Support

Encue is made by a DJ, for DJs, and is on the App Store for Mac and iPhone — free for a limited time, and one download covers both. Stuck, or something not working the way you expect? Start here. If you don’t find the answer, email support@encuedj.com. A real person reads every message.

• Setting up
• What Encue works out by itself
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Hearing the set back
• Exporting to rekordbox
• Listening on your iPhone
• Troubleshooting
• Contact

Setting up

What you need

• A Mac with Apple silicon, running macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later.
• Music: either a rekordbox 7 collection, or just a folder of audio files.
• Existing analysis is optional. Encue hears grid, key, phrasing and energy for itself, and uses whatever your files already carry in their tags when it’s there.
• To listen back on the move: an iPhone on iOS 18 or later. Encue for iPhone comes with it — one download covers both apps.

Point Encue at your library (rekordbox)

Encue reads the collection that rekordbox exports. It never writes to rekordbox.

1. In rekordbox, choose File › Export Collection in xml format.
2. Save it anywhere, for example your Music folder.
3. In Encue, click Choose Collection XML… and pick that file. Encue remembers it.
4. Encue then lists the folders it needs to read: rekordbox analysis (for waveforms and beat grids) and the folders your music is in. Click Allow… on each, then Allow in the window that opens. macOS only lets Encue open folders you allow. You do this once, and Encue only reads them.

After big library changes, export the collection again so Encue sees your new tracks.

Or start from a folder

No rekordbox? On the first screen choose Not on rekordbox?, or open Settings › Library › Choose a Music Folder…, and pick the folder your music is in. rekordbox is optional: Encue works from your files.

Encue then listens to every record once: tempo, beat grid, key, energy, phrasing and cue points, at roughly a second a track. All of it runs on your Mac. It writes that analysis into its own folder, in the format your player software already reads, so waveforms, grids and hot cues all behave normally. Your music files are never touched, and analysis already in your tags — including Mixed In Key’s — is kept and used as it stands.

No rekordbox to hand? Click Try the Demo Library on the first screen: 14 original house tracks with cues, keys and beat grids, so you can build and hear a set straight away. Settings › Library switches back to your own collection.

Your first set

1. Set your tempo, pitch range and set length at the top of the window.
2. Pick an opener: search for a record, or start from a mood like Deep and unhurried.
3. Encue lines up the records that mix out of it. Press space to hear the blend, N for the next recommendation, and return to add it to the set. Repeat.
4. Building for one night in particular? Pick a rekordbox playlist or folder at the top of the list and Encue draws the openers and the suggestions from that crate alone. Search still reaches your whole library.

What Encue works out by itself

Anything Encue worked out rather than read from your tags is marked in the app, so you always know which is which.

• Tempo, beat phase and downbeat. Tempo is resolved to a hundredth of a BPM, then the beat phase and the “1” are heard from the audio. That precision is what keeps a blend inside a few milliseconds across a 32-bar overlap.
• Key, in Camelot. A learned chroma profile, weighted separately across bass and treble. When it misses, it lands a fifth or the parallel away — the moves that still mix — rather than somewhere random. Expect it to be strongest on the genres you play most.
• Phrasing and cue points. For records with no cues, Encue follows the arrangement: the first kick, the groove locking in, the breakdown, the drop, the outro stripping back. It offers up to twelve of those as pads and takes a mix-in and a mix-out from them. Rated blind on whole records, about two in three were points a DJ would use; records without clear phrasing are the weak spot.
• Energy at the cue. Loudness, spectral flatness, sub-bass weight and per-band onset density, measured where you’ll mix rather than once for the whole record. Treat it as a guide for the arc.
• Traits. Vocal or hook, warm or crisp, bassy, percussive, big drops, hypnotic, gritty. Each is measured from the audio and then ranked inside your own library: the top or bottom quarter earns the trait, the middle half stays unlabelled. Use them to filter Next up, and click Legend for what every glyph, energy figure and tag means.
• Steers. Darker, Lighter, Minimal and Bassier are directions from the record playing rather than labels on a record, and come from chord-change rate, melodic spread, spectral centroid and band balance.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	What it does
space	Play or stop the blend: your mix-out cue into the next record’s mix-in cue, beat-matched.
N	Next recommendation. If the blend is playing, it restarts from the same run-up so you can compare like with like.
return	Add the record to your set. The next pick loads straight away.
U or delete	Back: take the last record out of the set.
esc	Stop playback, or leave the search box.
⌘ F	Search your whole library.
← →	Nudge deck B earlier or later, like a jog wheel, while it plays. Hold ⌥ for deck A and ⇧ for bigger steps.
] }	While playing, jump deck B ahead 8 or 16 beats.

Hearing the set back

Click Experience in the top bar to play the finished set through, blend by blend, on two decks with the mixer moving on its own. It is read-only: the transport and the playlist rows respond, and everything else is a display. Click any record in the playlist to listen from there.

Getting a set into rekordbox

In Encue, open Share › Export to rekordbox… and save the file. Then, in rekordbox:

1. Preferences › Advanced › Database › rekordbox xml › Imported Library: Browse, and choose the file you just saved.
2. No rekordbox xml in the left tree? Preferences › View › Layout, and tick rekordbox xml.
3. Open rekordbox xml › Playlists, right-click your set’s name and choose Import Playlist.

