rekordbox does three things in software that never survive the trip to a CDJ. Bake'n Deck bakes each one into the files themselves, on your Mac, and your library stays in rekordbox. Here is all of it in five minutes.
Prefer the Terminal? The free baken command line for macOS, Windows and Linux runs the same baken-core engine, and always will.
brew install M-Igashi/tap/baken
The whole toolkit in a window, and the fastest way to use it. For DJs who will never open a Terminal, and for the parts of the workflow that only make sense with a UI: one playlist at a time, a preview before every write, a library that remembers where everything is. One-time purchase, no subscription, no account, no network access. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel. The baken CLI stays free and MIT.
Take one rekordbox playlist from prep to stick in three skippable steps: Headroom levels its tracks, Sort puts them in key and BPM order with the new order shown first, and USB Stick writes them for the player you play on. The Headroom, Sort, and USB Export pages do the same for a whole folder or every playlist at once.
Tick playlists in your collection XML and write them straight to a USB stick for CDJ and XDJ players, with rekordbox's own waveforms, beat grid and phrases for every track rekordbox analysed. Pick the player in the booth and it marks the tracks that player would refuse, by its operating instructions. CDJ Safe MP3 on the way, generated analysis for the rest, your My Settings, artwork from the files' embedded pictures and OneLibrary for the CDJ-3000X, XDJ-AZ, OPUS-QUAD and OMNIS-DUO are options; the last two have not been tested on a player yet. A pre-flight shows the stick's format, skipped tracks and how much will be written, stops before writing when the stick is too small, and a re-run writes only what changed. A stick written by the app has been read on a CDJ-3000 and a CDJ-2000NXS2.
Export rekordbox playlists to a USB stick without opening rekordbox: how it works, which players, and rekordbox 7's library inconsistency warning.
On macOS 27, Apple's Music Understanding analyses each track on the Mac, offline. The Playlist steps show its BPM and key next to rekordbox's and mark the disagreements that matter for mixing (half or double time, a key that will not mix), writing nothing. USB Export can put each track's energy and a V for vocals, like E7V, at the start of its comment or title on the stick. How it works, with the numbers.
The collection XML and your music folders are remembered across launches, and analysis is cached per file, so the rekordbox → CDJ loop (export, sort, apply, export to USB) becomes a routine rather than a project. Re-analysing a large library takes seconds.
Sort shows the exact 1A → 12B order it will produce before anything is written. Headroom shows LUFS, true peak, gain and method per track, sortable, with include/exclude toggles and audio preview of any row.
When rekordbox exports the collection again, a banner offers a one-click re-sort. The app's own writes never trigger it, so the banner only appears when rekordbox has written something new.
Every apply backs up into its own timestamped folder. Restore swaps the originals back atomically, keeps going past a failing file, and works after a relaunch via Restore from Folder.
Five macOS causes of a slow rekordbox, from a widely shared checklist: music in Downloads, Spotlight indexing the library drive, missing Full Disk Access, iCloud sync under the library, quarantine flags and AppleDouble files. Checked, and fixed where the sandbox allows. The five settings and the manual steps are written up in the repo, tool or no tool.
No network access at all. Sandboxed: it touches only the folders you grant. One-time purchase, no subscription, no account, no ads. Bundled LGPL ffmpeg, licences shown in-app. English and Japanese, dark interface. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.
rekordbox's Auto Gain lives in rekordbox's library and is applied by its own decks and mixer; a player reading your USB stick never sees it. Headroom measures loudness (LUFS) and true peak for every track, then writes a gain into the file that brings the whole library to one true peak ceiling, -0.5 dBTP by default (AES TD1008 §7B). Quiet tracks come up. Loud ones come down. Nothing else is touched.
rekordbox Auto Gain: why it does not reach your CDJ — where the number stops, what writing it into the file changes, and the questions people ask.
Loudness normalization for DJs: a LUFS target or a true peak ceiling?: the two ways to even out levels in the file, what each changes and which library suits which.
How 3.6 measures true peak 15x faster: the ffmpeg loudnorm profile, the in-process BS.1770-4 pipeline that replaced it, and the parity numbers.
