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Forum: General Discussion

Topic: 3 Months with Lexicon DJ and VDJ
So I'd looked at Leixcon some time ago, and given it a go, as I was incoming from RB to VDJ and I had denon gear that would also run Engine.

however I'd given a few goes and various bits not working had put me off giving it a proper go.

However 4 months ago, bit the bullet and having been using for 3 months constantly.


The good.

If you're a wedding DJ and get spotify and tidal playlist, then you will like the import tool.

It's great for identifying which tracks you have and which you need to go and buy (and something native in VDJ would be awesome!)

I'm aware that VDJ has the ability to read a text file and match tunes, but I've found it problematic.

Lexicon DJ's approach is a little more refined, allowing you to select which matches you want to use - perhaps you want a couple of edits of the same song

De-duplication.

the main reason I paid for LexiconDJ if I'm honest. Whilst not perfect, it is one of the best that I've found. Showing number of plays, how many cues, whether the songs are analysed etc. Which makes picking which tracks you want to keep and which can go a breeze.

However there are a couple of gotchas. It doesn't support length of track, so will happily claim an 8 minute club version is the same as a 2 minute edit and it also doesn't support the mix tag.

So if you have 12 remixes of a song, lexicon thinks they are all the same.

The bad.

There are bugs, lots of them.

They are squashed by the developer pretty quickly. But the developers focus is on DJ-Pro, Rekordbox, Serato, Tracktor and and and...so there is a lot for them to focus on.

Core parts of VDJ are NOT Supported.

if you use the very popular My Library Plugin, it breaks lexicon. (and if you're not using the very popular My Library plugin, why not?)

It also doesn't support local folders add to favourites. These get turned into random empty playlists again and again.

In summary, I wish a lot of the functions that I'm using were part of VDJ or on the roadmap.

VDJ Supports export to rekordbox, if it supported export to Engine it would be great for lots of us DJ's who use VDJ with denon kit, as it gives us a nice easy backup.

The importers from Spotify and Tidal don't seem hard to replicate and are really cool and just add to functionality that VDJ already has.

So whilst I don't mind paying the subscription to Lexicon, I wish it supported VDJ more fully, I also wish that VDJ had some of the key functionality that Lexicon has so I didn't need to use both. But I'm also disappointed that after 4 months of use, I'm realising that for a lot of my use cases, which will be similar to other VDJ users (lot of us use local folder favourites / smart folders right?) that it's not as supported as I would like.

So as a Lexicon DJ user for 3 months, primarily focusing on the de-duplicate feature and integration with VDJ - let me know if you have any questions.
 
Posted Fri 20 Jun 25 @ 8:26 am
I've used LexiconDJ since its inception and before it (Rekordcloud was the predecessor) - it will never support all features in all software, as that wouldn't make sense/it's really not the aim of the software (e.g. what would importing an Action POI mean?).
I don't think it's accurate to say that the dev is focused on the other apps - VirtualDJ support has pretty much always been there in decent form (proper support for DJay pretty much just arrived), and you'll see release notes referencing updates to the VirtualDJ importer/exporter fairly often. The dev is very receptive too - I've asked him to fix many bugs in the import/export for VirtualDJ the pre-release stages and he pretty much got to them within days or in some cases the same day, so don't be afraid to file a bug/ask questions in the discord.

However, it does support the main/common things in all software.
IMO what it shines for is cross platform transfers and some aspects of autogeneration (e.g. cuepoints and tracklists from tags, auto organixstion based on tag structure). Deduplication is something I pretty much never had to use (imo you should really be handling that on track import), but I can see how it can be useful.

Tbh though (no shade to Lexicon or other tools like it - I think they are doing a great job), once you understand the database formats/representations of things amongst all the vendors (where possible) and you look around hard enough at what is actually out there + free, you'll see with a little bit of effort, it's quite easy to replicate the majority of what those tools are doing with a proper workflow and some dev work.
 
I just installed Lexicon to convert VDJ database to Engine DJ so I can use the Prime 4+ as standalone just to discover that it can't read FilterFolders with User1 or User2 tags as filters, which, once imported, result into a playlist with "no tracks found". I was so excited with no other expectations than a clean and simple conversion of my well organized (virtual/filter) folders without fancy features, but sadly it become a huge disappointment.

I can't understand why VDJ is the only software that is not natively supported in Engine since it's by far the best in library management.

I know VDJ developers can't do anything about Engine's lack of support, but it would be awesome if they could add an export feature, just like Pioneer's CDJ USB.
 

  • Copy your tags from the VirtualDJ user fields to the Comment field and make sure you make VirtualDJ write out the tags
    You can use Lexicon to read those tags from the Comment field and import them as tags
  • Copy your files you want to import into Lexicon into a regular List Folder and import that regular folder
    That has always worked
 
The first one is exactly the workaround I was thinking about wondering if it would work and then I read your post confirming it works indeed. Thanks, I'll take that road, but I stand still thinking of an export feature from VirtualDJ that certainly make things a lot easier.

Imagine a single USB/SSD containing a very well organized library/playlists with VirtualDJ ready to play in a Club/Standalone when necessary without worrying about the gear brand or model. *fingers crossed*
 
Doesn't Engine also support pioneer usb's?
 
Adion wrote :
Doesn't Engine also support pioneer usb's?

Yes, it does, but you first have to insert the USB into the hardware for recognition and conversion. From there, you have to choose between letting the hardware scan each song in real time the first time you load it onto a deck—to get beatgrids and waveforms (among other things, I suppose)—which is the equivalent of letting Pioneer gear do it on the fly when the file wasn't previously prepared in Rekordbox, or plugging the USB into a computer to use Engine Desktop to perform the scan and also re-scan the file's metadata (otherwise, the artist field doesn't appear on the hardware, only the song title). This method is a pain, especially when you update a playlist or a folder.

I'm guessing that a USB prepared directly in VirtualDJ for Denon gear will work as seamlessly as one for Pioneer gear, without all these woes. Literally, plug and play.
 
MixMaker wrote :

I'm guessing that a USB prepared directly in VirtualDJ for Denon gear will work as seamlessly as one for Pioneer gear, without all these woes. Literally, plug and play.


Yup thats what I do...
 
I tried it previously and there were lots of missing things. Will try again but as mentioned a direct export in Denon format to a stick or SSD that can be incrementally updated would be a perfect solution as Engine desktop is terrible.
 
kradcliffe wrote :
direct export in Denon format to a stick or SSD that can be incrementally updated would be a perfect solution as Engine desktop is terrible.


Idealy this is what we need, have needed. Since stems tho I do find myself bringing everything in Engine so I can have stems.