Suggestion - Traktor DB enhancements

I was thinking about some enhancements to Traktor's collection. While I know that large part of being a DJ is to be able to actually listen to music and what it does, to be able to imagine how various tracks will fit together, and to remember what was good and what was not, I think that when we have the possibility to make our lives easier, we should go for it. Traktor already allows us to save comments and stuff, which is great. When you know what information you need and what is important for you, comments can be really useful. But there could be more.

What if you were able to connect the tracks which fit together? If you were playing track X, you would be able to take a look what you played after it in earlier sessions. You would of course be able to "grade" those links, and remove the ones not so good. Gradually quite a big database would build up - the more tracks and combinations you've tried and graded, the more useful this database would be. You could be also storing info about various links, so you would know that if you play X after Y, you need to take care of that 6 beat break, etc. Useful for those who smoke too much and/or remember too little.

This could be achieved by adding a popup menu to Traktor's file list and maybe a dropdown list for each deck. For example: you would right-click a filename, and there would be a submenu in the default popup menu, containing links to files you've connected to the one actually playing, and possibility to edit parameters of those links or delete them. The dropdown would include links of the actually playing files. The connecting itself would happen simply by playing tracks after each another, just as they fall into the Current playlist today.

Other things that could be added are - when you hold cursor above file info (comment, keywords), it should display full text of those, now you have to either open up the info window or make the column wider, which can be quite bothering. I also miss the possibility to display folder name of files currently loaded in decks above the graphical displays.

Hope this is useful.

 

I completly agree...I think there should be a quick way to ID tracks that have certian characteristics besides genre, comments, and ratings. I'd like it to be simple like how the rating system in itunes is simple and efficient. drop down menues and pop ups are a good idea. Colors codes would be cool aswell. like red asterix for hip hop yellow for disco, hot pink for eighties.

 

Hmmm... there is some merit here but when I'm playing around looking for mix ideas I come up with with wild-hare ideas that sound great in my own tortured little brain but sound absolutely awful when played in the real world. The last thing I want is any possiblity of my tortured ideas making it (read: pollutting) a list of linked songs.

The other thing I have found too is that the best mixes I have ever put together came about not as a result of practice but by just starting mixing and picking from a big list of songs and going for it. I have found the harder I try to practice a set the worse sounding it becomes.It might be nice to go back and mark the set up later but I'm never likely to find the perfect spots that made the mix standout in the first place and going back to replay the magic just makes the subsequent mix suck. If I really like the mix and I was actually thinking at the time I started I would have recorded it and saved the set list anyway.

 

<<the best mixes I have ever put together came about not as a result of practice but by just starting mixing and picking from a big list of songs and going for it>>

Wow, I thought that was just me! It drove me nuts -- I'd plan and practice and mark and cue, and three fourths of what I tried didn't sound half as good as when I would just wing it. When I get new tracks, I tend to reality-test them on Traktor by ordering them by BPM and playing them in bunches. I've been amazed how often they've been killer sets.

So now I try to be all Zen when I mix. "Don't think -- feeeeeel....."

 

Ive got well over 5000 tracks on my ipod and it's synced w/ itunes which is synced to traktor. it gets a little overwelming when i look at tthe browser. especially since neither browser/datdbase has aa clean up function where it removes unlinked missing tracks. Anyways, some extra management and sorting/ID abilities would help me out. and btw, "practice does make perfect"....

 

Phil,

The other thing I have found too is that the best mixes I have ever put together came about not as a result of practice but by just starting mixing and picking from a big list of songs and going for it. I have found the harder I try to practice a set the worse sounding it becomes.

From across the Atlantic Ocean, the same experience. But for the hours spent on practice, the impromptu mixes weren't so easy to put together. :djsi:

 

i use keywords to describe each song, so that i can narrow down the list of tracks i want to audition. but i don't put the keywords in the "keyword" field. i put it in the "comments" field. so i can edit (and utilize) those fields in any software i want to use.

 

I use keywords, too, because it's so convenient. But I can't count how many times I'm dead certain I entered keywords on tags only to find no such animal exists anymore when I go searching for it. It makes no sense to me, and I've never figured out a solution.

 

Yep I hear ya... Its ironic that all those hours of practice do NOT help make the mix any better, only the mixing!!!

Phil

 

Well, I've never thought of it that way. It's the outcome of your actions as a DJ that counts and the entertainement of the crowd or listeners - you mix for them and they are very likely not to notice mistakes that you make (Only you know what you do not right - in your own opinion, of course). They seem not to care as long as you keep them entertained unless your mixing is total crap.:superdj:

 

...of which mine has its momemts

Phil

 

Are there problems using the keywords fields or do you use the comments field because its a standard ID3 tag? I have built an XML Parser . C# .NET for the Collection and wanted to improve track classification and have it work inside Traktor. Right now I have a hacked Tag Edit page which includes a new sub-genres field buts its pretty unstable (crashes traktor) and was thinking of hijacking the keywords field to do this. If its better to write this into the Comments field then thats what I would do.

Phil