DJ Tips: Best Music Library Organisation (demo in Rekordbox) | DJ Series Ep04

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In this episode, I talk about what I think is the best way to organise your music library in Rekordbox, Serato or any other type of DJ software. I've never been taught how to organise my music library by anyone else, so any similarities with other people's methods are coincidence! These are ideas, methods and systems that I've created through trial & error over my years of DJing.
Some of the things I talk about include:
• How to playlist your music
• How to use My Tag
• Organising music by the energy (intensity)
• Colour coding Hot Cues to make creative mixing easier
• Categories to use
• Things to avoid when organising your music library
Blog Post: www.megan-fernandez.com/post/...
I'm condensing down my years of experience working and travelling as an international DJ into a series of videos. These tips are also useful for any type of Performer as well as anyone who book/looks after performers (DJ Managers, Artist Directors, Stage Managers, Agents, Promoters etc)! If you're a beginner and haven't had many gigs or pretty experienced and have been DJing fo a while but want some new ideas, I'm sure there will be some useful info for you :)
This is exclusive info that you won't find anywhere else on the internet... let alone for free! Let me know in the comments what you think of my tips and if you have any others to share. I'm making these videos because I want to help out anyone who has the dream of becoming a DJ and with events still banned in most countries, it's going to be a while before you can learn from experiences yourself. But that doesn't mean you can't make the most of your time and keep learning now!
Please Like the video if you enjoyed it, let me know what you think in the comments and don't forget to Subscribe to my channel to see more videos about what I get up to.
Instagram: @meganfernandez.dj
www.megan-fernandez.com
www.soundcloud.com/djmeganfernandez
Contact: meganfernandezinfo@gmail.com
Filmed on my iPhone
Music from Epidemic Sound

Опубликовано:

20 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 32

@jimmythetulip_ 2 года назад

This is now the most powerful video on RU-vid on this topic. 🙏🏻 It helps me a lot. Thank you, Megan!

@DJMeganFernandez 2 года назад

Thanks- very kind. You're so welcome!

@767swo 2 года назад

Carbon copy cloner (Mac) makes changing drives or backing up the internal or external drive easy. Full and incremental backups are a one click job. I backup internal to an external and also back up that external to another external. Application does it while I sleep

@eduardojvivas Год назад

Thank you! Been on a organizing craze. Best video so far. After 10 years of now djing now, I’ve realized how import the art of music sorting with meta tags is. I always micro management through folders. i found my self jumping from folders to folders and just couldn’t find the right track. Now with meta tags i create generalized folders with different genres in them and just filter with meta tags. Ive learned to make playlist that keep a mood or a vibe going rather than being genre/bpm/key/etc. specific

@Amatteus 11 месяцев назад

Megan.. I loved your video. Thank you.

@AlexRocks85 Год назад

Thank you for sharing your backstage gimmicks!!! Not much Dj's are doing this so the ones starting this journey or others already on might learn something or fine-tuning their libraries. Thanks again and good luck! ❤❤

@mikaelcummings9422 Год назад

Super helpful, if you were to start over today, how will you go about building your music library?

@shaneterry1924 Год назад

Thank you for this! I nerd out on music organization so this was really helpful to inspire some ideas. I also set hot cues similarly and something that I found super helpful is to have a hot cue at a mix out point with that cue set to an auto loop. That way if I ever want to get out of a track I can easily jump to a quieter part of the song and the loop gives me time to bring in my next track. That hot cue is always color coded red for me and I always use the E one (for “end” haha). It’s usually set on the earliest part of the outro or sometimes even earlier if there’s a place with less harmonics. Then when I bring in my new track I can release the end loop to continue the old tracks outro until I kill it or it just fades out on its own. Just thought I’d try and offer something in return since you put in all that work to share your insights! 🙏🙏

@esmewinonamae5043 Год назад

This really helped. Thank you

@geraldfer 2 года назад

All my drives are externals. Now I'm moving over to SSD and that makes me feel better about the security of the drives and files... Non movement storage vs platters... Non movement for me wins every time 👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿

@djaccold Год назад

Pretty good

@symsyhq 2 года назад

Great of you to share your outlook and thoughts .. makes so much sense thanks , just about to grab a controller and get cracking - inspired ti start playing my tunes for me and others again

@DJMeganFernandez 2 года назад

Love that Steve! Enjoy :)

