Microsoft Windows client operating systems released in 2006 and 2007 * VistA, (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) a medical records system of the United States ...

, or XP ( SP2). Hardware requirements consist of 512 MB

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

, 200 MB free

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

space, and a

DirectSound DirectSound is a deprecated software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Windows operating system, superseded by XAudio2. It provides a low-latency interface to sound card drivers written for Windows 95 through Windows XP and can h ...

ASIO ''Asio'' is a genus of typical owls, or true owls, in the family Strigidae. This group has representatives over most of the planet, and the short-eared owl is one of the most widespread of all bird species, breeding in Europe, Asia, North Ameri ...

compatible soundcard. Also required is either an

Intel Pentium III The Pentium III (marketed as Intel Pentium III Processor, informally PIII or P3) brand refers to Intel's 32-bit x86 desktop and mobile CPUs based on the sixth-generation P6 (microarchitecture), P6 microarchitecture introduced on February 28, 1999 ...

GHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or Cycle per second, cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in ter ...

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

Athlon XP AMD Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of x86-compatible microprocessors designed and manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices. The original Athlon (now called Athlon Classic) was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and the fi ...

1.4 GHz processor. A

Mac Mac or MAC may refer to: Common meanings * Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * Mac, a prefix to surnames derived from Gaelic languages * McIntosh (apple), a Canadi ...

requires

v10.4 ( Universal binary), 512 Mb RAM, 200 Mb free hard drive space, and a sound card with

CoreAudio Core Audio is a low-level API for dealing with sound in Apple's macOS and iOS operating systems. It includes an implementation of the cross-platform OpenAL. Apple's Core Audio documentation states that "in creating this new architecture on Ma ...

drivers. Processor must be either G4 1.5 GHz or Intel Core Duo family. ;Versions Deckadance is available in two different editions. The House Edition can host VST compliant effects and can be controlled via a

MIDI controller A MIDI controller is any hardware or software that generates and transmits Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data to MIDI-enabled devices, typically to trigger sounds and control parameters of an electronic music performance. They mos ...

. The Club Edition contains all of the features of the House Edition, in addition to support for timecoded vinyls.

Features

Among Deckadance features are

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

integration, an audio synchronization engine that can work in tandem with other VST hosts such as

, a detachable Song Manager (SM) that can integrate with iTunes, technology, a colored

waveform In electronics, acoustics, and related fields, the waveform of a signal is the shape of its Graph of a function, graph as a function of time, independent of its time and Magnitude (mathematics), magnitude Scale (ratio), scales and of any dis ...

with red to distinguish bass, the ability to time-code your own CD (Club Edition),

beat detection In signal analysis, beat detection is using computer software or computer hardware to detect the beat of a musical score. There are many methods available and beat detection is always a tradeoff between accuracy and speed. Beat detectors are comm ...

, a 2-channel mixer with 3-band EQ, and headphone cueing. As of version 1.9 Deckadance has seven internal performance effects, including LP, HP, BP, Notch, Phaser,

Echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...

, and Low fidelity. *User Interface - Deckadance uses a

GUI Gui or GUI may refer to: People Surname * Gui (surname), an ancient Chinese surname, ''xing'' * Bernard Gui (1261 or 1262–1331), inquisitor of the Dominican Order * Luigi Gui (1914–2010), Italian politician * Gui Minhai (born 1964), Ch ...

that slightly resembles that of Image-Line's

digital audio workstation A digital audio workstation (DAW ) is an electronic device or application software used for Sound recording and reproduction, recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software pr ...

FL Studio FL Studio (known as FruityLoops before 2003) is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by the Belgian company Image-Line. It features a graphical user interface with a pattern-based music sequencer. It is available in four different ...

, which consists of one main window that can expand to fill the entire screen. As of 1.3x there are 6 changeable user skins. As of version 1.9, the program no longer covers the start bar and the icons resemble those of

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

Aqua Aqua is the Latin word for water. As such, it is often used in many words which relate to water, such as aquatic life. In English, it may also refer to: Arts * Aqua (color), a greenish-blue color Business * Aqua (Chicago), an 82-story resid ...

graphics. *VST options - Deckadance is designed to work either as a

standalone program A standalone program, also known as a freestanding program, is a computer program that does not load any external module, library function or program and that is designed to boot with the bootstrap procedure of the target processor – it runs o ...

or as a VSTi 2.4 plugin inside VST-supporting software hosts. For example, Deckadance can be used as a plugin in

digital audio workstations A digital audio workstation (DAW ) is an electronic device or application software used for Sound recording and reproduction, recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software pr ...

such as

, Cakewalk Sonar, and

Cubase Cubase is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by Steinberg for music and MIDI recording, arranging and editing. The first version, which was originally only a MIDI sequencer and ran on the Atari ST computer, was released in 1989. Cut-do ...

. Deckadance can host VST-compliant effects or

s, and the VSTs can be controlled with

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...

files, making Deckadance into an 8 track

music sequencer A music sequencer (or audio sequencer or simply sequencer) is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling Musical note, note and performance information in several forms, typically CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open ...

. *Samplers - Deckadance has eight integrated sampler banks that can save 1, 2, 4, or 8 beat pattern loops from the decks. The sampling process works in conjunction with a

beat Beat, beats, or beating may refer to: Common uses * Assault, inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact * Battery (crime), a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact * Battery (tort), a civil wrong in common law of inte ...

detection {{Unreferenced, date=March 2018 In general, detection is the action of accessing information without specific cooperation from with the sender. In the history of radio communications, the term "detector" was first used for a device that detected ...

feature, meaning the samples can be automatically synced to

tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for 'time'; plural 'tempos', or from the Italian plural), measured in beats per minute, is the speed or pace of a given musical composition, composition, and is often also an indication of the composition ...

. There is a volume control for sampler slot output, and effects can be layered onto the sample banks. It also allows for the recording and looping of live audio. *ReLooper - The ReLooper slices and re-arranges samples in the playback

buffer Buffer may refer to: Science * Buffer gas, an inert or nonflammable gas * Buffer solution, a solution used to prevent changes in pH * Lysis buffer, in cell biology * Metal ion buffer * Mineral redox buffer, in geology Technology and engineeri ...

for either Deck A or Deck B, with the looped region defined by beat markers. Master ReLooper effects include a wha-wha filter, panoramic LFO, ring-modulator, and track-coder that combines a

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''vo''ice and en''coder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder wa ...

and low-fi distortion effect.

Controllers

Deckadance can be controlled using a

mouse A mouse (: mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus'' ...

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mus ...

, CD system,

, or in the case of the Club Edition, timecoded vinyl. The program uses a MIDI auto detection system. Deckadance works with several timecoded

and

CDs CDS, CDs, Cds, etc. may refer to: Finance * Canadian Depository for Securities, Canadian post-trade financial services company * Certificate of deposit (CDs) * Counterfeit Deterrence System, developed by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence ...

. Through an "autolearning system," Image-Line claims the program can use essentially all CD and vinyl controllers on the market. When using vinyl, the program distinguishes between "absolute mode", which allows for needle dropping and jump track position from the vinyl, and "relative mode", which doesn't. Both modes allow for

scratching Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and Turntablism, turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a phonograph, turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to ...

and the manual control of playback speed and direction.

Version history

References

External links

* MacOS multimedia software Audio mixing software Windows multimedia software 2007 software DJing DJ software DJ equipment