Learn two ways anyone can organize music in their DJ library in this new DJ fundamentals video. Support DJTT, purchase your future DJ gear in our store: djttstore.com Watch more DJ Fundamentals here: • DJ Fundamentals 2019
I thought I’d be the one to do a video like this on organizing music by tags first before coming across this video. I organize my music almost exactly like this. The vignette tip was interesting and different from how I would do a vignette. And with me I do not leave space between any part of my tags. And I tag almost everything that I can think about with the song. I tag whether it was a charting or a billboard song or not, whether it’s a sol artist or a group artist, if it’s a male voice or female voice, all the different genres that the song can fall in the category of, whether the song is just clean from curse words or content clean as well, and as well as other helpful tags. I’m now at a point where I can make dozens of tags to one song in the time it takes to listen of the song once so all that’s left afterwards is cueing up the song.
i really love the fact that Ian gives very detailed explanation of the "theory" - but also he follows it up with the practical tasks, which motivates to go and do something immediately after watching the video. very professional educational.
I spend the last 2 days tagging all my songs Now is just a matter of getting used to the way i look for a song on my library Thanks Ian for this greattttt tip
Amazing series Ean! It takes a master of the craft to do this. There are hundreds of video series attempting to do a DJ fundamentals series, yet none come close to achieving the value-added here. You add that Aha! moment to very basic things in a way that benefits a wide range of audience, from beginners to advanced.
This is exactly why I love mixing genres of house, I respect the mobile DJ, how they match up different genres based on swing and BPM is insane, I just don't DJ this stuff, but I got some great ideas that translate to my world I'm stealing the Vignettes name for my organizing, I already use the concept, but didn't have a great name for it.
omg the hashtag is so simple and so brilliant! I started using descriptive words in my comments to find songs of similar vibes, but have the searching problem you described where I get back more songs than just the ones I tagged with that vibe. For instance I have "sweet" and "bittersweet", and when I search "sweet" both come up, which makes it harder to find what I want. Going to try hashtags!
Yeah I like traktor and I also use the comments feature to help me. Since I mix a lot of dance music with long intros, I use it mostly to note where the vocals start. So in deck layout I put this info right on the deck so I always know when to cut off the mix.
I can totally relate to the vignettes. I have some songs where i just find the mix with another song so epic, that everytime i don't hear it, i'm disappointed. So i just can't not do it. This makes me feel less guilty. And the tags tip really would make it easier and faster to find these kind of combo's, without having to dig into all the playlist to see what was the title again, before the cue passed by.
I have been looking for a better way to search out tracks in my collection for a while now and this hashtag idea has hit the nail on the head! Many thanks, works great and just what I was looking for. 🔥🔥🔥
@@UserXxx375 no...in djing. More is more. You need to be able to adapt to any situation. You can match all vibes with a better understanding of music libraries. Utilize your silent cue and learn new tracks constantly both in practice and in sets.
I was looking for this exact solution but I thought I'd have to somehow make another column in the id3 Metadata. This is so much more efficient, excellent vid!
Nice timing on this vid! I learned about the hash-tagging system a few months back from a Djcity video but never tagged all my tunes. Now after watching this and hearing about your vignettes setup I look forward to it!
Great stuff, Ean. I tag my music in a similar fashion, but the idea of vignettes is really innovative. Nice approach and it opened up my thinking to other ways I could use tags to organize my music.
These are great tips, thanks Ean! I have Disclosure "Latch", OutKast "The Whole World", and Tame Impala "Elephant" in a tagged mini-set that is similar to your #Goth Swing vignette list 🤘🏼
Tip: DL lots of songs, delete all the mediocre ones, then done... left with only hits... then sort by BPM and key, and go... Queue points on the fly with a dedicated grid button or to add more grids for songs that drift...
Great video. Thanks! Tagging music is such a time saver. So you create vignettes because the songs have the same beat structure and can be blended. But what about the songs before and after the vignette? How do you blend in and out of a group of songs that's hard to blend in and out of because of the different beat structure?
He said that like youll get it done before your next set. This tactic will take years even if you have tons of free time.lol. not a bad idea by any stretch. But you can tune your dj intiition in a much easier fashion.
Very nice explenation, im gonna use it for sure. Im wondering are there any downsides to the creative aspect of djing when you would use such a categorised approach ? Would love to hear soke feedback just started out since 2 months
Just depends on your mixing skills. When you sort your songs in key its basiclly the same thing like you mix songs from a playlist which is call "melodic techno"or example and your comments to the tracks are "deep" "bright" or "kick"
Ean, do you still use itunes? Or 'music'? It seems to have gotten buggy, and I'm wondering if its just my computer of if people are moving away from it.
i am personally looking for moving away from it as i did have a lot of bugs with unreadable wav recently, but most importantly the lack of support for FLAC files!
Maybe the dynamic search/playlist can search within comments only, so it won't search title and artist, thus not messing the playlist. I am not sure as I don't use the same software.
