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REVIEWED
REVIEWED: MASTERMIX DJ ONLY USBS
It’s been a while since I did a product review for Pro Mobile. But when I heard there was a chance to review the new Mastermix USB sticks, it was my pleasure to jump at the opportunity.

When it comes to the music we play out as mobile DJs, we have a variety of choices as to where we legally source the tracks we use to fill our floors, from pop classics to club dance remixes. One important consideration when choosing a supplier is whether the versions available are family-friendly, the importance of which will depend on where you're playing out and your views regarding the profanity found in a lot of current music. With many music sources being hit or miss when it comes to the profanity being edited out, for lots of DJs across the country who don’t want to risk causing offence Mastermix has become the preferred place to obtain DJ-friendly music. They are very strict and consistent at editing out profanity. I should know, I have personally been subscribing since the mid-'80s! The reliably family-friendly nature of its music, combined with the fact that the company has always been supportive of the mobile DJ industry, just makes Mastermix an obvious choice for sourcing DJ music in my opinion.

Mastermix is also a forward-thinking label, not only making new releases and classic tracks available to DJs but also regularly introducing innovative DJ music products designed to enhance our sets and make our lives easier. Over the last few years, the most notable addition to Mastermix's offering has been the inclusion of DJ Beats, which is a range of albums featuring exclusive versions of classic pop, dance and urban floor-fillers. Each track features the familiar radio edit enhanced with added 8-bar intro and outro beats, which allow for smooth beat-mixed transitions during your DJ set.

In 2019 Mastermix also released a new product designed to help DJs with the demands being made on us by millennial crowds to play more tracks per hour just to keep them on the dancefloor. DJ Edits, for which I have had the pleasure of being part of the Beta testing team, delivers a shorter punchier mix of the familiar radio version of popular tracks. Using these edits allows DJs to create a faster-moving set that doesn't compromise by losing any of the key elements or energy of the original tracks.

Up until recently, the best quality you could obtain Mastermix DJ Beats and DJ Edits tracks as digital downloads was in 320kbps mp3 format, which was more than adequate for most of us. However, with the quality of speakers and other equipment improving all the time and many DJs wanting to have the best possible quality music to play out, Mastermix have now made these products available in lossless WAV format (alongside the existing mp3 and CD options). To launch this, they have also made the entire DJ Beats and DJ Edits back catalogues available on special DJ Only USB sticks. This news was literally music to my ears!

When the sticks arrived for review, I was eager to check them out. They both come in their own branded presentation tins, which not only look great but help to protect the sticks. Further investigation led me to discover that these are not just your average USB storage devices, in fact a lot of thought has clearly gone into designing something that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing. For a start, compared to the memory sticks I have owned in the past, these have a real weight to them, which reassures you that they will be robust and reliable on the road. I also love the fact that the USB connection is protected by a screw top, as in the past I have lost countless USB stick lids. Finally, they are also waterproof, for ultimate protection, and also look very cool with their brushed-aluminium finish and distinctive Mastermix branding.

The first USB stick contains DJ Beats Volumes 1 – 80. That's 1,200 tracks, with more than 80 hours of playing time, covering a wide variety of popular floorfillers from across the decades. The USB 3.0 stick has a storgage capacity of 128GB, of which approximately 50GB is taken up by the supplied music, leaving plenty of extra space to top-up with future releases. At the point of writing this review, the DJ Beats collection is at Volume 85, but you could purchase the missing volumes as .WAV downloads and add them to the stick yourself to create a complete and comprehensive back up.

The second USB stick features DJ Edits Volumes 1 – 4, which comprises a collection of 60 tracks plus the DJ Edits Collection which offers an additional 50 exclusive tracks taking the total to 110 tracks in all. These are stored on a USB 3.0 stick with a 32GB capacity, of which approximately 3GB is used. So, again, there is plenty of extra space to top-up the two more recent DJ Edits releases (at the time of writing, Volume 6 is the latest edition) or use the device to store any other music downloads you’d like to add.

For those who use a laptop-free playback setup, these premium quality USB sticks are perfect for connecting directly to your DJ hardware. However, for those (like myself) who play from a laptop, they enable you to transfer the DJ Beats and DJ Edits collections into your music library in a matter of minutes and then you can store the stick in the robust case as a permanent backup.

I have personally subscribed to both DJ Beats and DJ Edits from the beginning and find them to be very useful musical tools that I use all the time to improve my transitions. Even though I had already purchased all the volumes as they came out, at a combined price considerably higher than they are now available on these USB sticks, having the backup and the higher quality WAV format, at least to me, just makes sense.
The full review can be found in Pro Mobile Issue 99, Pages 76-77.
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