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Windows. Run the installer from the download page. QNTZ updates itself on open: if a newer version is out it downloads in the background, shows a brief "Updating QNTZ…" window, and relaunches into the new build. The one prompt you'll see is Windows asking for permission to install.

macOS. Unzip and drag QNTZ.app to Applications. The build isn't notarized yet, so macOS blocks the first launch with a dialog whose highlighted button is Move to Trash — click Done instead, then approve QNTZ under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Security → Open Anyway. (The old right-click → Open shortcut no longer works: Apple removed it in macOS 15.) Only needed once — after that it launches normally.

On macOS the same thing happens: the new build downloads, QNTZ swaps itself out and reopens. A release that appears while you're mid-session waits and asks instead — nothing restarts under you during a set.

Check for updates any time from the app menu. QNTZ also tells you in the status bar when a newer version exists.

Three ways into a set:

• Import a set: an Ableton .als (⌘⇧I) or a DAWproject from Bitwig, Cubase, or Studio One (File → Import DAWproject…). Clips, warps, tempo automation, volume and EQ envelopes, and fades all come across. Missing Ableton samples resolve through the project's Samples folder; audio embedded in a DAWproject is unpacked beside it.
• Import audio files (⌘I) or just drag files onto the timeline. QNTZ analyzes BPM and key as they land, and the browser suggests where a track fits the set: key-compatible, tempo-close spots.
• Record a live set over Pro DJ Link. See Record a live set.

Playback. Space plays and pauses, Esc stops back to the start, ←/→ step the playhead. Click in a track to drop the insert cursor; playback starts from it. Seek by clicking the bar ruler.

Saving. ⌘S saves a portable project folder. Every save collects your audio into a Samples folder beside the set (Ableton's "Collect All and Save"), so the folder moves between machines and drives intact. QNTZ also autosaves.

Editing follows Ableton's arrangement view: drag a clip's title bar to move it, drag its edges to trim, and overlaps resolve when you drop. The moved clip wins; whatever's underneath is trimmed or split around it.

• ⌘E splits at the cursor · ⌘D duplicates the selection as a block · ⌫ deletes · ⌘Z undo, always.
• Ripple move: ⌘-drag a title bar and everything from that clip onward, on every track, automation and tempo included, moves as one block. Closing a gap carries the rest of the set.
• ⌘J consolidates the selected clips into one rendered clip in place; ⌘G brackets them into a named edit you can bounce to a file (your mashups and edits live here).
• ⌘L loops playback over the highlighted selection.
• Hold F on a selected clip to see and drag its fade handles; Alt-drag a clip body slips the audio inside it.
• Drag across empty grid space to highlight a time range — every clip it touches is selected with it; Shift-click adds or drops one clip. Scroll zooms with ⌘, pans plain.

Track volume and the three-band EQ live as automation lanes. Click a lane chip (Vol · Lo · Mid · Hi · Pan) on a track header to open one, then click to add points, drag to shape. B toggles draw mode for stepped, grid-snapped moves.

QNTZ's transition system is three traffic-light markers on the incoming track:

• Yellow, IN. Where you start bringing the track in behind the mix. Exports as hot cue A plus a memory cue.
• Green, FULL. The track is fully in; the outgoing track is gone.
• Red, OUT. Optional hard cut for the outgoing track. Some blends don't need one.

Press T (or the T button on a clip header) to cycle markers onto the clip under the playhead: none → yellow+green → +red → none. Drag the lines to taste; Shift-drag moves the whole set rigidly. Playback honors them: the incoming track ramps up yellow→green, the outgoing track cuts. ⇧T makes the incoming side a slam instead of a blend; ⌘T cycles how the outgoing side leaves (cut → fade → ride its own automation out).

Cues. H drops a hot cue, M a memory cue, at the cursor (or the clip buttons, H/M on any clip header). Digits 1–8 set or move hot cues A–H directly. L drops a hot loop and ⇧L a memory loop over the highlighted range (else 4 bars); right-click a flag for the loop-length row, or drag the loop's out point. Everything exports, loops included: rekordbox, CDJ sticks, Serato and Engine all get them as loops.

Faster: X auto-mixes the selected clips with a preset (sixteen-bar EQ blend down to a slam); ⌘⌥T opens the Transition Editor to draw your own reusable transition. Apply it with ⌘⇧T.

Chops. Stack two to four tracks, highlight a range across them, and press ⇧C (or the Chop tool in the rail). The chop card is a step grid, one row per deck: click a cell to open that deck alone on the step, Shift-click to add a second, or press Tap and hit 1–4 while it plays. Highlighting over an existing chop adds to it. The checker tells you whether every deck lands on its own bar 1 and how much stretch each needs; "Stack cue at start" drops one hot cue on every deck so the chop starts on a single pad.

The set's tempo is the Song Tempo lane at the bottom. Add points for ramps and resets, and clips stretch to follow (pitch preserved). Tempo points follow clips when you move them, unless you lock automation in the transport bar.

Every clip carries its own beatgrid from analysis. If a grid is off: right-click the clip → Edit Grid, drag the red downbeat lines, or put the playhead on the true one and press ⌘↓. Grids export to rekordbox exactly as you set them.

Straight to a stick. ⌘⇧U (File → Export to USB…) writes the set onto a USB drive in the player's own on-stick format, so it plays with cues and beatgrids the moment you plug it in — no rekordbox, Engine DJ, or Serato desktop pass in between. Pick one or more formats per stick:

• CDJ (rekordbox) — the PIONEER folder CDJ-2000/3000, XDJ-1000/RX, and the newer XDJ-AZ, OPUS-QUAD, OMNIS-DUO, and CDJ-3000X read.
• Engine DJ (Denon) — an Engine Library database for Prime 4, SC6000, SC Live, and the rest of the Engine OS players.
• Serato — a _Serato_ database with a crate named after the set, cues and grids embedded in the files.

Edits and mashups are bounced in, every track is copied CDJ-safe, and the wizard checks the stick has room first.

Into your rekordbox library. ⌘⇧R opens the rekordbox export wizard instead. What you get:

• A playlist in set order, written straight into your rekordbox library (and as rekordbox XML alongside).
• Fresh, CDJ-safe copies of every track in a "<name> Audio" folder. Your originals and their existing cues are never touched. Edits and mashups are bounced in.
• All your cues: yellow always lands on pad A, memory cues mirror onto the outgoing track so both decks show the transition.

The wizard walks the rest: quit rekordbox before exporting (it holds the database), let rekordbox analyze the new tracks, then run the beatgrid repair step so the grids you set in QNTZ replace rekordbox's guesses. Preflight warns about tracks with no transition markers and grids that look misaligned. The grid warning is advisory; phrase-aligned tracks that start mid-bar are fine.

DAWproject. Sets also export as .dawproject (File → Export DAWproject…) for Bitwig, Cubase, or Studio One: tracks, warped clips, fades, tempo, volume and EQ automation, with audio referenced in place rather than copied.

On the same network as your players, hit REC in the transport bar (⌘⇧L). QNTZ listens to Pro DJ Link — decks, tempo, what's playing — plus mixer MIDI over USB, through the whole night.

Afterwards, Import Set turns the recording into an editable timeline: the tracks you played, where you played them, ready to refine and export. The Library (⌘L) also gives you two preview decks with hot cue pads for auditioning tracks side by side.