Ways to DJ together from two places

Before there were tools built for it, DJs found their own ways to play together from different places, and most of them still work for something: a video call, screen sharing, remote desktop, streaming your DJ software's output, and taking turns. Three questions sort them out: what does each of you hear, whose music can you play, and can you blend into your friend's record or only follow it?

A video call

One of you plays and shares the sound on a call. It costs nothing to try, and it's fine for listening. For mixing it falls apart quickly. Calls are built for voices: they squeeze the sound down and filter it to clean up speech, which takes the punch out of a kick and dulls the highs. The sound also arrives late, by an amount that changes from moment to moment, so there's nothing steady to line a beat up against.

Screen sharing

Sharing your screen lets your friend see your decks and your waveforms, which helps them follow what you're doing. The sound still travels the way a call's does, late and processed, and only one of you is actually mixing.

Remote desktop

One computer does all the mixing, and the second DJ controls it from far away. Everything plays from one machine, so the two decks are always in time with each other. The cost is on the far side: every move the remote DJ makes travels to the host computer, and the result travels back, so a fader move or a cue lands late in their ears. There's also only one library, the host's.

Streaming your DJ software's output

Each DJ runs their own software and sends its output to the other with an audio streaming app. You each keep your own music and your own setup. But each of you hears the other late, against your own decks, which you hear straight away. Two records that sit together on your partner's side can flam on yours. Setting it up usually takes some care on both computers.

Taking turns

Each of you records a section, and someone joins the files together afterward. There's no technology to fight, and each half sounds exactly as it was played. What you lose is the mix itself: no live blends between you, and no back and forth.

What a remote back-to-back needs

Put the trade-offs side by side and the list gets short:

Each DJ plays their own music, from their own computer.
Each of you hears the other's decks live, with the timing kept, so a blend is a real blend.
Both decks and both waveforms on both screens.
A shared beat, so the incoming record can take the tempo of the one that's playing.
One recording of the whole mix at the end.

How Mix//Sync does it

You and your friend share two decks and one mixer, each in your own browser. Each of you plays from your own library, on your own computer, and only the sound travels. You hear your partner's decks live, and the two sides line up in your ears. Press SYNC and your record takes the tempo of the one that's playing. Press Rec and you get the whole mix, both sides, in one file. See How it works.

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