Organising tunes for TSP

I am just setting up TSP for the first time and thought it would be quite good to know the various ways people organise their tunes

I've been thinking about just having a many playlists in iTunes named after genres and then I could access these from TSP... any reasons why this might hold me back?

So.. how have you got your tracks organised?

 

I organize my tracks in genre folders in the main MUSIC folder, then simply tag them to that genre in Traktor so they're searchable.

 

I used to organise by genre as well from my full library but it's rather tedious and useless to bring 1000's of tracks on your Hard drive when you'll play even for a few hours. As a techno DJ I don't have the "request" problem (or I tell the request people to go and FxxxK themselves.. )

I'm creating Playlists on my desktop computer. I've set some custom artwork with shape and color codes in order to have a quick visual help for style and "intensity" along with the 5 stars rating. Then I export the playlist with the tracks to my laptop.

 

So you use the Explorer tab in TSP to find your tracks then?

 

Nope. I spend hours and hours at night organizing my tracks into playlists. Basically since I've got like 20000 songs tagged Hip Hop/R&B, I don't think I'll ever end up playing the b-sides but I like to keep them handy in case some moron requests freaking Mambo #5 Dance Refix. I send my big tracks to my A-List folder, where I have a Hip Hop/R&B playlist set for my current top 100. That way when I spin out, I stay out of the main collection and use just the A-List playlists.

 

I read in the supplied manual that you can Import your tracks into TSP.

What is the benefits of doing this, rather than just playing them straight from your own playlist folder or iTunes?

 

Importing tracks into your collection adds them to TP's database and makes for easy searching, tagging, sorting, etc.

 

And does this mean that I'll end up with duplicates of all my tunes? Seems like a lot of disk space wasted in that case. Unless I'm misunderstanding something.

 

No. Your tunes will not be duplicated.

 

Well that's the second solution.. Playlist are exactly the way NOT to duplicate audio files.

 

I use genre folders, but I am really unhappy with this sort of conservative structure. Currently I am trying to sort this more into moods, like deep, funky, percussive. So more cross genre, because my dj sets are not sticking to one genre....

Anyone has a smiliar strucute?

 

I do have similar structure. I label my folder as Deephouse, BegClub (Beginning Club, as in if I was starting dj of the night), Club Picks, Repetative, Commercial, Drums, Detriot, Cyber Tech, House, Stammheim, Minimal, Techhouse, and Techno. You guys might wonder what some of those categories mean :lol: ... It just makes it easier for me to figure out what sound I want to put into my set; all of those categories have their distinctive sound.

And for most songs, I comment each song in the comment box to what the song sounds like, for example: Upbeat, Peak, Trancy, Dark, VocalTalk, VocalMelody...etc. I have too many songs and I find myself not memorizing the name and the artist of each song. So I have to comment it.

 

I am thinking about doing the same. Having some sort of Music pool and then selecting the tracks which I want to use and copy them to the laptop.

I have two questions regarding this:

a) am I allowed to install and use, only for sorting, selecting etc, a second instance of my traktor? So that I run two one on my home computer and one I use for performing?

b) I do use beatgrids and all this additional features in Traktor. If I remember correct, Traktor is saving this information in an extra file. How do I transport all this information, if I would decide to use certain tracks on my performing laptop.

 

Yes you have 2 licences.



Organising tunes; firstly, all my tracks have the 'Mixed in Key' number in front in order to sort the tracks by musical key.

I have my tracks in playlists for each bunch of tracks I download from beatport and I give these random names like Taste or Matter or Pressure and so on.

My favourite playlist is one where I have all my tracks and they are sorted by Key so I use search to look for 04A or 04B or what ever i need. All my tracks have the genre, label and most have a comment to help me decide what to play next.

Learning from a fellow forum member above I am going to try and set up more playlists, like Warm-up or Dark or fresh and so on. The more lists I have the better my sets because it is a more educated tune selection to fit that moment.

Nice1

 

I use iTunes to organize my music, I then use those playlists created and updated in iTunes with Traktor Scratch Pro.

I download the songs then I edit the info (right click on itunes, more info), always trying to be as complete as possible, but mostly focusing on Name (inc remix), Artist, genre, star rating and comments. Don't use album or edit album info unless it comes with the song.

I always create a playlist (month/day/year) in itunes every week where I put all of the new songs I downloaded that week so I can sync that playlist with my iphone and start rating the songs on my way to work, gym, etc. Once I get home I sync the playlist and i already have the star rating for some of them.

Besides the obvious Name, album and genre, I always try to rate every single song that I'm going to use. My ratings are like this:

No rating: I haven’t organized it yet into any playlist (some songs I listen to and I’m not sure if I like them, I leave it with no rating so that I can listen to them again at another time)

1 star: To delete later. Deleting songs one by one takes a long time. After I’m done rating a playlist, I go to my music folder, sorty by star rating and delete all the songs with 1 star.

2 stars: Songs that I should delete but I wanna give them another chance, if I’m running out of space or have too many songs, I delete the songs with 2 star ratings.

3 stars: songs that I want to keep but I’m probably never gonna play at a club. These can be old songs, personal favorites, etc.

4 stars: songs that I’d play at a club but only if the crowd is perfect for them. In other words, these are songs that I personally like and could work at a club, but they’re border line. (more on this later)

5 stars: songs that I can play at a club.

Obviously this is not enough for me to say that i'm gonna play the 5 star playlist, so I also use the comment filed. Add the comment field to your itunes library if it’s not already there.

The comment field is very important. The first thing i write in the comment field is a number (1, 2, 3, 1/2, 2/3) followed by subgenre and then whatever other description i can think of. A lot of times I purchase new songs and I don’t remember the name or style or whatever it is i need to know before i can play it, so this helps. I usually only add comments to 4-5 star rated songs since those are the ones that I’m gonna use to DJ.

The numbers in the comments indicate the type/level of rhythm of the song. I think about it as if i'm DJing at a 3-hour party and tracks that start with 1 are for the opening, songs to get the party started. I wouldn’t start a party by dropping bombs. So imagine that you’re the only DJ and that you’re gonna DJ for three hours and you’re going to build the crowd until the end when you’re gonna drop the hard core tracks (not that I dj like that, but that’s my approach to organize my tracks)

So the warm up songs go with 1.

Tracks that start with a number 2 in the comments are the tracks that are a good transition from warm up to bombs.

2/3 are bombs that are not as hard core and I use them to get the crowd dancing

3 are just bombs that have a hard beat to them. Hard techno, Hard minimal, hard tech house. This is something personal, so I don’t know if I’m explaining it right.

After I use the numbers, I type the genre or subgenre of the song and then something particular about the track, if any. For example I might have this under comments:

2/3 Techno minimal
2/3 Techno bass
3 techno hard
2/3 House tribal drums
2 tech house with Spanish vocals
2/3 tech house start with vocals @ 1.48

Lastly, I drag the tracks to my playlists. When I start selecting music for a gig, I then go my playlists and pick the music from them. Sometimes when I’m djing and don’t really know what to play, I sort my music by comments and then I’ll get all the 2/3 techno together and the 3’s together followed by the subgenre, which is extremely useful to me. I then go over my playlist again to make sure I have the tracks I want. Lastly, I open traktor and I add the itunes playlist to my traktor playlists.

This might not work for you, but believe me, the time I spend organizing music is not a lot, and it helps tremendously.

It helps a lot that when I have a lot of new tracks, I sync the weekly playlist with my iPhone, I then skim through the songs in the train on my way to work and I rate the songs. When I sync it back with my computer, I know that 4-5 star songs.

Hope it helps some of you.

ed