Headroom makes a single gain change per track and nothing else: no limiter, no compression, no EQ. Transients, crest factor and stereo image are exactly what the master carried. Only the level moves, and it moves exactly as far as the true peak allows.
The result is the maximum clip-free level for every track and a uniform ceiling across the whole stick: leave the trim at 12 o'clock and no track goes over 0 dB, and a quiet old file no longer needs the trim cranked. It is deliberately not loudness matching: a track that was mastered quiet stays a little quieter than a loud one, and that difference is left to your ears.
| Limiter-based normalizer | Bake'n Deck Headroom | |
|---|---|---|
| Target | An average loudness (LUFS) | A true peak ceiling, -0.5 dBTP |
| Loud tracks | Turned down, or limited | Turned down by gain only. MP3/AAC lowered losslessly, never re-encoded |
| Quiet, dynamic tracks | Limited upward until they hit the target | Raised as far as the peaks allow, not one dB further |
| Dynamics | Altered | Untouched |
| MP3 / AAC | Decoded, processed, re-encoded | Gain field rewritten in 1.5 dB steps, bit-for-bit audio |
| Your cues and beatgrids | Depends on the tool | Files rewritten in place, so rekordbox keeps them linked |
--boost-only opts out.
Gain on a lossy file is written into the global_gain field, in the format's own 1.5 dB steps, up or down. The audio data is untouched, so no generation of loss is added, ever.
| Format | Method | Precision | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| FLAC | ffmpeg volume filter | Exact | Lossless, bit depth kept |
| AIFF | ffmpeg volume filter | Exact | Lossless, ID3v2 tags kept |
| WAV | ffmpeg volume filter | Exact | Lossless, BWF metadata kept |
| ALAC | ffmpeg volume filter (v3.3.2) | Exact | Lossless, written back as ALAC |
| MP3 | mp3rgain (built-in), up or down | 1.5 dB steps | Lossless |
| AAC-LC | mp3rgain (built-in), up or down | 1.5 dB steps | Lossless, .m4a, .mp4 and raw .aac |
| HE-AAC | Skipped (v4.7.0) | - | Left as it is: gain cannot reach its SBR high band |
Playlist mode: pick your exported collection XML and apply Headroom to one rekordbox playlist rather than a whole folder. Review table with LUFS, true peak, gain and method per track, include/exclude toggles and audio preview. Analysis cache per file, so re-analysing a large library takes seconds. Per-run timestamped backups with one-click restore. Damaged files are marked with where the damage starts and get no gain. Change the target or gain mode after an analysis and the table is recalculated on the spot from the measurements already taken; nothing is read again.
rekordbox sorts by key or by BPM, one column at a time, and its Renumber Track Order stores only that one-column order; a CDJ plays a playlist in the order it was stored. Sort rewrites the track order inside every playlist of your exported collection.xml: Alphanumeric key 1A → 12B, ascending BPM inside each key. Names and folder structure stay; only the order changes. Point rekordbox's Imported Library at the file once and the rekordbox xml tree becomes a sorted mirror of your Playlists. Because the key then BPM order is stored in the playlist, it survives the export, for every playlist in one pass.
rekordbox stores one sort column at a time with Renumber Track Order, playlist by playlist. DJ.Studio's Harmonize orders a playlist for key and BPM compatibility and exports it to rekordbox. Lexicon can store a key then BPM order with its Rewrite Order tool, once your library lives in Lexicon. Sort works on the XML rekordbox itself exports: your library stays in rekordbox, its database is never touched, every playlist is sorted in one pass, and re-running it is a no-op.
Mac only In the Mac app's Playlist steps you see a playlist's exact new order before anything is written, and on macOS 27 the BPM and key macOS hears next to rekordbox's (how). The Sort page offers a one-click re-sort whenever rekordbox exports again.
How to sort a rekordbox playlist by key and BPM — the steps, the sort rules, how it compares with single-column sort, and the questions people ask.
