Most playlist apps stop at the list. They don’t know which of your records is due for cleaning, how many hours your cartridge has put in this month, or how much Record Restore you have left after a heavy run of 45s and deep-groove pressings. They plan what you want to play. They don’t track what playing it costs.
VRT does both. And at professional play intensity — multiple gigs a week, heavy 45 use, records cycling through regular rotation — the tracking side matters more than most DJs realise.
Build your running order before you touch the decks
A VRT Set is a named playlist drawn from your actual record collection. Not an abstract list of titles — each entry is an album in your catalogue, with its pressing details, condition grade, cleaning history and play count already attached.
Give the Set a date and a venue note, add the records you plan to play, and reorder them until the sequence feels right. When the gig starts, open the Set view on your phone.
The live view gives you one job at a time. Tap Next and VRT shows you the record at the top of your order. Play it and tap Played — the entry logs to VRT’s play system, stylus wear is calculated, and you move forward. If you pull something different on the night, tap Skip and the record stays in your history, marked as the one you didn’t get to.
Everything you planned, and everything you changed, is in the record.
Radio shows: same rotation, one tap
If you run a regular broadcast with a recurring playlist, duplicate the Set. A copy is created with every item reset to pending — ready for the next show without rebuilding from scratch.
Over a season, each duplicate carries the archive of the version before it. You’ll see which records you skip week after week, which ones never miss, and how your programme has drifted over time. The kind of picture that’s invisible when your sets live in a notes app.
45s cost more than you think
At 45 RPM, a record extracts 1.35 times the stylus wear of the same playing time at 33⅓ RPM. On a night built around 7-inch singles, that correction is significant. A contaminated record at 45 RPM compounds further — reaching 2.16 times the baseline wear rate.
VRT accounts for speed automatically. Every record you log through a Set carries its format into the wear model. Your cartridge service interval is expressed in real wear-hours — not a rough estimate based on playing time, and not a fixed number of sides.
When the cartridge approaches its manufacturer’s rated life, the dashboard flags it. Before you book the next gig.
More than a playlist app
VRT connects a Set to your actual record catalogue. Add records quickly using the barcode scanner on your phone camera. If the record is already in your catalogue, it’s a single tap to add it to the Set. If it’s new stock, scanning creates the catalogue entry and adds it to the Set in the same step.
Record Restore usage is tracked per bottle, with a consumption model that forecasts when stock will run out. After a heavy run of 45s and deep-groove pressings, you’ll know exactly where your supply stands — before you’re mid-session and running low.
What you need
VRT Sets are included in the Pro licence. The free 14-day trial gives you full Pro access — enough time to plan and run several gigs before committing.
All record care features — play logging, cleaning prompts, Record Restore tracking and cartridge service monitoring — are included in the Core licence, which sits below Pro. If you manage a large collection and want wear tracking without the live-set tools, Core is the starting point.
VRT runs in a web browser. No software to install. Works on any phone, tablet or laptop you bring to the gig.
Written by Stephen Price, founder of Secret Chord Analogue.