Downsizing traktor library & getting rid of nonDJ tracks, anyway to make this easier?

[completej]

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[papo]

Attached to this post.

Thanks!

[Xonetacular]

Bumping an old thread here

I've cleaned out the majority of my traktor library and music on my laptop. I backed up all of my music and it is on a hard drive somewhere then have been on a deleting/tagging frenzy.

I started at 28,000 songs in my traktor library and am down to around 4,000 right now. I want to get to like 2,000 tracks to make it manageable.

Right now I would say maybe 70% of my library is tagged with trainspotter and has proper tags and art.

I use the beatport tagging since I can't seem to figure out the discogs part so I had to skip over a lot of older UK dubstep that wasn't released on beatport. I need to figure out the discogs part.

DJing with cover art is amazing and I wouldn't do it any other way now that I have it.

The hard part with downsizing is being really discerning about what to keep and what to delete. There is a lot of stuff I probably won't DJ with but is good and I kind of want to keep it just in case. There is also a lot of music that is good and I like that I could use in a mix but it just doesn't stand out to me over my other tracks so I probably should delete it?

Then again I kind of like having some stuff like that just in case I'm in a mood to browse my collection and mix something different, just like if I was browsing a record collection and you wouldn't toss out a decent record- but this is digital so I just have to be more discerning and somehow have a system and a cut off point for what gets tossed out.

[completej]

I worked more on categorization before deletion, personally, so I could further develop my tastes and practice my distinction between tracks / artists / labels. I didn't initially know what sound I preferred more (progressive, old school progressive, techno, techy techno, etc), so I created multiple playlists for each and separated them as best as I could, regardless of actual genre attachment.

I think this process allowed me to discover tracks that had "more" to them than others. Ones that are progressive with electro flair, or tech house tracks that have a bit of techno to them, and so on. As I matured my star rating system, tracks that just didn't have a variety to them got the 3 star, and others higher the better they were.

I also preferred to keep tracks that I may or may not DJ with, but that were 4 star and above. Occasionally, I go on a delete binge, as if the track wronged me or something and I just get rid of it. If I have to think more than a few seconds after a hook or drop or build or something to decide if I like it, I get rid of it. The only tracks that don't really follow this process are ambient / chill tracks, as I like to take intros or loops from those and loop into an edit, remix, sample, etc. Always nice to set some space in a mix, or open slowly a mix with some ambient noise or sound, then roll in a filtered kick and build up to the beginning of a track.

I also work each separated playlist a bit every week or so, then switch off. The longer my ears hear the same sound, the more difficult it becomes for me to discern between those I like and those I do not. After a couple weeks, I return to that playlist, and the crap is more noticeable and is quickly purged.

I'm down to 6,524 tracks right now, and about 1,000 of those are trance, crooklyn tracks from bar DJing, some hip hop from my earlier days, and quite a few remaining compilation tracks from Global Underground releases. Those have been tough to get rid of as they tend to be mixed tracks and I go back and review each transition, learn a bit more about the artists that mixed them, and so on. GU releases really pushed me over the edge to DJ a few years ago, so they have a bit more sentimental value than others.

edit: I think my final step will be - once I have eliminated all existing 2, 3 star tracks (1 stars get the axe on a daily basis), then all 4 stars will become 3 stars, all 5s will be 4s, and this should allow me to further separate the best tracks from the rest, and I will groom like that from now on. If a track floats in 4 and 5 consistently for a few cycles, I will know it's a keeper even if my tastest change. I look at tracks I started picking up when I first got my gear and I've left quite a few behind.

[Xonetacular]

That's interesting with the star system, seems like you have quite a process down. I don't use the star rating system at all yet and I'm not sure how I would incorporate it.

How do you manage your files or do you just use itunes for that?

Right not I really need to do something major about how my music is sorted once I tag everything properly. It is all floating around in random folders then I have the fragmented remains of the empty folders where my old sorted music was.

