track associations

It sounds weird but think of this...

Imagine you could associate tracks with each other and then click a button on a track and see a list of the songs you have associated with it.

This is NOT a playlist of songs that work together. Those are tracks that work specifically with the track you have selected for one reason or another.

Instead of having a playlist and move from one trck to the next, you would jump from a track, to one of the associated tracks, to one of the associated tracks, etc.

Say you have track A selected in the browser and you open the assoiations with that track.

A
-- B
-- C
-- D
-- E

If you're in a rush that would completely help you. Or even expand the way of woring with the browser.

But then that could transform into a tree of associations to jump from one track to another.

Say you choose track A you load it on a deck, and then load track C and see it's associations.

A
-- B
-- C
---- F
---- G
---- D
---- H
---- I
-- D
-- E

Or even better see the complete tree of asociations. Like a database relationships graph. That would be awesome for planning sessions on the fly at the club. Much more advanced than playlists.

That doesn't mean killing playlists, but simply a more open solution to track sorting which is on the biggest challenges of a dj in the sync era.

Am I genius or what?

Ehem.... just kidding. Anyway it would be awesome.

 

Trainspotter has a feature that reads your history .nml files and updates your collection.nml so that if you search for the tracks that is currently playing, Traktor will then return all the tracks that you have previously played after the currently playing track.

So if you know you've previously mixed a track with something else and can't remember what the hell it was (you're too forgetful, drunk, etc.) you just enter the current artist and track and bingo, you've got only a small list of tracks, all of which you've mixed with the current song before.

If you use iTunes there's a "grouping" field that you can use. There's an article on djtechtools in the "iTunes Power Tips" series about it.

 

Yep this has been a request for awhile actually, it's the nature of how a DJ thinks when mixing.

It definitely would be a useful feature.

But don't let your brain go numb because if the feature had a technical issue it would cause some frustration.

 

Well any feature with a technical isue would cause frustration...
---

Thanks but the right thing would be to have all in one software.

Trainspotter uses the java machine and I'm not sure about the performance... specially when using traktor at the same time. Haven't used it though....

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

You don't need Trainspotter running at the same time to use this feature, it puts the data in your collection.nml in the MIX field

 

+1 yeapha, this would be a very cool function.

 

+1 please!

 

+1

 

when you start allowing the program to pick your songs, your no longer a dj. at that point your a juke box.

 

I didn't understand the original post, but now it makes sense. I was thinking of this the other day when I couldn't remember some tracks that mixed well before but were not in a harmonic key or even the same subgenre. It's not about Traktor telling you what works well, but reminding you of what you have mixed before.

+1

 

+ 1

Interesting.

 

The program is not picking the songs. You are.

What are you doing in this digital djing forum if your mind is still 10 years backward in vinyl mode?

 

i have always been a digital dj. i have only been a dj for 2-3 years (thus my mind can't be stuck 10 years ago). i just feel this will make the performances stale (as in the same as the week before). mixing the same songs because the list says you mixed them before. if you can't remember what mixes well or hear what would mix then you need to play more or find a different job. our mind is what separates us from a juke box. so when you start programing the system to do the remembering and thinking for you, you have lost what is most important.

 

+1

 

I agree with you that if you were to rely on this all the time then obviously you would just be playing the same tunes and mixes all the time which would quickly get very dull and professionally suicidal, but just because it's open to abuse shouldn't be a reason for depriving others of a very useful bit of functionality if used in moderation.

The flip side of this functionality is that it could also tell you when your sets are getting dull and predictable, for example it could say "hey! you've mixed these records together 5 times before - get a grip!" or "you played this last night/last week do you really want to play it again?"

 

that i can understand. i have caught myself playing a few songs too much. especially at the regular bars i play at (lots of classic rock).

 

I have been djing for about 9 years. The first years I was stuck in some styles and knew all the good mixes by heart. After 9 years it's pretty difficult to remeber what you did so long time ago.

I understand what you say about always doing the same mixes... but doing associations doesn't mean you'll do the same mixes again and again, and that you can't change those associations.

This is just another tool that can be helpful, or not, depending on how wisely you use it. Just like any tool ie a knife, electricity, or atomic energy.