Organising your music

[Tom]

How are people organising your music for all you digital dj's?

I used to do it by album and had things down to a tee when searching for artists and tracks but I thought about doing it by artist instead.

Thought this might be quicker when searching.

Would this be a good idea or is there a better route to go down?

Welcome all ideas and suggestions :)

[funkymook]

How are people organising your music for all you digital dj's?

I used to do it by album and had things down to a tee when searching for artists and tracks but I thought about doing it by artist instead.

Thought this might be quicker when searching.

Would this be a good idea or is there a better route to go down?

Welcome all ideas and suggestions :)

I have folders with certain genres in them ‘70s disco’, ’60’s Garage, Grunge, etc sometimes sub divided into the top tunes from each.

Also compilation folders - usually compilation CDs I know have lots of great tunes on them.

Then I also create folders of playlists from particularly good gigs.

Then for each gig I usually create a new folder or folders with key tunes, requests and anything I think might fit in with the music brief.


The best advice really though is to organise your music in a way that works for you.

[DeckstarDeluxe]

I do it via genre but the thing to remember is it's only going to be you using it so however you find stuff easiest really. For me it's all weddings so I break it down into folders like

00's pop
00's popular pop (dancefloor fillers)
00's dance
00's popular dance
00's indie
00's popular indie

With this most weddings are covered by tracks which are pretty popular across most guests so for example things like Mr Brightside, Sex On Fire, Chelsea Dagger would be under the 00's popular indie (covers rock as well). This means all the good stuff is there without going through any "filler" options. If though you have a fairly "indie" crowd then I would dip into the 00's indie stuff which has "off the beaten path" type of tunes so you would find Counting Crows - Mr Jones, Muse, The Strokes etc....

I also have very wedding specify folders so a wedding breakfast folder full of hand picked songs suitable for a wedding breakfast, a post wedding breakfast folder for a slightly more uptempo feel and also a post wedding breakfast but pre first dance folder.

[Sapphire Disco]

In decades folders with approx top 100 from each decade in a separate sub folder, separate folders for specialist music eg country , reggae , northern soul , rock & roll , swing & I have a separate folder just for cheese as well often comes in very useful.

Just remembered I also have every single now album in a separate folder to scroll though if I need inspiration as well.

[Tom]

Liking the idea of various folders of genres and specialist genres! That alone could give you ideas for tracks instead of trailing through various albums to find the right track.

Like the idea!

[yourdj]

Itunes - add folder with "scottish" "70's" "SKA"

Or what ever you need - drag and drop to each required folder - hey presto.
The iTunes playlists will open in the software (in my case - serato itch).

Takes 5 mins to organise a 30-40 track playlist with tracks i already have.
And no - never had any issues. Dead easy as it all syncs with the iPad - job done. :)

[Nakatomi]

I cut my stuff down into decades folders, then just use the Mixxx database to do the rest (crates, playlists etc). The majority of my file tags have been in good shape but right now I'm working on making everything absolutely canonical. The year data in the database is to reflect a track's year of charting, there are to be no typos in artist or title fields.. and as I update the database I've got scripts sifting through it all & updating the file tags so none slip through the net & the database contains the information in every file tag.. and vice-versa.

I'm also relentlessly tracking down duplicates & making sure I keep only the best versions of tracks. While I think Mastermix 'Classic Cuts' are ace, they don't half put some lemon remixes (more like terrible back beat overdubs) on them sometimes.

Metadata is more important to me now than it's ever been. Get that right (and it's a right cow if you've never been strict about it) & upkeep should be a breeze as I add new music.

[Reel Feeva]

I generally have mine in genres, and have folders for decades as well. Recently I have started putting current tracks into years and start a new folder each year and put all the current hits into that one.

I do like my music to be organised and easily located and try not to rely on the search engine on VDJ.

[yourdj]

I generally have mine in genres, and have folders for decades as well. Recently I have started putting current tracks into years and start a new folder each year and put all the current hits into that one.

