How to Optimize Your MacBook or Laptop for DJing (2021 Edition)
If you DJ with a laptop, it's important to optimize it for DJing. Whether you own one of the shiny new M1 MacBooks, a half-decade-old Windows machine or anything in between, optimizing it for DJing is essential. Yes, your computer may well run your DJ software fine without you doing anything, but once you optimize it, it will be able to: run more smoothly and reliably – fewer “glitches” exactly when you least want them; work with lower latency
so everything feels snappier; work at higher resolutions – for example, at full Retina resolution on a Mac; do more – run more effects, more decks and so on. Why do you need to optimize for DJing? Modern computers are extremely powerful, and you may wonder why you need to do anything at all to make yours work properly for DJing.
After all, you don't hear about 3D designers, graphic artists and so on optimizing their computers – do you? Actually, those people care about this too. Whatever you do on a laptop, the thing to remember is that it's designed to be good at everything but great at nothing. It's designed, as far as possible, to treat all tasks equally. The XMG DJ 15 is an exception – made for DJs, by DJs, it's a laptop optimized for exactly this use.
But to borrow a phrase from George Orwell, “some tasks are more equal than others” – and DJing is one of those important tasks where you'll definitely want to actively prioritize your computer for it, come what may. After all, a computer taking a few extra seconds to export a video is one thing, but crashing in front of a live crowd mid-set is something else entirely – right? Read this next: 5 settings you've never touched on your DJ gear (but probably should). In the end, optimizing your computer for DJing is actually pretty easy.
Yes, there's a lot you can do if you really want to go deep. In fact, in our Digital DJ Lab training program we have whole mini-courses on optimizing every last feature of Mac and Windows computers, designed for professional DJs who really need to squeeze the last drop of performance out of their machines. But for the everyday DJ, if you follow what we share in this article, then for most computers, most of the time, that's all you need. So let's get started. Optimizing a laptop for DJing – buying. If you haven't bought your laptop yet (or you're planning to replace your current one), you can get a lot right just through what you choose to buy.
Choose a well-specced machine (after all, it won't spend its life in an air-conditioned office – it'll be used in some pretty harsh environments), with at least 16GB of RAM and the biggest SSD drive (i.e. no moving parts) you can get – I'd suggest 1TB if possible – and then never fill that drive more than 80%. Whether you use Mac or Windows matters less than some of you might believe, but if you go for Windows, choosing a well-built machine is doubly important (there's no such thing as a cheaply built Mac), as is getting as “vanilla” a Windows installation as possible. This is where companies like XMG (see our review of the XMG DJ 15 laptop) shine, as they strip all the bloat out of Windows on their machines and do a lot of the optimization for you, to boot.
Finally, double-check the minimum and recommended specs on the software and hardware makers' websites for the gear you plan to use. So if you're buying a Pioneer DDJ-1000SRT, you'll want to check Pioneer's product page for the DDJ-1000SRT and Serato's current minimum specs page for its software, as Serato is the software that particular controller works with.
Here are links to the laptop spec pages of some of the bigger DJ software companies:
Serato laptop specs
Traktor laptop specs
Rekordbox laptop specs
Virtual DJ laptop specs
Djay Pro AI laptop specs
Initial optimization
There are a few things you'll want to do straight away.
Check all your drivers are up to date – Drivers for your graphics card, for your DJ gear if it needs or recommends them, and any others should be the latest versions, although audio drivers are a special case (see the box below)
Check your DJ gear's firmware is up to date – This is one many people overlook, but the latest firmware for your DJ gear will be optimized to work with the latest operating system updates on your laptop, so it's important to keep it current. Check your gear maker's download page for the latest firmware and for instructions on how to check and, if needed, update it. Do this even if your gear is brand new, as new gear often needs a firmware update right away
Set the screen to never turn off – Go into your settings and find where you can tell the display to stay on, on both battery and mains power, because you don't want a screensaver popping up mid-set…
Set disks to never turn off / go to sleep – When you're DJing, you want everything running 24/7. Yes, this drains the battery and uses more power than it otherwise would, but performance is the top priority, so make sure you've checked this setting
Set any other performance settings you find to “high” – Windows often has a “High performance” setting, and depending on your computer's OS version there may be other settings that let you choose between performance and (usually) battery – if you spot any, go with performance
Turn off automatic updates – But note that you should still keep your computer updated, so you'll need to check for updates manually (that beats your computer deciding to install a whole load of them 10 minutes before a gig and telling you it'll take 90 minutes…)
What about audio drivers?
Your audio driver is obviously essential, as it's what makes smooth audio possible – the most important thing when DJing.
On Windows, the system audio driver is OK and many DJ setups can use it, but performance can usually be improved by installing a third-party ASIO audio driver, which will be recommended and possibly supplied by your DJ hardware maker. Install it and then forget about it – it will “survive” any OS updates and will only need changing if you change your hardware.
On a Mac, all DJ hardware uses the built-in Core Audio driver, so there's nothing you need to do – but there's a catch: when Apple updates its operating system, Core Audio changes too. That can throw DJ hardware a curveball. It's why you sometimes hear DJ gear makers begging their users not to update their Macs to the latest OS (something you never hear them say to Windows users). So on a Mac, if it's a major OS update, wait until your hardware and software makers say it's fine before upgrading.
Everyday best practice
If you've done all of the above, you're pretty much there. Just make sure that whenever you switch on your computer to play a DJ set, you also do the following, and you should never have any trouble from your laptop while DJing.
Always restart – Restarting before a DJ set is best practice, as it gives your laptop a “clean start” and can clear any issues before you discover them halfway through (and need a restart to fix them…)
Install any minor updates, but not right before a DJ gig – As good practice, if your OS or DJ software says it has updates for you, install them early in the week, assuming your gig is at the weekend. That gives you plenty of time to make sure everything still works fine
Don't run any unnecessary programs – They take up memory and processing power, and they can cause complications. Run only your DJ software and anything else you really need for your performance
That's it!
As I mentioned earlier, you can go deep – really deep! – with this stuff.
For professional DJs, or anyone who wants to do things like use lots of decks and effects, run Ableton Live alongside their DJ software on the same machine, add extra hardware and so on, it really is worth going further.
In our Digital DJ Lab training program we offer specific, guided optimization lessons for both Mac and Windows – click here to find out more about the program.
But I'll level with you – most of the time, even if you do none of what I've written here, you'll be fine. However, if you follow what I recommend in this article, you'll have a smoother, more reliable DJ computer. What's more, you'll have the knowledge to keep everything running smoothly whatever changes in the future.
Is your DJ laptop “gig-ready”? Come back to this optimization guide whenever you need to, to make sure it runs well.
And most importantly, if anything goes wrong, you have a complete list of things to do and check before you disappear down the black hole of product support and dig through forums for an answer that may be staring you in the face.
Better still, you'll avoid the embarrassment of someone pointing out something obvious that you should have known yourself!