@velanche Год назад

Hey thanks for making the video! I have recently started rebuilding my DJ library, and I have started doing it mainly based on tracks I’ll actually play, which means preparing lots of tracks from hot cues to beatgridding to tagging. I dig some of your ideas. The way you are tagging on the right side, I’ll have to ponder on how best to do it, especially since I use Serato, but also use Mixed In Key for editing the metadata en masse. Energy is one of those categories that I struggled with, to the point where I ignore what MIK rates (I should maybe hide them), yet I also am finding the star rating system kinda lackluster. I think your E-1 to E-3 ratings is more sensible and leads to quicker decisions. Maybe I’ll add it to comments as a way for having smart playlists pick them up; I’ll see. But again, really good nuggets here; thanks so much!

@KemberGold 3 года назад

Loved this! Thanks girl... I've been DJing since 2014 and my playlists etc have always been a hot mess haha.. I've made it my mission to sort things out properly from now on. Such a big project though!! Appreciate the tips :)

@DJMeganFernandez 3 года назад

It's a huge project but so much easier if you break it down! When I completely reorganised mine I sorted all tracks by Name and then did a few letters/numbers each day. It made it seem like way less of a mountain to get through. Good luck and glad that I could help! :)

@HollyBuckenham 3 года назад

Great video, thanks for sharing, Megan. This is super useful for me as I'm in the process of trying to put in place a good library management system at the moment. I have a question about cueing - when you have a long track with perhaps 2-3 breakdowns, as well as lots of other stuff going on that would need cues, which 'type' take precedent in your system? I've been thinking about when to use hot vs memory cues to maximise the available slots, but still haven't landed on the best system for busy tracks...

@DJMeganFernandez 3 года назад

Hey Holly, thanks for your comment. I would say that it varies track to track and the best thing to do Is to think about how you’re most likely to use the track. Is there a really cool vocal that you want to use as part of a mix? Is there a drop that it’s unlikely that you’ll use as part of a mix so you can prioritise using your cue points elsewhere? It’s pretty subjective so difficult to a specific answer, but just trying to think of the track in context and base the cue points on that. You don’t have to cue every feature- just the ones that you need. Worst comes to worst, duplicate the track so that you have 2 copies (change track name to differentiate them) and set different cue points on each one. I can’t ever imagine needing that for a normal track but maybe an acapella or something might need that. Good luck with your DJing and hope that helps!

@LaurentEgliAdventure Год назад

Focus focus focus ...... I need to Focus LOL

@ZacharySound 3 года назад

01:30 The cloud/backup. I also prefer to have a hard drive with all my music on it. I still haven't decided to get a cloud service yet. 8:30 Tags. I have not thought of using the tags to 'find what I am looking for' as you say. That.., I think could come in very useful. The issue I have is labeling the tags in such a way that would relate to what I want to find for a specific moment, even etc. The amount of genres and sub genres out there make organizing music way to confusing for even the most experienced in my opinion. Finding the right tag label for music you want to play at a specific time is not easy - at leas for me because there is so much. It seems that if you use tags you can eliminate the need for a plethora of playlist that can take a long time to scroll through on a CDJ screen. 11:00 Backing up/export database method." That is a very simple way to do it. I mirror the music folder path on my desktop at home to my laptop. Music I acquire initially goes to the desktop first so I keep the folder on the laptop synced and then just bring the exported data base folder over to the laptop and do an import - everything is kept up to date (Playlist, cue points, tags etc). Appreciate that you explain how you classify your genres/playlists. That is the hard part agree it is certainly subjective. I have one question and please let me know if this doesn't really apply to your work flow: how do you locate tracks or track pairs in your collection that will mix/transition well together? Or do you just grab a track that matches the key of the outgoing? I am lightly familiar with the 'related tracks' section in RB that can help match in specific keys, then of course you can create an Intelligent Playlist to list all tracks between 120-124 BPM etc. But not all tracks fit to those filters. I thought a 'track pairs' playlist in Rekordbox could be useful. You can do it with a regular playlist but I'm sure the developers could simplify it.

