IntroEdits

Guides

How To Make Intro Edits From Your Engine DJ Playlists

Engine DJ can loop and cue but can't build an intro version of a track. How to make intro and outro edits straight from your Engine DJ playlists, on Engine's own beatgrid, without a DAW.

Engine DJ is what you prep in if you play on Denon or Numark gear, and it’s good at it: grids, hot cues, loops, playlists that go straight onto a stick. What it can’t do is make a record start differently. If the vocal comes in on bar one and there’s nothing to mix over, no amount of cueing changes that. You need an intro edit: a version of the track with a run of clean beat in front of the drop.

Here’s how to make them straight from your Engine DJ playlists, without exporting anything or opening a DAW.

What you need

  • Your Engine DJ library, as it is, on your Mac or on the USB stick you gig from.
  • The IntroEdits desktop app. It reads your Engine playlists directly, read-only.
  • About a minute per track.

Step by step

1. Open a playlist you actually play from

IntroEdits lists your Engine DJ playlists as they are in Engine. If you prep on a stick, its playlists are listed too, under the stick’s name. Start with the one you’d play this weekend.

2. Pick a track that starts cold

Anything with the vocal in straight away, or an intro too short to beatmatch. Needs an intro in the sidebar lists the tracks in your library that start cold, so you don’t have to hunt for them.

3. Choose Intro, Outro or Both

Intro for a run-up to mix in over, Outro for clean beat to mix out over at the end, Both for a record that needs help at each end. There’s more on outros in what an outro edit is.

4. Set the drop

Put the moment the record should land on the white line and press Set the drop here. The bar lines you see are your Engine DJ beatgrid, so bar one lines up with what you already play to.

5. Choose the length and make it

8, 16 or 32 bars. 16 is the safe default (how to choose). Preview it if you like, then Make the edit. The app separates the instrumental, loops it to length, and lands the drop on the one.

6. Listen to the changeover, then save

Changeover plays the last bars of the run-up into the drop, which is the only part that can give an edit away. Happy? Save it. It goes in the same folder as the original, named with your DJ name.

7. Add it to Engine DJ

Drag the new file into your collection or playlist and let Engine analyse it, then sync your stick as usual. Your original, with its cues, grid and playlists, hasn’t changed.

A whole playlist at once

Got a playlist full of cold starts? Tick up to ten tracks and use Batch: set every drop on one screen, choose the length once, and they build one after another.

Records that drift

Older records and live bands wander a few BPM, so Engine’s grid slides off the beat partway through. A quantized edit puts the record itself on one steady BPM, which is worth doing before you make its intro.

Try it

Your first three edits each month are free. Download the Mac app and point it at your Engine library, or try one in your browser first at introedits.com/lab/try. Using Rekordbox or Serato too? See intro edits in Rekordbox and intro edits from your Serato crates.

Common questions

Can Engine DJ make intro edits?
Not by itself. Engine DJ can set loops and hot cues, but it can't separate an instrumental, build a run-up of whole bars and save it as a new file. For that you need an editor; IntroEdits reads your Engine DJ playlists directly so you can edit from the library you already play from.
Does IntroEdits change my Engine DJ library?
No. It reads your Engine library read-only and never writes to it. Each edit is saved as a new file next to the original, so the original track, its cues, its beatgrid and its playlists are untouched.
Does it use my Engine DJ beatgrid?
Yes. If Engine has analysed the track, the edit is built on that same beatgrid, so bar one in the app is bar one in Engine. Only tracks Engine hasn't analysed get a grid worked out from the audio.
Does it read the library on my USB stick?
Yes. It reads the Engine library on your Mac and the one at the top of a USB stick or drive you prep for gigs, and files the playlists under where they came from.
How do I get the edit into Engine DJ?
The edit is saved in the same folder as the original. Drag it into your collection or a playlist in Engine DJ like any new file and let Engine analyse it.