How many of us use iTunes as our primary DJ collection?

+1

 

I still think prior to everything else... FOR ME (don't know what everyone else's priorities) but I'd like the artwork back FOR ME ...In My Opinion.

 

+1

 

Yeah, i use Itunes because it manages tracks very well, and because of SMART PLAYLISTs ! WHen you have more than 3000 tech house tracks, it is very useful to enter comments in Itunes, (for exemple : Vocal, Heavy, Deep, space) and create a smart Playlist that manage these kind of characteristics. With this, you can found a forgotten track you used to play 3 years ago that fit exactly with the one you 're playing now.
But if you play it in traktor every comments are destroyed.

PLEASE NI TEAM, I LOVE YOUR PRODUCTS BUT DO SOMETHING WITH THAT PROBLEM OR CREATE SMART PLAYLISTS TOO.

Thanks

 

Itunes...NEVER! :angry:
I'd rather milk a cow

 

I'm crossing my fingers for Better Itunes integration as well. I love organizing in Itunes and use Smart Playlists all the time. I'm tired of constantly updating & deleting, renaming my Traktor collection - it's double the unnecessary work load. And I love viewing my artwork which is the main reason I import my Itunes playlists to my Traktor collection.
Sure hope NI is reading these posts.
Thanks
Hector

 

i think that the integration would be complete if we saw the same information in both nodes, regarding the same track. currently there is a mismatch between some tags that are in one application and not in the other, and viceversa. Let me define how this affects me particularly:

in the itunes node within traktor, i don't see the following information:

- Key. I use this as a guidance to choose next song, sometimes. As it's not supported by itunes, its not within it's xml and traktor does not show its content, although it lets you choose it as available in the drop down menu of tags in the itunes node.

- Mix. Traktor only. I use this field to state if the track has a 'perfect grid' or not. I miss that information if i use the itunes node, even for those tracks that are marked as 'added to the collection'.

- BPM. Shows the itunes bpm tag content, not the traktor bpm tag content. This can lead to confusion since traktor writes both fields when the track is analyzed or the user modifies the bpm details. But itunes will not refresh that info unless you play that track in itunes. example: a track has been analyzed in traktor and tempo is 80 bpm. You play that track in itunes, and the 80 appears in itunes bpm field. later on, you go back to traktor and multiply the tempo x2, 160 bpm. there you are, unless you go back to itunes and play that track -and so, force it to refresh the tag content-, traktor collection will show 160 while itunes node will show 80)

I will mention other tags although they are less important (for me), which traktor has and itunes doesn't and so, will appear empty within itunes node-:
- Comment 2
- Producer
- Remixer

the other way around, traktor does not show the following itunes tag fields, neither in the collection nor in itunes node:
- Group
- Composer

It may seem a futility at first sight, but for me these two itunes fields help me build my smart playlists, among other fields. For example, i use the composer to keep track of where the song came from (beatport, itunes, blog, promo pool...), and the Group states whether a track falls into the Traktor Auto Playlists -a folder with subfolders and playlists within itunes- or not. That way I can isolate "just" 2000 songs from a 50000 songs collection, and easily manage, add, remove and replace files.

 

I think apple has the Marmite factor. (people in UK with understand that)

A few things to note here.

There are to OS users of Traktor Mac and PC.
As PCs or Windows OS can be found in 75% of computers/laptops You'd think the same would apply to the music industry; Wrong.
Macintosh has been the Industry standard for over 20 years so as iTunes has been developed by a company that works very closely with the music industry so it has been tailored to meet certain requirements. iTunes may not have been marketed toward the professional DJ but Apple MAC's are and these guys are the same ones who designed iTunes.

Whilst we on the subject of Professional DJs; if NI only sold their product to Professional users they'd go bankrupt. Traktor is used by teenagers to OAPs who the vast majority are NOT Professional DJ's. Most are not even DJs and just use Traktor in their Bedrooms and play at the odd party. A small minority DJ at the weekend to earn some extra cash to the full-time job they have and a very very minute amount of pro-DJs use Traktor mainly running on a MacBook Pro.
There's one small but very significant difference between being an amateur and a Professional; Income. A professional DJ's main income and work-time is spent doing that job. So how many of you can honestly call yourselves Professional DJs if you spend 40hours a week doing earning an income or studying and only 10 Hours a week DJing?

---------------------------------------

iTunes Purchased music is a lossless 256kbs/44,1kHz AAC file, which is no different to CD quality. It is not inferior and not a "shitty file". ITunes represents 80% of all Digitally purchased music globally which just only shows how insignificant Beatport is in reaching the widest audience with your music. iTunes can play numerous file formats including .aif 24-bit uncompressed audio.

It seems some people here think that anything Apple related is just somebody trying to be styish. I started using a Windows system back in 1996 and in 2007 I chnaged to OSX because I was so sick and tired of forever defraging, virus checking, security updating. At least with iTunes you get one prompt which you can choose whether to download and install or not.