Older players are only dependable with MP3, and rekordbox will export a FLAC playlist to USB without a word. CDJ Safe converts every track in a playlist to 320 kbps CBR MP3 @ 44.1 kHz (ID3v2.3 tags, artwork kept) and writes a matching playlist into your collection XML where each converted track inherits the source's beatgrid and hot/memory cues verbatim. Import, one right-click, export to USB. No re-analysis, no re-setting cues.
Pre-NXS2 CDJs only play MP3 reliably, and the failure shows up in the booth, sometimes mid-set. Instead of hoping the venue has NXS2 or newer decks, bake a CDJ-safe copy of the set and carry it as your emergency stick.
Sources already at exactly 320 kbps CBR @ 44.1 kHz are copied byte-identically (zero generation loss, LAME header untouched). Lossy → lossy re-encodes are flagged in the report so you can refresh those from lossless masters later. Missing files are skipped and listed rather than aborting the run (v3.2.2), so the stick still gets everything that is there.
Mac only In the Mac app, CDJ Safe is a USB Export option since 1.4.0: every track goes onto the stick as 320 kbps CBR MP3 with rekordbox's own analysis, with no import step, and USB Export first marks the tracks the chosen player would refuse. The separate CDJ Safe page, which wrote a folder of MP3s for rekordbox to import, is gone.
baken cdjsafe collection.xml --playlist "Sets/Friday" --out-dir ~/Music/cdjsaferekordbox xml tree → CDJ-safe (MP3) → Friday-CDJ-safe, right-click the tracks → Import to Collection. Beatgrids and cues carry over[cdjsafe] comment marker; the playlist is named <playlist>-CDJ-safe so it cannot collide with the original on import. Your original tracks and playlists are never modifiedThere is no shortage of tools that set out to replace rekordbox. Bake'n Deck is not one of them. rekordbox is where you analyse tracks, set beat grids and cues, build playlists and keep your library. Bake'n Deck takes on only the few steps rekordbox leaves out of the trip to the CDJ, and it goes through the doors rekordbox itself provides.
Every tool works on the collection XML rekordbox exports, and results go back through rekordbox's own Imported Library. Headroom rewrites files at the same path, so cues and beat grids stay linked. Nothing to migrate, nothing to sync back.
rekordbox's master.db is never read, decrypted or written. The XML export and import rekordbox offers for other software is the only door Bake'n Deck uses.
On a USB stick, the waveforms and phrases are rekordbox's own analysis files, byte for byte apart from the rewrites rekordbox itself makes at export time. Nothing rekordbox has measured is re-guessed: analysis is generated only for tracks it never saw, and only when you ask.
The stick format was worked out from real rekordbox 7 exports and is checked against them byte for byte. Player limits come only from Pioneer DJ's operating instructions, cited page by page. What has not been measured or tried on a player is labelled untested.
DJs have played sticks written by Bake'n Deck on a CDJ-3000, CDJ-2000NXS2 players, a CDJ-2000NXS and an XDJ-AZ, and their reports are public on GitHub. Where rekordbox is still the safer route, such as a gig stick for the OneLibrary players nobody has tested yet, the docs say so.
Bake'n Deck reports facts and leaves the call to you: a damaged file or a likely transcode is flagged, not quietly fixed, and the Mac app shows what it will do before it writes. No feature, AI or otherwise, takes over a decision that belongs to the DJ.
A tool that rewrites your music library and writes your gig stick has to be trustworthy down to its dependencies. Every addition to the build is treated as a risk first.
The DJ prep tools that overlap with Bake'n Deck, one job at a time. Vendor prices and features are as published on their own sites on 2026-10-08; if something has changed, tell us. A dash means the vendor does not document it. The waveAlign column was corrected on 2026-09-30 after feedback from waveAlign; every cell is checked against waveAlign's own pages.