I had a lot of my non DJ music sorted in artist folders with album folders inside those and that was a ton of different artists. I deleted the old music by deleting from within traktor and selecting remove from traktor collection and hard drive, so now I have a bunch of abandoned empty folders since it just deletes the files.

I want to use some program to re sort my music but I'm not sure what or how I want to do it. I would use itunes but then if a tag changes itunes moves it and it screws up traktor and I use cover art so I can't use itunes within traktor. There are also compilations and stuff that would ideally be kept in the same folder and not split up into different artist folders so I don't know hot to approach it.

[3IJ]

Don't have time to read the whole thread so sorry if repost. anyway, some good tips here:

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2011/09...unkie-dj-mp3s/

[papo]

That's interesting with the star system, seems like you have quite a process down. I don't use the star rating system at all yet and I'm not sure how I would incorporate it.

How do you manage your files or do you just use itunes for that?

Right not I really need to do something major about how my music is sorted once I tag everything properly. It is all floating around in random folders then I have the fragmented remains of the empty folders where my old sorted music was.

I had a lot of my non DJ music sorted in artist folders with album folders inside those and that was a ton of different artists. I deleted the old music by deleting from within traktor and selecting remove from traktor collection and hard drive, so now I have a bunch of abandoned empty folders since it just deletes the files.

I want to use some program to re sort my music but I'm not sure what or how I want to do it. I would use itunes but then if a tag changes itunes moves it and it screws up traktor and I use cover art so I can't use itunes within traktor. There are also compilations and stuff that would ideally be kept in the same folder and not split up into different artist folders so I don't know hot to approach it.

I never used iTunes to manage my music, because I did not like how it would create folder on its own and move them around.

I did a little research and weighed my options and found out how to use iTunes they way I wanted to. I can say, so far, it has worked.

Before I go into more detail, are you on a Mac or PC?

[Xonetacular]

I never used iTunes to manage my music, because I did not like how it would create folder on its own and move them around.

I did a little research and weighed my options and found out how to use iTunes they way I wanted to. I can say, so far, it has worked.

Before I go into more detail, are you on a Mac or PC?

Yeah same here.

I'm on a Mac.

[papo]

Yeah same here.

I'm on a Mac.

Great. I am using one too.

I will be glad to show you my workflow in real-time using something like teamviewer. I can show you how everything works so you can see it first hand.

When I have a little more time, I will create a little write up so everyone on here can gather some ideas as well.

Let me know if you are up for it. I am more than happy to help a fellow DJTT member out.

[completej]

Don't have time to read the whole thread so sorry if repost. anyway, some good tips here:

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2011/09...unkie-dj-mp3s/

That's my article :P


and I use iTunes 100%, and feed off of iTunes playlists in Traktor. I do not let Traktor manage my collection. I do this so anything I change in iTunes, from playlist to comments to location to play order to genre to tag (and so on) is updated either on my phone, my ipad, or anywhere else in my system. I edit directly from iTunes to Ableton. iTunes is my bread and butter - I only crack open Traktor when I'm completely sorted out and ready to play.

People swear it is too slow to use this process, but I find a "Refresh Playlist" command in Traktor takes absolutely no more than 5 seconds to re-grab everything. I don't know if this is the SSD talking - it shouldn't matter because all my music is on my LaCie 250gb external 5400rpm hdd - but it's fast enough for me to do it even in live situations where I would rather create a quick playlist of items based on my insane amount of relational smart playlists.

I work in T-SQL daily, so my life depends on the ability to ask my DB (in this case iTunes) a query, and have a response based on several parameters. I simply don't feel like I have the power in Traktor that I do in iTunes, and this is the main reason I stick with it.

edit: and if you notice the recent changes to Trainspotter in regards to its iTunes issues - that was me complaining to wsy when it broke. :P

Beatport tagging has been a godsend to update the files where I need it them most - key, year, and genre. While I don't rely 100% on those values, it is fantastic to have them accurate. I hear ya on the items that didn't get a BP release - I used Picard and other tools to query other DBs like Discogs for that info a year ago.