--------------------------------------

ITunes Library: If you export you library to another folder or Hard-drive and need to recover from a backup the Library it still intact. I keep all my Itunes music for Gigs on an external Hard-drive and the iTunes Library on it too. I direct Traktor to that Library.

----------------------------------------

Nice quote by someone "I guess itunes fans never used anything that actually "just works"

That's why people use a MAC... because it "just works"

----------------------------------------

I have to shake my head at peoples view of Apples software integration policy. Yet I can only assume they are using a product owned by a Megalomanic that made sure for years we only used Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. (Oh the Irony)

-----------------------------------------


So for the record +1 on iTunes integration just as long as those who don't use iTunes are not effected.

 

I do, and I don't own any Apple products. I'm not really a fan of Apple, but sometimes you have to hold your hands up and admit that iTunes is THE best program for keeping your mp3 collection in order, as well as creating playlists, etc.

 

you lost me here as expected

itunes has been developed to sync with iphones, ipods, ipads, and other idevices. it's been designed to stream to apple tvs and airport wireless. it functions as a music store. it includes a social network. it does apps. it does backups. it plays videos, podcasts, audiobooks, etc. and it's a music player. but for a music player, it's bloated as hell.

and honestly, i don't see what itunes does for "professional DJs" what other audio players do not. have you even looked at alternatives recently?

glad to hear that sounds reasonable. btw, i don't deny that the majority of ppl uses itunes. so we need some integration. i just think it's a really bloaty and bad piece of software so i wish all itunes integration features in traktor were modular so they can easily be turned off.

 

According to my Activity Monitor, iTunes is using 39.5MB of my resources. That doesn't seem very bloated at all.

I think there is only one music player that is designed for the DJ and that's Pioneer's Recordbox. iTunes is no different to winamp or WMP However I have a MAC but I was using iTunes whilst I still had my Windows machine.

What we have to remember is the iTunes folder in Traktor just gives you access to the iTunes Library. You don't need to have iTunes running in order to use it.

Oh and the Marmite Factor. ..... You either love apple products or you don't there doesn't seem to be an in between.

 

Love the people here mentioning that they don’t use Itunes because they don’t want to add unnecessary software to their performance computer….then they go on the list all the software they need to add to replicate what Itunes does flawlessly.

And if Apple is so evil, why do so many of you use MBP for your performance machine?

+1 for Itunes….and the question of better integration with Traktor is a WHEN, not an IF

 

Hi All,
I guess this answers my question - I use a Mac and I think iTunes on a Mac is far more stable then on PC so I will use iTunes to manage the collection.

I guess my question is - do you then have to import into Traktor? I'm a new user of Traktor Pro and I wasn't sure if I were to use iTunes for everything then do I keep importing into Traktor every time there is new music added to my collection - would this cause duplicates?

Thanks

 

Welcome To The Forum.

Using iTunes with Traktor can be incredibly useful. A lot of people complain about iTunes but despite a few annoying things its largely a good way to organise your music outside of Traktor.

That said the quickest and best way to work is to work with the Traktor Collection.

Adding your iTunes folder to Traktor will not create duplicates if you follow the Manual instructions.

Heres what i do.
Import all new music into iTunes.
Go to Traktor and refresh the iTunes Node.
Select the newly imported tracks and choose "Import To Collection" this adds the new tunes to the Traktor collection.nml which is the heart of Traktor.

You can also use the Consistency Checker to add new music from your iTunes collection. This wont add duplicates.

Your Traktor collection is merely a list of paths to the actual files on the Hard Drive. It isnt a copy of the files.

You can create your playlists in iTunes and import them to the Traktor Browser Tree but you dont have to. Doing so definitely speeds things up, as i said working within the Traktor tree is always quicker. But you can just play from the iTunes node but, as you will have already imported the tracks to the Traktor Collection it will also be pretty quick.

Hope that helps

Karlos

 

Thanks for the reply.

I'll delete the Traktor collection and start again in iTunes. I like the idea of doing a consistency check as I can add quite a few albums to my iTunes within a week and I think adding them one by one will be a pain.

I've created playlists in iTunes and taken them into Traktor already and that is very sweet...

Ta

 

Yeah i agree with ya mate
i use iTunes myself as its organising is brilliant!

ive been using it for years now and i wouold also like to see traktor and itunes work better with each other

nice post btw
---

@ WooDz
i can understand wat u mean about the marmite factor with apple lol

but imo i dont like apple but i enjoy itunes
its just unfortante that itunes was made by apple

"my name danny im a pc and i eat apple"

 

sure i do!
it's realiable and easy to use and i can access my music without having to fire up Traktor.

 

zomg, that's effin' amazing. my media player won't open unless I fire up Traktor. gonna make the switch to itunes right away.

 

lol

 

As I use different softwares and not only Traktor, the only way to organize my music on all these softwares is of course Itunes!

so +1