Two targets. waveAlign and Platinum Notes match tracks to a loudness target; Headroom lines every track up under one true peak ceiling by gain alone and has no limiter at all. waveAlign's limiter only catches clipping on a track that is turned up and is usually not engaged in regular processing; Platinum Notes adds clipped-peak repair and more contrast between quiet and loud sections. If you want every track at one loudness target, waveAlign is built for that. If you want every peak on one ceiling and the trim knob still, this is for you.
| Bake'n Deck Headroom | waveAlign | Platinum Notes 10 | DeckReady | rekordbox Auto Gain | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Approach | True peak ceiling (-0.5 dBTP), gain only | LUFS target (recommends -12 LUFS); a limiter tuned to be transparent catches clipping when a track is turned up | Loudness normalisation plus clipped-peak repair and more contrast between quiet and loud sections; custom multiband dynamics | Preset mastering (7 presets): EQ, compression, limiting, sub-bass reinforcement and soft clipping | A gain value per track, set at analysis and applied by rekordbox's own decks; what it measures and targets is not documented |
| Alters dynamics | Never | Not in regular processing; the limiter engages only to catch clipping | Yes | Yes | No |
| Reaches the CDJ on USB | ✓ baked into the file | ✓ written into the file | ✓ rewrites the audio | ✓ rewrites the audio | ✗ stays in rekordbox's library |
| Lossless MP3 / AAC gain | ✓ global_gain rewrite, bit-for-bit audio | ✓ no re-encoding for gain-only changes | Not claimed | Not claimed | n/a |
| Works on a rekordbox playlist | ✓ Mac app (CLI: folders, files, globs) | — (folders, files and USB drives) | — (files and folders) | — (browser; batches of up to 5 tracks on Studio) | n/a |
| Cues and beatgrids stay linked | ✓ files rewritten in place | ✓ cue points, beatgrids and tags unchanged | — | — | n/a |
| Backup and restore | ✓ per run, one-click restore (Mac) | ✓ backup feature | ✓ backs up originals; restoring into DJ apps is manual | n/a, in-browser | n/a |
| Open source | ✓ MIT engine and CLI | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Your files leave your machine | Never. Mac app has no network at all | Desktop app; its privacy policy lists no audio upload | — | No, processed in the browser (its privacy policy) | No |
| Platforms | CLI: macOS, Windows, Linux. App: macOS | Windows, macOS | Windows, macOS | Browser | Inside rekordbox |
| Price | CLI free (MIT). Mac app one-time, about the price of an EP | EUR 79 one-time | USD 98 one-time | USD 6.50 to 13.20 per month, 5 free tracks a month | Included |
Also in this space: MP3Gain and aacgain (free, ReplayGain-based, true peak not documented; MP3Gain's site was last updated in 2018 and aacgain's last release, 2.0.0, is from January 2020) and general-purpose normalizers on the Mac App Store, some sold as yearly in-app purchases. Bake'n Deck's built-in engine for lossless MP3/AAC gain is mp3rgain, a modern MP3Gain successor by the same author.
Several tools can show a key + BPM order. Lexicon can store one for a library that lives in Lexicon, and DJ.Studio can export its own harmonic order to rekordbox. Bake'n Deck writes it into the playlists of the XML rekordbox exports, so the CDJ follows it and your library stays where it is.
| Bake'n Deck Sort | rekordbox | Lexicon DJ | DJ.Studio | Mixed In Key | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compound key → BPM order | ✓ Alphanumeric 1A→12B, BPM ascending inside each key | ✗ single-column: key or BPM | ✓ Cmd/Ctrl-click, e.g. key then BPM | Harmonize scores playlist orders for key and BPM compatibility and picks the best-scoring one | — (documents sorting by Energy Level) |
| Written into the playlist, survives USB export | ✓ into the exported collection XML | One column only, with Renumber Track Order (manual p. 257) | ✓ after its Rewrite Order tool, then a sync to rekordbox or a Pioneer USB | ✓ exports the ordered playlist to rekordbox (M3U, or a DJ Set export with hot cues) | — |
| Library stays in rekordbox | ✓ works on rekordbox's own XML export; its database is never touched | n/a | ✗ imported into Lexicon and synced back | — | — |
| Whole library in one pass | ✓ every playlist, idempotent | n/a | — | — | — |
| Preview before writing | ✓ Mac app | n/a | The sorted view is what gets stored | — | — |
| Price | CLI free. Mac app one-time | Included in rekordbox | Paid plans, from USD 10.49 per month or USD 249 lifetime | USD 99 Studio, USD 129 Pro, USD 169 Pro + Stems, USD 209 Ultimate (one-time, 12 months of updates) | USD 58 |
DJ Conversion Utility, an older XML tool DJs used for this kind of work, is end-of-life according to its vendor, which now sells DJ Conversion Utility TWO. Open-source rekordbox XML scripts on GitHub cover cleanup, conversion and analysis; none we found writes a key then BPM order back into the playlist.
