ZipDJ - The Full Review

[NickJames]

What is Zip DJ?

zipDJ is a subscription-based DJ music pool and promotional music service licensed by the Audio-Visual Licensing Agency (AVLA). zipDJ distributes upfront promotional releases to DJ’s, Radio, and other music industry professionals. To this end, zipDJ is currently supplied by over 800 major and top independent record labels worldwide.

* Unlimited downloads for a monthly fee
* Extensive catalogue of music spanning over 20 categories.
* New music released daily.
* All high-quality MP3 music files (320 kbps)

The Website and Features

Layout

The zipDJ layout is broken in to four sections: header, left column, centre column, and right column.

The header contains the navigation menu, a count of how many songs are queued for download, the player used to preview songs, and a link to the message centre where you will sometimes receive messages from labels.

The left-hand column contains featured playlists from DJs like DEKO-ZE, Atwood, Jon Herbert and others. It also contains the search box (discussed later) and zipDJ news.

The right-hand column contains a number of "top downloads" views which can be sorted by genre or time frame, charts which can also be sorted by genre and country, and more playlists from featured DJs. (The right-hand column is also where the download manager appears when accessed.)

The centre column is the main browsing area and shows the new releases and search results.

The overall layout is fairly simple but it is easy to get the hang of and contains all of the information that you could possibly need.

Score: 4/5

Charts

zipDJ has a number of ways to track what is popular including their "top downloads" view which can be sorted by date range and genre, and a number of charts including national club, dance, urban, house, and trance charts that can be sorted by country. All songs that appear on the charts are of course available for download.

The combination of the charts and top downloads make finding music that is currently trending extremely easy in situations where you need to have the hottest music. The charts are generated using a number of sources including the members of the website and the top downloads are constantly up****** making them a good indicator of trends.

Score: 5/5

Feedback / Top 10

Once a week (technically, once every two-weeks since you can skip it for up to 7 days) you are required to submit your personal Top 10. These charts are not only forwarded to the labels as feedback but help to compile and create national charts used by other services.

Submitting your top 10 is relatively quick and painless however songs that are in my Top 10 are not always available for selection.

A number of tracks on zipDJ require feedback before you can proceed to downloading the various releases. This feedback is compiled and forwarded to the label which is how zipDJ is able to provide unlimited downloads for their monthly fee. Note that feedback is not required on all releases.

When feedback is required it is indicated by a red label marked "Feedback" beside the release. Clicking the label brings up the feedback box that you see in the screenshot. To submit your feedback you select your favourite mix (you can still download the others), reaction to the track, give it an out of 10 rating, indicate whether or not you will play the track, and provide a quick message to the label.

Messages should be constructive but do not need to be long winded. Something like "I found the remix to be a little bouncy for my tastes but I really like the bass line and I think my dance floor will too." is generally what I leave.

Obviously, if you do not intend to download any of the mixes in a release you wouldn't leave feedback.

Downloading

zipDJ takes its name from the fact that downloads can be batched in to groups of 20 and downloaded as a single zip file. This makes downloads faster and easier. Although speeds are not always the greatest they are certainly acceptable and the zip file helps matters greatly.

Score: 4/5