If you have a large iTunes library, I experienced a severe drop in Traktor performance until this obvious change that I'm sure will help others that have not yet discovered it.

By default, Traktor sets the entire "My Music" windows folder, as a music folder within Traktor. This puts a lot of CPU strain on startup, and takes up a lot of memory as Traktor is loading the iTunes music twice. With the usual indexed iTunes library file and the entire "My Music" folder that is not indexed, and takes an age to load.

To add insult to injury I had traktor set to import and analyse the music folder on startup. Yup - every time I opened Traktor it scanned through over 60gb worth of files (even podcasts).

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Traktor
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- If you already have thousands of tracks in your collection from iTunes I strongly recommend removing your entire Traktor collection and starting again, only adding tracks you play.

- Make sure you do not have the Import Music-Folders at Startup and Analyse new imported tracks tick boxes selected, or you will have to start over.

First of all I had created another folder within the default windows "My Music", to place music files purchased elsewhere/stored outside of iTunes.

Within Traktor:

Settings > File Management

Under music folders click onto the \My Music\ path and then Change

Select your newly created folder. If you want to use more, click add for more locations.

- Be careful not to use a folder that would make iTunes a sub-folder, as Traktor scans all sub-folders.

You can now select the Import Music-Folders at Startup and Analyse new imported tracks tick boxes.

The initial startup will take a while, as Traktor will re-analyse your new folder if there is a large number of files.

Since this change, my CPU usage went from going in the red to less than a quarter. Opening up Traktor used to be overkill, now it only takes a few seconds.

I can still browse through my entire iTunes collection within Traktor at speed, as Traktor is using the indexed iTunes library.

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Managing Files
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I use the Beatport downloader, with my newly made folder as the default location. Whenever I purchase new music all I do is open Traktor and it's all there analysed and ready.

Tracks from iTunes are added to my Traktor collection only when needed: loading into a deck or adding to a Traktor playlist.

If you want place the music from your newly created folder into iTunes, I believe there is a way to set iTunes to scan this folder and add any new tracks to the iTunes library on startup.

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Further Improvements
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To improve performance even further, I had installed a second hard drive and changed the default My Music location onto the second drive. This will also help speed up your PC in general.

The second hard drive only has my music files and the Traktor collection, nothing else.

This way, access to the music files is much quicker as there is no need for the PC to index through an entire hard drive full of temporary system files (and god knows whats in your browsing history ).

Think of it as a hard drive with two reading heads - On gathers data for the software, drivers etc. and the other is in place ready to load your music instantly - Using just one hard drive means the head is going back a forth all over the place.


To do this (I use Windows 7) locate your My Music library (not the folder, Windows will show this as a little note icon) and right click onto it and choose properties, then the Location tab.

Select your new drive by clicking Move. Windows will conveniently move all of your files to the new drive. All of your other software such as iTunes will work as before, as everything is directed to the new location by default.

You can also do the same your My Documents folder if you wish.