Testing DJ mixing software comprises two parts, the features and then its performance.

The MixVibes 6 3DX includes most of the required features to cover all your DJ mixing needs. It will auto search the BPM of each track, supports many different digital audio files, can work with ASIO drivers, and use external controllers to make your DJ mixing life a lot easier. The GUI is good, it's highly configurable too and there are several built-in skins to choose from. It would be nice if there were other skins to download, at least from the Mixvibes.com site.

For our tests, we used several different Audio formats, mostly dance music. With the help of Hercules DJ Console, we were able to get a full overview of the software's main capabilities. However, there were some glitches. On several occasions, the software reported the controller was not connected. However, everything worked just fine. This could be a bug or a software glitch.

We worked mainly with the Hercules DJ Console, MK1 version as Soundcard and external controller. At times we had GUI glitches as shown in the above screenshot. Also, we didn't like the default mapping of the keys, but this is something that can be changed easily under options. While most functions worked without any problems, we came upon a major problem. Most of our mixes turned out to be slightly out of sync, at least with the "AutoBeat Matching" function.

There are several options under the AutoBPM rack window, where by default "Auto Mix Large" is selected. Changing to other modes didn't make any significant difference or improvement:

Looking at the Auto BPM window, we can see that our mix is out of sync. This required manual intervention to make it right (bass peaks should be aligned). Pressing the sync button again may sync the two songs but may not.

The effects and cue points work well and will change your mixing tunes. The auto-gain and built-in compressor were nicely done and lastly, we liked the fact that ID3 tags are supported. However, you cannot add any kind of filtering like which songs have not been played in a specific target folder, or have played within the last 10 days, etc... But this isn't available in other similar packages either. Harmonic mixing is not supported, at least with the built-in functions and there isn't a related column under the mediabase area. You can record the mix in either wav or mp3 format. The CPU load is very low (with ASIO drivers and Hercules DJ Console connected, around 15% on an Asus A6JA laptop) and rises up to 50% when loading a new file into the virtual player.

After having used the Mixvibes 6 3DX in a real life performance, I must say I am not very happy with its built-in auto beat-match functions. Sometimes they work wonders, sometimes they simply cannot get a perfect sync, no matter what. I do understand that DJ Mixing software requires manual intervention but competition software (e.g. VirtualDJ) offers better capabilities in this area. On the other hand, MixVibes 6 is well known for its very good support of timecode CD/Vinyls, however this version doesn't support it.

Lastly, there is a big MixVibes community around that can help you with any problem you will encounter. There is also a fully working demo that should be tested before proceeding with a purchase. I also tried the MixVibes 6 Pro demo, which I found more complete and with much better features. More features means higher cost for end user so determine your needs and decide which MixVibes version is the perfect choice for you.