Beat Link Trigger is good software
Start with the obvious. Beat Link Trigger is free, open source, and it does the hard part properly. It decodes the Pro DJ Link protocol, tracks beat and bar position across players, and hands you a scripting surface to fire whatever you like from it. A lot of people run real shows on it, and if what you need is "send this OSC message when this track reaches this beat", it is genuinely the right tool and it costs nothing.
Since version 7 it also handles tracks you never prepared. Its Phrase Triggers read the phrase analysis rekordbox stores in a track, so you can arrange cues that fire whenever a particular phrase type plays, filtered by phrase length and tempo. That covers a lot of ground, and it covers it for free.
The difference is where the structure comes from
Phrase Triggers are only as good as the phrase data in the track. rekordbox has to have run phrase analysis, that analysis has to have made it onto the USB, and you are working with the labels rekordbox chose. On a stick that was exported without it, or filled with promos and edits nobody analysed, there is nothing for the trigger to match against.
Cueva Pulse analyses the audio itself. It marks the structure from the waveform rather than reading it from metadata, so it works on tracks with no phrase data at all, and it uses rekordbox phrase data as a second opinion where it exists. It also detects things phrase analysis does not label: a fake drop as its own event, and a countdown in seconds and bars to every section still ahead.
The other difference is what happens when the analysis is wrong. Every Pulse section carries a confidence score, automations stay silent below the threshold you set, and you can drag a boundary to the right place mid set.
You can run both
They are not mutually exclusive. Beat Link Trigger is exact on beat and bar position, which is what you want for anything that has to land on a specific beat of a specific track, and its scripting surface will do things no fixed product will. If you already have a Beat Link Trigger rig you trust, Pulse can sit alongside it on the same network and take the tracks it has nothing to match on.
Beat Link Trigger
versus Cueva Pulse.
| Beat Link Trigger | Cueva Pulse | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free and open source | Commercial, pricing not yet announced |
| Reads Pro DJ Link | Yes | Yes |
| Beat and bar accuracy | Exact, from the player | Exact, from the player |
| Musical structure | Phrase triggers, from rekordbox phrase analysis | Detected from the audio |
| Source of that structure | Metadata written by rekordbox | Own analysis, plus phrase data where present |
| Track with no phrase analysis | Nothing for a phrase trigger to match | Analysed on arrival |
| Fake drops | Not labelled by phrase analysis | Detected as their own event type |
| Countdown to next section | Phrase start, middle, end and fill-in | Seconds and bars to every section ahead |
| Confidence score | Not applicable | Per event, with a firing threshold |
| Live correction | Edit cue points by hand | Drag a boundary, saved per track |
| Outputs | OSC, MIDI, plus anything you script | OSC, MIDI, Art-Net, sACN |
| Scripting | Full Clojure expression editor | Thresholds and mappings, no scripting |
| Setup | Java runtime, shows authored per track | Install, connect to the network, load a USB |
| Runs offline | Yes | Yes |
Comparison correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of writing, based on each product's public documentation. Cueva Pulse is in development, so its column describes intended behaviour rather than a tested release. Spotted something wrong? Tell us and we will correct it.
Pulse is not out yet.
Be there when it is.
It is in development now. The waitlist gets the beta first, and there is a full overview of what it detects on the Cueva Pulse page.
Join the Pulse waitlist
Beta invites go out to the list first.
Straight answers.
No sales pitch.
No. It is a separate application with its own Pro DJ Link implementation and its own audio analysis engine.
They stay where they are. Pulse does not import or replace them, and both can run on the same network at the same time.
Only if its limits are costing you. If your USBs come out of rekordbox with phrase analysis and you are happy authoring shows, Beat Link Trigger will serve you well and you do not need Pulse.
Phrase Triggers match the phrase labels rekordbox wrote into the track. Pulse analyses the audio itself, so it also covers tracks that were never phrase analysed, and it adds fake drop detection, countdowns and a confidence score per section.
Other ways people
solve this.
Overview
What Cueva Pulse does
What it detects, what it connects to, how the confidence threshold works, and how to get on the waitlist.
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Sync Resolume to CDJs
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Trigger DMX lighting from CDJs
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