Will this change my rekordbox library?

No. It adds one playlist. Your music files are not moved, copied or renamed, your other playlists are untouched, and cues, hot cues and beat grids are not in the file, so they stay exactly as they are.

Will it make duplicate tracks?

No. Each track is matched by its file location to the one already in your collection, so the playlist points at the tracks you have.

Can I put it on a USB for a gig?

Yes. Once imported it is an ordinary playlist: export it to the USB the way you always do. It no longer needs the xml file.

I changed the set in Encue. How do I update it?

Export again (overwriting the same file is fine), click the refresh icon next to rekordbox xml, delete the old playlist in rekordbox, then import again.

A track shows as missing in rekordbox

The file has moved since your collection was last exported. Relocate it in rekordbox, then export the collection again so Encue sees the new place.

What about tracks rekordbox doesn’t have yet?

Tracks Encue found through folder import are added to your collection as new tracks, and rekordbox analyses them. Keys only Encue worked out are left for rekordbox to find.

Listening on your iPhone

Encue for iPhone plays a finished set back the way your Mac built it — every blend at the cues you picked — so you can hear Saturday’s set on the train. It needs iOS 18 or later, and it comes with the Mac app, in the same download.

Sending a set

1. On the Mac, open Share › Send to iPhone… in the top bar. It’s there on the Build screen and in Experience.
2. Encue plans every blend, gathers the tracks and waveforms, checks the timing and packs it all into one .encueset file. A long set is a few hundred megabytes, so give it a minute.
3. macOS’s own share sheet opens. Pick your iPhone and AirDrop it. The file goes straight from one device to the other.
4. Accept it on the phone and open it with Encue. Every file is checked as it lands, and the set appears under Your sets marked verified.

No Mac to hand, or just want a look? Tap Try the demo set on the first screen: eleven original house tracks, already mixed, so you can hear what playback is like.

Playing it back

Decks shows what’s on air, what’s cued, the bars until the next mix, and the key and tempo move between the two records. Playlist lists the whole set in order with each record’s tempo and key; tap any row to listen from there. It plays from the phone itself, so it needs no signal.

Where the music sits, and getting the space back

Sets live inside Encue’s own storage: not in your Music library, not in Photos, not loose in Files. Your tracks are deliberately left out of iCloud Backup, since a set is hundreds of megabytes and the Mac can always send it again; each set’s small plan file is backed up, so a restored phone still lists its sets and tells you which to resend. To free space, swipe a set away in the app — that removes its audio — or delete the app to remove everything.

Troubleshooting

Encue doesn’t show my newest tracks

Encue works from the collection XML you exported. Export the collection from rekordbox again, save it over the old file (or choose the new one in Encue), then reopen Encue.

Encue can’t find my collection

If the export was moved or deleted, export the collection from rekordbox again and choose it in Encue.

There are no waveforms

Encue draws waveforms and beat grids from rekordbox’s own analysis, which lives in a hidden folder. If you skipped it when Encue asked, open Settings › Library, click Forget Allowed Folders, reopen Encue, and allow the rekordbox folder (Library › Pioneer › rekordbox in your home folder) along with your music.

A track won’t play

Encue can only open music in folders you allowed. If a track lives somewhere new, for example an external drive, reopen Encue and it will ask for that folder. If the file was moved or deleted, relocate it in rekordbox, export the collection again, and choose it in Encue.

Some tracks show a ~ next to their key, energy or cues

That’s Encue telling you it heard the value itself, because the track didn’t carry one. The ~ means detected, not missing.

I don’t see “rekordbox xml” in the rekordbox tree

Turn it on in rekordbox under Preferences › View › Layout, then follow the steps in Getting a set into rekordbox.

I can’t hear anything

Check the volume slider at the top right of Encue and your Mac’s sound output. Then pick an opener, so there’s a next record loaded to blend into.

Does Encue change my rekordbox library?

Never. It only reads the collection you export, and the only thing it gives back is a playlist file you import yourself.

The set won’t AirDrop to my iPhone

AirDrop is macOS’s, not Encue’s. Check both devices have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on, are unlocked and near each other, and that the iPhone’s AirDrop is set to accept from you (Settings › General › AirDrop). If the phone doesn’t appear in the share sheet, wait a few seconds and look again, then try turning Wi-Fi off and on. You can also save the .encueset file and send it another way.

A set on my iPhone says a file is missing or damaged

Encue checks every file when a set arrives, so it tells you rather than playing a gap. Send the set again from the Mac; the new copy replaces the old one.

Is there a Windows, Serato or Traktor version?

Encue runs on Apple silicon Macs, and there’s no Windows version. Serato and Traktor libraries aren’t read as libraries, but their music is: point Encue at the folder with Choose a Music Folder… and it hears every record for itself — tempo, grid, key, phrasing and cues — then exports the finished set as a rekordbox playlist.

Contact

Email support@encuedj.com. It helps if you include:

• your macOS version and your rekordbox version;
• what you did, what you expected, and what happened instead;
• a screenshot, if something looks wrong.

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