Good Afternoon Folks!
Some of you may have read my full review of ZipDJ ( ZipDJ - The Full Review ) and now I am back to review DJCity.
What is DJCity?
"DJcity is all about music for professional DJs. We have always serviced our customers with the latest club hits, remixes, breaks, and DJ tools. Now we present the digital record pool, featuring the hottest records in digital (mp3) format for your spinning pleasure." - DJCity.com
* Unlimited downloads.
* Payment is in 3 month blocks for $90.
* Daily releases.
* Majority of Mp3s are 320Kbps, the lowest are 256Kbps.
* Discount on gear for members of the record pool.
The Website and Features
The Layout
I find the layout to be very clean and easy to navigate on DJCity. You can easily page through new releases right from the first page of the record pool previewing each one without leaving the page, you can choose to show the list of new releases restricted to specific genres, and the website is designed in a standard way so you can open links to tracks in tabs as there is no fancy flash or javascript at play.
The right hand side of the record pool has a couple charts to quickly see what's trending and being rated highly by other users.
On pages for actual releases they include links to "related" remixes (such as those by other remixes for the same track) and general information about the track.
The only thing to keep in mind, and I don't consider this a negative, when you click a track it will navigate to a new page. It is therefore important to use tabs. Personally, I like this as I can open dozens of tabs as I go through lists and charts and come back to each track later.
Score: 5/5 - very clean and easy to navigate.
Charts
DJCity only has two charts, "RECORD POOL HOT BOX" and "RECORD POOL TOP RATED." Unlike some other digital download sites and pools they do not allow (or required in some cases) the users to make their own charts.
The charts contain the same type of things I'd expect to find on any Top 40 chart in North America and it makes it easy to quickly nab the top tracks for a standard club dance floor.
The charts sadly do not change when you select a different genre in the navigation. It is therefore not possible to see the top rated tracks for only hip hop for example. The top rated chart covers all releases.
Score: 4/5 - Would like to see some specialized charts.
Previewing Tracks
DJCity looses huge points here for me. It is blatantly obvious the quality of the previews is extremely low. In some cases it's very difficult to get a proper feel for the track with such a terrible preview.
When going through any pool or digital download site the goal is to get a feel for the track as quickly as possible and move on. When the preview quality is so low you have to stop and actually try and figure out what is hiding behind the shitte bitrate.
One thing that's a little odd, the track release page doesn't tell you how long the whole track is... I keep getting house remixes <3:30 which normally I wouldn't even bother downloading.
Score: 2/5 - The preview works but it's very poor.
Further explanation of the low score: The previews are not unusable but compared to a multitude of other digital download sites, they are the furthest behind the pack. Part of the score is also lost for not indicating the full length of the track.
Feedback
As with most record pools of this type it is required that you provide feedback on releases before you download. Part of the reason they are able to provide unlimited downloads for a single fee is that they are collecting market research for the labels from professional DJs.
On DJCity you have to review each track before you can download it. If for example the song is Ke$sha - Die Young and you want six different remixes you will be providing feedback six times. They do not group the tracks together.
That said, feedback is really easy; score the track out of 5, leave a quick comment, and click submit.
Score: 4/5 - Nice and easy, could bunch some tracks together.
Downloading
Downloads are extremely fast on DJCity. You download the tracks one at a time but they finish within seconds on a decent internet connection. It is obvious there is no bandwidth limiting in play which I appreciate.
I would compare the speeds and ease to Beatport.
Score: 5/5 - great speeds.
The Music and Selection
Selection
The releases on DJCity can be sorted by the following genres:
* Hip-Hop
* Electronica/House
* Dubstep/Drum and Bass
* Pop/Rock
* R&B
* Other
* Acapellas
* Remixes
Overall selection within each genre is decent but on any given day each category may only have one or two tracks (or perhaps a few more depending on the day and genre) so if you're already filled out from the back catalogue you're not going to be downloading huge amounts if you are checking weekly for only a single genre.
One thing about the selection is that A LOT of bro-step is mixed in with House & Remixes so it's quite often that you'll be going through a bunch of uplifted or bouncy tracks and then hit a wall of Skrillex like wobbles.
Overall I also find more than not that some of the big names in club remixes are under represented on certain releases even though I know they have official remixes of the track in question. Often the remixers represented in bulk are people I have never heard of before... That is not to say the remixes are bad, just that I don't see as many of the old standards I like. There is still fair representation of folks like Dave Aude, DJ Kue, Mikael Wills, WAWA, Stonebridge, and so on though so don't get me wrong, the big names are still there.
Score: 3/5 - For some it may be 5/5 but there is not enough stuff in my 125-130 range on a daily basis. DJCity is aimed at all club DJs and that includes standard Top 40 clubs, and they obviously target those guys the heaviest... More 80-100 stuff than anything else.
Technical Things
File Format: Everything is in .mp3 format, there are no .wav files here.
Bitrate: I have gotten a couple 256Kbps tracks which was a little shocking but most releases are 320Kbps.
ID3 Tags: ID3 tags on this site get a rant because they REALLY piss me off. DJCity advertises complete tags (Artist, Title, Genre, First cue point (Serato), pre-analysed (Serato))... This is all true.
What they don't tell you is that they are the only site on the entire internet that doesn't follow "Artist - Title (Remix)". They follow "Artist - Title - Remix (Intro/Outro/Dirty/Clean)".
What I mean by that:
Any site anywhere: Nick James - Cocaine is a Helluva Drug (Dave Chappelle Remix (Dirty))
DJCity: Nick James - Cocaine is a Helluva Drug - Dave Chappelle Remix (Dirty)
Why is this a big deal? When you buy music from half a dozen different sites, are a member of more than one record pool, receive promos from producers, and on top of it all want a clean and uniform library having a single site out on it's own island is a huge pain... Retagging every download from DJCity is a time sink.
Now, with that rant out of the way. DJCity gets points for analysing their tracks in Serato and adding the first cue point to every track. I have Serato set to "Play from first cue point" so this is very handy.
Score: 3.5/5 - The tags are complete, but they are non-standard. They also loose part of a point for not being 100% 320Kbps.
Searching
I had a separate search section in the ZipDJ review because their search is a little strange but DJCity it works exactly how you would expect it to. Type whatever in the box that you want and hit search... Results appear in the same format as the normal browse.
They also have a filter that includes genre check boxes (more than one selectable), the ability to hide remixes, the ability to show only Dirty/Clean/Acapella (great for me, I hate clean mixes Cee Lo's song is Fuck You not Forget You damnit.), the BPM in a range (defined by you), and you can define the "sort by".
Score: 5/5 - Would search again.
Support & Customer Service
I have contacted support twice already. They have a simple web form that created a ticket that you can track on their website and you will also get email notifications.
Their support is quick and responsive. They also explained what I wanted them to without a canned response.
Score: 5/5 - Average turn around was <24hours.
Price
DJCity has a single payment option, 3 months for $90. For the amount of music, the speed of downloads, and the unlimited nature of the content the price is well worth it.
The price for DJCity is one of the best for any digital pool.
Score: 4.5/5 - Some people might prefer the ability to pay month-to-month but the price is fair.
Conclusion
Overall DJCity is great for club DJs. I would not recommend it if you're looking for house, or techno, or any EDM genre not a staple in Top 40 clubs but for what it claims to be it hits the mark.
My biggest complaints if you didn't read the whole review are that the preview quality is terrible and the ID3 tags are non-standard (although complete).
Overall Score: 8/10
Would I Recommend It?: To club DJs, absolutely.
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