I do like my music to be organised and easily located and try not to rely on the search engine on VDJ.

I have a main folder and an other folder.
The main folder is as the name suggests and the other contains random playlist from over the years like the following:

AFRICAN/SAFARI
BURLESQUE/SAUCY
CIRCUS
FOOTBALL
JAMES BOND
MEXICAN
STRICT TEMPO - QUICKSTEP
WELSH MUSIC
ZUMBA 1

etc.

[Andy P]

A-Z on artist in folders then make playlists on VDJ for popular genre

[Sapphire Disco]

Forgot to mention that although I put my music into decades and special genre folders I always keep the last 3 years of music in a separate folder for each year.
I have spent many hours getting my folders how I like them helps you a great deal when you are working, especially on those gigs you don't really know what you are going to play until you get there and see the people.

[Tom]

Thanks for the replys. :)

Plan to start ripping my CD's tonoght when I get home from work. No produb licence needed yet as this is for personal use at the moment. When I'm ready, I'll buy the right Produb licence for the tracks that I would use and keep for djing.

Got boxes and boxes of CD's that I've kept from years a go so will start sifting through them all.

Tempted to go with CD Pool for the lastest tracks and start collecting music, try and back date tracks that have been popular or well known over the last 5-6 years.

Will be going down route folders of genres/years and specialist genres also. It's going to take a while, but the time and effort put in now should make life easier in the long run!

[Andy P]

Make sure when your ripping and organising you do the music tags as a lot of programs will read these rather than the file name - then there is a load of software that lets you rename files from tags and vice versa which makes them easy to catalogue.

I spent 2 months organising mine before I started - I have a huge sort folder that needs done from the music ive acquired since.

[Tom]

Make sure when your ripping and organising you do the music tags as a lot of programs will read these rather than the file name - then there is a load of software that lets you rename files from tags and vice versa which makes them easy to catalogue.

I spent 2 months organising mine before I started - I have a huge sort folder that needs done from the music ive acquired since.

I plan to tag every track and not use the internet like I used to. Would end up spending more time retagging tracks. Got plenty of times on my hand anyway so not in a rush. Even if I did 20 cd's a night that's 200 if lets say there are 10 tracks per CD. 2-3 weeks and I should be done lol

[Shaun]

Mine is VERY basic. The older stuff are in 'DECADES' folders. Then a few sub Genres within those folders. Then everything from 2006 to present date is listed in a folder by year, then broken down by month. So very little organisation as far as they are stored.

The ID3 tags are filled out pretty well though, as I do my searching, sorting & playlists with the tags. Works for me.

[Nakatomi]

I may be preaching to the converted here, but all this talk of folders has made me think..

If you're not using the metadata features of your DJ software, you're missing a really handy trick IMHO.

Why limit yourself to just having folders & subfolders where the files live? Why shouldn't your tracks be able to belong in more than one place? That's the big beauty of using the database features of DJ programs. I don't know if all DJ programs let you do organise music in this way but if yours doesn't, consider changing to one which does.

For me that's by far the biggest benefit in moving to a computer. The space & weight saving moving to a mass storage device *is* liberating, there's no denying that but the biggest benefit by far is how accessible everything becomes.

It also helps that to organise your music, you never have to actually move anything again - you just change the references to it in your DJ database.

The thought of using iTunes to sort out my DJ collection fills me with dread. I never really paid that much attention to it, but the times I was called on to sync my wife's iPod it had me pulling my hair out. I'm no luddite by any means, but I was beggared if I could figure out how to make it do my bidding.