rekordbox device export copies files as they are. The usual workaround, a batch conversion, produces new files that rekordbox does not know, so every cue and beatgrid has to be set again.
| Bake'n Deck CDJ Safe | rekordbox device export | Manual ffmpeg / batch converter | Lexicon DJ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transcodes a playlist to MP3 for pre-NXS2 decks | ✓ 320 kbps CBR @ 44.1 kHz, locked profile | ✗ exports formats as they are | ✓ any profile, by hand | ✗ reports FLAC and ALAC, never converts them |
| Cues and beatgrids carried over | ✓ verbatim, into the collection XML | n/a | ✗ new files, links broken, re-analyze everything | n/a |
| Already-safe MP3s copied byte-identically | ✓ | n/a | Only if you script it | n/a |
| Missing files | Skipped and listed; the rest still gets written | n/a | Error, or silently absent | n/a |
Lexicon's Pioneer USB sync (added as a beta in 1.11.0, June 2026; writes OneLibrary and Device Library) can check every file against CDJ limits (off by default) and repairs header-level problems on the USB copy, such as a WAV_EXTENSIBLE header or a VBR MP3 without a Xing header, and resamples or re-encodes a few others. For a lossless library on older players its manual says to convert the files yourself before syncing, which is the job CDJ Safe does with the cues and beatgrids kept.
rekordbox Auto Gain is a volume value set for each track when rekordbox analyses it. rekordbox saves it in its own library and applies it on its own decks and mixer, in PERFORMANCE mode and in the DUAL PLAYER layout of EXPORT mode. It is never written into the audio file, so a CDJ reading a USB stick never sees it and plays the file as it is. Bake'n Deck's headroom tool writes the gain into the audio file itself, so the level survives the export. The full guide.
Preferences > Controller > Mixer > Auto Gain. Set it to Enable and rekordbox adjusts the volume of the track loaded on a deck (rekordbox 7.2.18 Instruction Manual, p. 242). Each track's value is shown, and can be changed by hand, with the Auto Gain knob in the GRID EDIT panel (p. 140), and the DUAL PLAYER layout of EXPORT mode has an AUTO GAIN control too (p. 122). Turn it off to hear the level that is actually in the file, which is the level a CDJ plays. The full guide.
rekordbox does not document it. Measured on six tracks on 2026-10-02, each Auto Gain value equals about -10 LUFS minus the track's integrated loudness, to within 0.1 dB. So it evens out loudness at playback, raising tracks as well as lowering them. The full guide.
Not in one step in rekordbox itself: it sorts by key or by BPM, one column at a time, and its Renumber Track Order stores only such a one-column order in the playlist, which is the order CDJs play. By hand, key then BPM takes two sorts and two renumbers per playlist. Bake'n Deck's Sort (baken rbsort) rewrites the track order inside every playlist of your exported collection XML so each runs Alphanumeric key 1A to 12B with ascending BPM inside each key. Point rekordbox's Imported Library at that file once and the rekordbox xml tree becomes a sorted mirror of your Playlists. Drag a playlist over, export to USB, and the CDJ plays it in that order. The Mac app previews the resulting order before writing and offers a one-click re-sort whenever rekordbox exports again. The full guide.
Yes. A player reads a stick through a handful of files: the Device Library (export.pdb), a set of analysis files for each track, the audio and your My Settings. rekordbox normally writes them when you export in EXPORT mode. baken expressport, part of the free baken command line, writes the same files straight from the collection.xml rekordbox exports, and the USB Export page in Bake'n Deck for Mac runs the same code in a window. Your prep stays in rekordbox: analysis, beat grids, cues and playlists are made there as always, and only the last step, writing the stick, happens elsewhere. The full guide.
