DJs: How do you organise your music?

Yeah, I've got so much good music, but it's all in different folders all over my laptop (and my girlfriend's laptop). That is bad. I was trying to collect tracks into playlists in Traktor or to make special folders for genres, but I didn't find a master-plan yet. The problem with folders is (like the problem with genres in general) that a lot of tracks do not use only elements from one genre - so where should I put them, what genre are they the most? That is stupid. The problem with playlists within Traktor is a) that my version of Traktor is pretty buggy and deletes some tracks on his own (okay a update would help probably) and b) they give me too much of a frame.

So: How do you organise your music for DJing?

serato scratch allows you to import itunes playlists

By artists.

I used to do it by genre but fuck that, the crossover is unreal.

What only 2 people

This is an interesting thread. I use DJ fairly frequently on United-Sound.co.uk but have kinda not done it much recently. I find that preparing a set usually takes about a day. And I spend time getting a good flow etc. Recently I've just been thinking about creating a big spread sheet of tracks with other tracks that mix well together etc. Probably what I'm doing doesn't make sense but once I start it I'll post up a screen capture for you guys so you see what I mean etc.

  On 10/31/2011 at 6:25 PM, Promo said:

I find that preparing a set usually takes about a day. And I spend time getting a good flow etc.

Wow I was already wondering how long it takes for me... good to know I'm not he only one!

  Quote

Recently I've just been thinking about creating a big spread sheet of tracks with other tracks that mix well together etc. Probably what I'm doing doesn't make sense but once I start it I'll post up a screen capture for you guys so you see what I mean etc.

That sounds really interesting, please post this. I also had similiar ideas I guess to somehow organise my DJ-tunes in an associative way... like you play a track and you know "I could play these 5 tunes next to stay in this mood or play these 3 tracks to get more straight or play these 4 tracks to get more atmosphere" or something. But I really don't know how to realize that...

  On 10/28/2011 at 8:12 PM, yek said:

serato scratch allows you to import itunes playlists

yeah traktor allows that as well, but the fucked up thing is that you can not change your playlists in traktor than and that makes them unuseable.

  On 11/1/2011 at 1:13 PM, tokn said:

That sounds really interesting, please post this. I also had similiar ideas I guess to somehow organise my DJ-tunes in an associative way... like you play a track and you know "I could play these 5 tunes next to stay in this mood or play these 3 tracks to get more straight or play these 4 tracks to get more atmosphere" or something. But I really don't know how to realize that...

Yeah that's basically the essence of my idea. Its really so I don't have to prepare sets but can do them more on the fly! Also the great part about this is that if you're doing a club dj set and say the crowd are going really hype and you wanna keep that momentum then you can just choose a tune to do that rather be limited to a pre planned set like I usually do.

Another good thing about doing an Excel spreadsheet is that you can add comments to each cell (i.e. each artist track and title) with notes that advise how to best mix it.

Wow you're doing that in Excel? Sounds like a lot of work. Maeh

You all dj with laptops

My VINYL is loosely organised by genre and artist.

  On 11/3/2011 at 11:21 PM, feltcher said:

You all dj with laptops

 

My VINYL is loosely organised by genre and artist.

technically i use vinyl

Excel sounds like more hassle than it's worth, itunes is pretty crap... but using the playlist function seems best for making DJ lists.

  On 11/3/2011 at 11:21 PM, feltcher said:

You all dj with laptops

Of course, beause it sounds better and we are in the future

... and we don't have enough money for all the LPs and are too lazy to learn the technical side of DJing.

  On 11/4/2011 at 2:44 PM, tokn said:

  On 11/3/2011 at 11:21 PM, feltcher said:

You all dj with laptops

 

Of course, beause it sounds better and we are in the future

 

... and we don't have enough money for all the LPs and are too lazy to learn the technical side of DJing.

(only because im too skint to invest in new equipment and am stuck playing my old records and buying second hand stuff)

I organize my forders to where I'm most likely to play it. Bar / Small Club / Big Club / Lounge / Party - Works fairly well, but it's not perfect. I've tried many ways though, and this has been the best one.

  On 11/9/2011 at 11:48 AM, Drix said:

I organize my forders to where I'm most likely to play it. Bar / Small Club / Big Club / Lounge / Party - Works fairly well, but it's not perfect. I've tried many ways though, and this has been the best one.

that is quite a good idea.

i also thought of having different folders for the heavyness of the music and don't care about the genre or something. i would have "easy", "medium", "strong", "fucking banger" and "beyond this world" or something and could quite easily modulate the intensity of my set.

One of my methods is having a smart playlist in my iPod, that automatically updates (whether plugged in or on the go) when I give a song a five-star-rating. If I get tired of a song in said playlist, I then kick the rating down a star or two and it's gone. Pretty nifty.

In a big Ikea badboy and piled up all around my house!