[dicky]

I do it pretty much the same as juski sapphire and deckstar

Split music into decades - then I separate each decade into two rough genres - and these become my folders

Soul and Dance (or Disco for the 70s rather than dance)

Rock & Pop

'Soul / Dance' also contains such things as Reggae

So I end up with folders:

50s
60s Soul & Motown
60s Rock & Pop
70s Soul & Disco
70s Rock & Pop
80s Soul & Dance
80s Rock & Pop

etc
etc


Mostly I use the mp3 tags which I create to find my tracks if I am searching for something within a genre - eg, Northern, Disco, House, Mod, Rock & Roll, DnB, RnB etc

The most popular tracks in each genre I add the tag 'Good' eg Good Disco, Good RnB etc so I can search for thsoe too

I also have one folder called 'recent' that holds all the top latest stuff

Hope that makes sense, at least it works for me (though my roadie hates it lol) but I am sure there are a dozen good and usable methods depending on your own particular psyche and methodology

Rich

[yourdj]

The thought of using iTunes to sort out my DJ collection fills me with dread. I never really paid that much attention to it, but the times I was called on to sync my wife's iPod it had me pulling my hair out. I'm no luddite by any means, but I was beggared if I could figure out how to make it do my bidding.

The fact you have not paid much attention to it is probably why. I find with anything like this you have to get used to whats where first. :)

Having said that using iTunes to sync a device is completely different managing music on it and it just showing up when you open the program. Its dead easy (I use Macbook and Serato) - never had any problems and takes minutes to make playlists.

[Nakatomi]

The fact you have not paid much attention to it is probably why. I find with anything like this you have to get used to whats where first. :)

Having said that using iTunes to sync a device is completely different managing music on it and it just showing up when you open the program. Its dead easy (I use Macbook and Serato) - never had any problems and takes minutes to make playlists.

I think there's something about the way iTunes is supposed to work that I just never 'got'. For what it's worth I did give it a fair crack of the whip. I was only interested in managing music purchases & trying to get them onto an iDevice. I succeeded a few times, but it the times it failed were a major annoyance. It's likely to be very different now - I last tried it a lot of versions ago. Maybe I'll visit it again someday :)

[yourdj]

I think there's something about the way iTunes is supposed to work that I just never 'got'. For what it's worth I did give it a fair crack of the whip. I was only interested in managing music purchases & trying to get them onto an iDevice. I succeeded a few times, but it the times it failed were a major annoyance. It's likely to be very different now - I last tried it a lot of versions ago. Maybe I'll visit it again someday :)

They do have a knack of changing it every 6 months and moving things about which is very annoying.
I must say though its much better than it was a few years back.

Having said that i have not ever had a problem with sorting music, but its when they move things about that makes it confusing.
I also don't get on when syncing devices so understand from that point of view.
Its apple trying to keep everything through iTunes that makes it complicated.

[Tom]

Well I recently installed a new copy of Windows 7 for only £35, well chuffed with that, so I can now make a start ripping the CD's.

Going to be a long and tedious job but has to be done, and done right first time.

[yourdj]

I would personally pay someone to do it for me. Someone out of work (or a student needing some pocket money) with a couple of days on their hands. set a fee for each CD and do something else (unless you enjoy it)?

I am like that with DMX. I have better things to do than sit in a room all day tweaking my knobs. ;)

[Tom]

I would personally pay someone to do it for me. Someone out of work (or a student needing some pocket money) with a couple of days on their hands. set a fee for each CD and do something else (unless you enjoy it)?

I am like that with DMX. I have better things to do than sit in a room all day tweaking my knobs. ;)


lol. If I had someone I could trust I would, but I think I'll just do it myself lol

Ohh I used to love programming DMX on my laptop. Set everything up, stand included and just sit there and program everything. Only had 3 programs (fast, medium and slow) so I upload that to the ryger foot controller and just use my feet to press the buttons leaving my hands free to do everything else. Was also able to control the lights on the fly. For example, one venue has a mirror ball which was on and working but the lights had failed. Pointed my X-moves led moving heads to the mirror ball for the first dance. No one expected that and it looked awesome.

[Benny Smyth]

I am like that with DMX. I have better things to do than sit in a room all day tweaking my knobs. ;)

The thought of having someone else doing my DMX'ing for me makes me want to cry. It's a horrid job, but once it's done...

I'm clearly a control freak! :p