Because the stick carries rekordbox 7's two libraries, the Device Library and OneLibrary, and they no longer list the same playlists, usually because something rewrote one and left the other. If the stick belongs to rekordbox, export again from rekordbox, or format the stick and export from scratch. On a baken stick, run the export again with baken 4.4.0 or later or Bake'n Deck for Mac 1.2.0, which removes the stale OneLibrary files, or delete exportLibrary.db, its -wal and -shm files and exportExt.pdb by hand. The full guide.
Pre-NXS2 CDJs (CDJ-2000NXS, CDJ-2000, CDJ-900NXS, CDJ-850 and similar) only play MP3 reliably. FLAC needs NXS2 hardware (2016 or later), and ALAC, AIFF, WAV and AAC fail on specific firmwares, sometimes mid-set. rekordbox exports these formats to USB without warning. Bake'n Deck's CDJ Safe (baken cdjsafe) builds an MP3-only emergency stick from any playlist with cues and beatgrids carried over.
Run baken cdjsafe collection.xml --playlist 'Sets/Friday' --out-dir <dir>, or, in the Mac app, turn on CDJ Safe in USB Export, which writes the MP3s straight to the stick with rekordbox's analysis. With cdjsafe, every track becomes 320 kbps CBR MP3 @ 44.1 kHz (ID3v2.3, artwork kept); sources already at that profile are copied byte-identically; missing files are skipped and listed. The XML gains a 'CDJ-safe (MP3)' folder with a '<playlist>-CDJ-safe' playlist whose tracks inherit the source beatgrid and hot/memory cues verbatim. Load it via Preferences, Advanced, Database, rekordbox xml, right-click, Import to Collection, then export to USB as usual.
No. Headroom applies exactly one gain change per track and nothing else: no limiter, no compression, no EQ. Every track is moved so its true peak sits at the same ceiling, -0.5 dBTP by default. Quiet tracks come up as far as their peaks allow and loud tracks come down. Transients, crest factor and stereo image are exactly what the master carried. This is a true peak ceiling, not loudness matching: a track mastered quiet stays relatively quieter than a loud one, because the only way to change that is a limiter. The full guide.
No. Headroom rewrites each file in place at the same path, and rekordbox links cues, hot cues, beatgrids and tags to the path, so they stay attached. Sort and CDJ Safe only read and write the XML you exported, never rekordbox's own database.
MP3 and AAC are adjusted by rewriting the global_gain field, which is truly lossless, in the format's native 1.5 dB steps, up or down. Nothing is ever re-encoded to change gain: a file that would need a move smaller than one step is left exactly as it is. So no lossy generation is added, on any run, however many times you run it.
FLAC, AIFF, WAV and Apple Lossless (exact gain, source bit depth kept), MP3 and AAC/M4A (lossless 1.5 dB steps via built-in mp3rgain, up or down; nothing is re-encoded, and a file closer to the ceiling than one step is left alone). Since v3.3.2 an ALAC file in an .m4a container is recognised by codec and handled as lossless. AAC means AAC-LC: since v4.7.0 HE-AAC files are skipped, because global_gain cannot reach their SBR high band.
No. Bake'n Deck is built for rekordbox, not instead of it. Analysis, beat grids, cues, playlists and the library stay in rekordbox. Bake'n Deck works on the collection XML rekordbox exports, hands results back through rekordbox's own Imported Library, never reads or writes rekordbox's database, and on a USB stick copies rekordbox's own analysis files instead of re-guessing them. It covers only the steps rekordbox leaves out of the trip to the CDJ: gain written into the file, a key then BPM order stored in the playlist, CDJ-safe MP3 for older players, and writing the stick from the XML.
In Bake'n Deck for Mac, yes: Headroom's playlist mode resolves a playlist's tracks from your exported collection XML to the real files, skips unsupported or missing entries with a count, and runs the normal analyze and apply pipeline on just that set. The CLI works on folders, files and globs.