Hi Ean, i really like your vids. I've just recently switched back from trakor dj on the ipad+z1 traktor mixer, to Traktor pro 3. Now one thing i really really miss is the recommended tracks function on traktor dj. I asked native if they were ever going to implement that function into traktor pro 3. But they denied, it was going to be done :-( Do you know that function? Do you have any solution to work around it on traktor pro? I've literally mixed whole sessions based on the recommended traks function, because it brings up traks that are in similar bpm and similar key. You can surf through house, techhouse, trance progressive, even 90 or 80! because you always get the songs in similar key in one dynamic playlist!! It's so awesome. Any suggestions? Love jay
Wow Traktor is so far behind the curve. Other software has already implemented solutions to these problems long ago. Rekordbox has an amazing filtering system where you can filter quickly based on custom tags, bpm, genre, rating, key etc. You can also create Intelligent playlists. For the second problem you can use Related Tracks, with a single click you can create a link btween two tracks that Rekordbox remembers. You can then see a list of related tracks based on the track you want to play.
There are 21 single filters within Traktor including everything that you mentioned above. My take away from the video was the creation of a unique custom filter where you can retrieve all songs that are mixable with the base song (I.e., Hey Ya) by adding the verbiage in the comment field within Traktor.
@Terry Jackson Rekordbox is extremely good these days. I would say Rekordbox is a better experience live as you can plug it straight into an existing CDJ setup.
I can't move the tracks up or down the list, can you please help? I see the locker on the left side but If I deselect it I won t able still to move the order of the tracks up or down.
theres gotta be a way to save a loop in Serato.. theres a couple songs that i loop everytime i play them, but i can never figure out how to save that loop like a cue point, so when i load the song, its already looped.. anyone ??
Itsa Me DJ Mario below the Hot Cues you'll see two long spaces with a + sign, those let you save the current loop. You can save more loops from their own panel by clicking on the Loops tab to the right or left of the deck panel.
Esalen? i work scholared there which led me to a CIIS M.A. and then lived on Maui where i was sound man at Casanova’s for a couple of years. Pittsburgh now. let me know if you come to town.
Luckily someone told me before i started building my library to tag the shit out of it. Using hashtags is a great idea, I just use normal words and commas, but also set a comma after the last tag. That saves some space compared to hashtags and looks nicer, but works the same: type “dark,“ and you'll get the same results as if you would have used hastags and searched for “#dark“. I think if you use only one hashtag for the entire field, you can't really search for only parts of it, or am I wrong? I also use the label field to “label“ my tracks (new, tagged (which means grid, hotcues and tags are set), played, banger), and put the actual label into the “catalog nr.“, because beatport doesn't fill it anyway and in case I want to make a label theme mix, then its still there.
Very helpful, awesome video- thank you! 🙌🏿 if you are able to share your recommendations on the whole process of music organisation (as in- the steps before importing into the software) do you sort your music in genres/ date, saved in one location or on a HD etc? the tags you added to the tracks comments n smart playlists - are all done within the software, so doesn’t affect the actual file info or ? Thanks so much
Hi - I am a new user of Traktor Pro 3. I prep my song list set cue points, loops and delete duplicates (4000 songs) many are duplicates. When I return the next day my work is not there or it’s lost in a playlist somewhere. Please can you help - I am waistline my time becoming very frustrated.
Great vid!Would you say this applies equally for for digital and non digital dj's? As non digital would you apply it more just to organise your playlists prior to a show? Or on the fly on the DJM?
Are folks organizing their music in Apple Music/iTunes first with tags and then pulling into Traktor, or are you all doing everything in Traktor. Asking mainly because I am jumping from Serato-2-Traktor-2-Rekorbox from time to time and was wondering about best practices and what others are doing.
In Rekordbox I can use 'My Tag' that allows me to add multiple genre tags to a single track. I can then use Intelligent playlists inside Rekordbox or the Filter browser to narrow a search by Tags.
If I'm understanding correctly. You can certainly do this within Traktor. Once your songs are tagged. Filter on "genre" (I.e., Soul House, House, Tech House, or Progressive House, etc....). Step 1. Create and name your playlist Step 2. drag your filter results into the playlist
Hey ya or whatever is the spelling might be a Samba beat 1 and ah two the double. A real Cha Cha has an accent on count 1 that is likely more pronounced than a west coast swing. Both 3/4 music and similar BPM. So learning about about dance timing will help your DJ skills. Which DJ’s don’t dance. What a shame I never hear experts talk about that.
in my opinion its results in less creativity and less options. I have a "plan" too in my head but "no battle plan ever survives the first encounter with the enemy"
I know you’re all about traktor, should it ever allow support on professional equipment (and I mean no insult but I do not consider NI Controllers in the Pro category) If they’d get on Denon Dj prime gear that would legit skyrocket Traktor use IMO. That’s the only place I see actual interest in using that boring but efficient with EDM software. Since it only plays on it’s own expensive toys and Pioneer, sorta/sometimes.... no one cares about traktor. And I loved this software.