Its own ears
BPM, beat grid, key, energy and song structure, worked out on your Mac. No extra apps, no tag wrangling, and phrase colors so you can see the drop coming.
ABCDEFGH
Intro
Build
Drop
Break
Build
Drop
Outro
Confirmed on the OMNIS-DUOApple Music
Apple Music
to the decks.
No Rekordbox.
Deckhand syncs your playlists to a Pioneer DJ / AlphaTheta USB with key, BPM, beat grids, waveforms and hot cues already set. Your library stays in Apple Music, where it belongs.
Free and open source · macOS 14+
Deckhand
Midnight Signal (Extended Mix)
Example Artist · Melodic House & Techno
8A124.00 BPMEnergy 76:42★★★★★
ABCDEFGH
Intro
Build
Drop
Break
Build
Drop
Outro
Apple Music
Your library, playlists and ratings
Deckhand
Analyzes and builds the drive
USB
OneLibrary format
The decks
Plug in and play
Features
Everything the deck needs, nothing you have to babysit.
Cues where the music is
Hot cues A–H land on the mix in, builds, drops and mix out. Named, on every track.
A
Mix In
B
Intro
C
Build
D
Build
E
Main Drop
F
Break
G
Drop 2
H
Mix Out
Mix in key
Camelot keys on every track, a key wheel filter, and "Mixes with now playing" to find what goes next: compatible key, tempo within pitch range.
Only what changed
Syncs are incremental: new tracks copy, renamed playlists update, ratings carry over. It never formats a drive and keeps the play history your deck wrote.
+ 12 trackscopy + analysis
~ 3 playlistsreordered
= 2,149 tracksalready there
Keyboard first
Browse, preview from the drop, queue and rate without touching the mouse.
jklq⇧P1–8[]⌥5?
Ratings, safe
Stars sync both ways with Apple Music and onto the drive, with a daily backup so years of crate digging never vanish.
★★★★★
Plan the set
An Up Next queue with transition notes and "mixes well next" picks from your own library.
8ANow: Midnight Signal
9AAfterglow (Club Mix)
8BOpen Water
Quick Rate
Rate 2,000 tracks before the coffee gets cold.
Quick Rate plays every unrated track from just before the first drop. One key to rate, and the next one is already playing: your best guesses first, picked to stay in key and tempo so you stay in the groove.
- ⌥1–5 rate and move on
- j not now, ask me next month
- ⇧P drop it in a playlist
Quick Rate · All Tracks
1,204 of 2,065 leftAfterglow (Club Mix)
Example Artist · Afro House
✦ Afro House is a genre you rate highly
ABCDEFGH
Intro
Build
Drop
Break
Build
Drop
Outro
★
Not for me
★★
Meh
★★★
Decent
★★★★
Great
★★★★★
Banger
How it works
Three steps to the booth.
01
Analyze
Deckhand listens to your library on your Mac: BPM, beat grid, key, energy and song structure. Only new tracks next time.
$ deckhand analyze02
Pick playlists
Choose playlists or the whole library. Deckhand remembers each drive's selection and settings.
$ deckhand sync /Volumes/DJUSB03
Plug in and play
Eject, walk to the booth, plug in. Waveforms, cues and keys are already there. No re-analysis on the deck.
$ deckhand eject /Volumes/DJUSBPrefer clicking? The Mac app does all of this with a Sync button.
Questions
Do I need Rekordbox?+
No. Deckhand writes the OneLibrary database and analysis files itself, straight from Apple Music.
Which players work?+
Confirmed on the AlphaTheta OMNIS-DUO: browsing, playback, artwork, hot cues and play history. Other OneLibrary players (XDJ-AZ, OPUS-QUAD, CDJ-3000X) use the same format and are next on the test bench.
Will it wreck my USB?+
It never formats. A drive is only touched once you mark it as Deckhand's, syncs are staged and committed at the end, and the play history your deck writes is kept.
What about Apple Music streaming tracks?+
Tracks protected by DRM can't be copied to a USB by anyone, so Deckhand skips them and tells you which. Purchased and imported files all work.
Does it change my Apple Music library?+
Only when you ask: star ratings and playlist edits you make in Deckhand go to Apple Music, and Deckhand keeps a daily backup of your ratings in case your library ever goes missing.
What does it cost?+
Nothing. Deckhand is free and open source (GPL-3.0). It needs macOS 14 or later.