Both. baken is the free, MIT-licensed command-line tool for macOS, Windows and Linux. Bake'n Deck for Mac is a native macOS app on the Mac App Store, built on the same baken-core engine. The Mac app adds Playlist, which takes one rekordbox playlist through Headroom, Sort, and the stick, a per-file analysis cache, remembered folders and collection XML, a review table with audio preview, per-run backups with one-click restore, a sorted-order preview, a one-click re-sort when rekordbox exports the XML again, a check of every track against the player in the booth, on macOS 27 a BPM and key check against rekordbox with energy and vocal tags for the stick, Mac Tune-up, and English and Japanese interfaces. Both editions write the USB stick for the players themselves: USB Export in the app, baken expressport on the command line. It is a one-time purchase with no subscription, no account and no network access.
Yes. The baken CLI and the baken-core engine are MIT-licensed open source and stay that way. The Mac app is built on the same public crate; its price buys the native interface and the Mac-only workflow features, not the processing.
Command line: brew install M-Igashi/tap/baken on macOS, winget install M-Igashi.baken on Windows, yay -S baken-bin on Arch Linux, or cargo install baken. Package managers install ffmpeg automatically. Bake'n Deck for Mac is on the Mac App Store; it bundles its own ffmpeg build, so nothing else is needed.
No. Bake'n Deck for Mac has no network entitlement at all: no analytics, no crash reporting, no account, no upload. Everything runs on your Mac inside the App Sandbox, touching only the folders you grant. The CLI's only network use is an optional once-a-day release check on GitHub, disabled with --no-update-check.
Every addition to the build is treated as a risk first. Each new dependency is weighed for what it pulls in: SQLCipher and a vendored OpenSSL were dropped in 4.6.0, and Apple builds use the operating system's own CommonCrypto since 4.6.1. Every pull request runs GitHub's dependency review, which fails on known vulnerabilities of moderate severity or higher, and a licence check against an accepted list. Every GitHub Action is pinned to a full commit SHA, workflows are read-only by default, and secret scanning with push protection, Dependabot security updates and CodeQL are on. crates.io releases use Trusted Publishing, so no crates.io token is stored, and release archives carry SHA-256 checksums.
Start with the Mac app: nothing to install, nothing to configure, ffmpeg bundled. The command line needs ffmpeg; package managers install it automatically.
Bake'n Deck for Mac. Native app, no Terminal, nothing else to install. One-time purchase, no subscription. macOS 14 or later.
Download on the Mac App Storebrew install M-Igashi/tap/baken
winget install M-Igashi.baken
yay -S baken-bin
cargo install baken
ffmpeg must be installed separately. Pre-built binaries on GitHub Releases. Embedding the engine? It is on crates.io as baken-core.
Same baken-core, same numbers. Pick by how you like to work.
| baken CLI | Bake'n Deck for Mac | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, MIT-licensed, forever | One-time purchase, about the price of an EP. No subscription, no IAP |
| Platforms | macOS, Windows, Linux | macOS 14+, Apple silicon and Intel |
| Headroom: folder mode | ✓ | ✓ drag and drop |
| Headroom: one rekordbox playlist | ✗ | ✓ |
| Gain only, no limiter, two-directional | ✓ | ✓ |
| Lossless MP3 / AAC gain | ✓ | ✓ |
| Review table, audio preview, library stats | Text report | ✓ |
| Analysis cache | ✗ | ✓ per file |
| Backups | ✓ backup/ folder | ✓ timestamped per run, one-click restore |
| Sort: all playlists or one | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sorted-order preview | ✗ | ✓ |
| Watch the XML, one-click re-sort | ✗ | ✓ |
| CDJ Safe | ✓ | ✓ with pre-flight and free-space check |
| USB export to a stick | ✓ expressport | ✓ USB Export, with pre-flight |
| Mac Tune-up | ✗ | ✓ |
| Scriptable, pipelines, CI | ✓ | ✗ |
| ffmpeg | System install (package managers add it) | Bundled LGPL build, nothing to install |
| Network | Optional daily release check, --no-update-check | None. No network entitlement |
| Languages | English | English, Japanese |
Renamed from headroom at v3.0.0. The old headroom packages on brew, winget, cargo and AUR no longer receive updates; reinstall as baken. Details.
Trim-riding and tag-hunting belong in prep, not in the mix. Bake'n Deck moves both off the deck and into your files, and leaves the music exactly as it was mastered.