@DJMeganFernandez 3 года назад

Hi Zachary, thanks so much for your comments! Interesting to read your thoughts and I'm glad some of my tips were useful to you. In response to your question about finding tracks that work well: BPM, Key and Genre are good guides but don't guarantee a good match- it's where your creativity comes in! A mix that you love might not be someone else's cup of tea and vice versa. You just have to put the hours in, practise lots and try different mixes out. Recording these practises and listening back to them later massively helps too as it's very different listening to them when you're not concentrating on mixing. Good luck!

@ZacharySound 3 года назад

@@DJMeganFernandez This is the response I was looking for and maybe I was seeking validation on what I suspected was the case. You mentioned 'where the creativity comes in' this is what I thought as I have always believed you should never tell anyone how to mix. And...'A mix that you love might not be someone else's cup of tea' - sure there are hundreds of tutorial videos out there that tell you how and that you should mix in key but do not mention that 'BPM, Key and Genre are good guides but don't guarantee a good match'. I find myself spending A LOT of time just listening to two tracks transition while in export mode to see how they 'mesh' and yes it takes a lot of time to find good tracks that pair well - so I made a playlist specifically for these pairs to have available. (When doing this I see the where the urge comes in to want to manipulate or produce a sound you are looking for too). Have always wondered if others did the same..

@elishamceleney1704 3 года назад

Hello. This was great to watch! Can you tell me more info on having your external hard drive with all your music running through rekordbox? My laptop is running out of storage and I would like to do this just not sure how! Do I need to export my full rekordbox library to the external hard drive and delete the files on my computer? Thanks! X

@DJMeganFernandez 3 года назад

Hi Elisha, I copied all of my music files onto my external hard drive and triple checked that they had all transferred before deleting anything from my laptop. Then open Rekordbox, go to settings > advanced > database management (bottom of the list) and select your external hard drive as the source. I've never personally had an issue with it- even in performance mode. Just make sure that you get a good quality External Hard Drive! Hope that helps & thanks for subbing x

@Airgirl881 2 года назад

Super helpful !! I see you don’t use memory cues ? Is there a reason or just preference

@DJMeganFernandez 2 года назад

Thanks Luvey! I use memory cues on some tracks but not all. I usually just scroll through the track and choose my mixing point based on the energy of the gig & kind of transition I want to do. In addition, it takes so much time to set memory cues up and I download so many new tracks every week that I don't have time to do them all. Hope that answers your question!

@SuperFunnyballs 3 года назад

Hello! Great video! Can you tell me where/how you download songs into a hard drive? Like do you pay for songs? I’m very new to djing and I know there’s software like beatport and DJcity. Thanks!

@DJMeganFernandez 2 года назад

Hi Kevin, DJ record pools are the most affordable way to grow your collection. Rather than paying for tracks individually, you pay a monthly subscription. This is worthwhile if you're downloading lots of music. There are different ones for different genres, e.g. DJ City is good for HipHop. Google search and have a look through the results Beatport is a website where you can buy tracks/albums but they don't have a subscription service so are good for of you're inly downloading a few tracks each month. Bandcamp and Tracksource are also good. Soundcloud has lots of Free Downloads of edits and I've got lots of my favourite tracks from there. Good luck!

@symsyhq 2 года назад

Megan a question , do you keep your RKRDBX Library DB on your Machine (Mine Mac) or on the external drive, thinking of starting with a drive from the get go as you suggest. I want to use a SSD to save storage and unlikely to use USB sticks. Do you have any tips for general storage i.e I have heaps of old music on MP3 album by album . using iTunes or other for general play , would you pull out singles from that and duplicate into a RKRDBX folder and to the prep/sort etc as you suggest? God knows I hate iTunes/music but the rest of the house and non DJ users wanna get to the library of albums Thks for advance for any replies

@DJMeganFernandez 2 года назад

I keep all of the files on an External Hard Drive and do iCloud backups once a month too. That way I have physical and digital copies of all my files in case one fails. Keeping the music files on an EHD also stops my computer from slowing down with the storage being filled up. Rekordbox and iTunes are just programs that play the music files- not copies of the files themselves which are saved to your Hard Drive. You don't need to create duplicates of those files for the different programs in order for different software to play/use them. Hope that helps!

@john4710 2 года назад

So these are all Rekordbox playlists, right? How do you organize your music on your actual hard drive? Thanks for the helpful video!

@DJMeganFernandez 2 года назад

Yes they are. I dump all of the files in one folder as then it's easier/quicker for the software to Auto-relocate the files if you ever need to run that process.