Traktor Playlist Help Needed

[DJLp]

Ok guys (and ladies), since 2004 when I started with Traktor 2, I alwaus spun using the folders under the explorer tree. Prior to Traktor 3, the folders remember their position and sort order. Well as most of you know, that's not the case with Traktor 3 as another blogger kindly informed me.

Well, I'm ready to convert to using the actual Traktor playlist features to get the functionality back from when the explorer folders acted the way that I wanted them to. However, I'm running into an issue that I don't know how to overcome.

In the browser tree under my [Playlists / Mixes] header is where (to the best of my knowledge) I would only expect to see the default playlists/folders of History, Mixes, Purchased Tracks and Collection (plus demo for those that may still see that playlist). However, it appears that under MY tab, I have a folder for EVERY artist in my collection. I want to delete these so that I only see the defaults along with whatever I choose to create. I can't (or don't know how) to delete them AND I'm willing to slide them into their own folder but I can't seem to find an easy way to do that due to the large number of artists.

Because I'm new to the playlist feature, I'm sure there's a simple solution or work around. I just don't know what it is. Are these folders a result of the collection playlist? If so and I decide to delete it, won't those folders just reappear as I create my new playlists? I also checked the Traktor 3 folder and there's no sign of anything there that would allow me to delete these artist folders.

Help me please and feel free to be as detailed as possible. I understand the overall concept of working with and creating playlists and folders. It's just this artist folder issue that's slowing me down and confusing me.

Thanks all. I look forward to your replies, tips, tricks and education.

One other small thing. Speaking of that collection playlist, the total number of tracks in that vs. the total number of tracks in my Track Collection count differ by over 500 tracks (13,436 vs. 12,806). Any idea why those don't naturally match?

DjLp

[DvlsAdvct]

Alright... here we go.

The section under My Collection is not a playlist. It is your entire collection as imported by you into Traktor. The four folders (artist, album, date and... genre, I think) that you can expand only sort that collection. I believe that if you delete them out of there you delete them out of your Library (Collection). You can use the My Collection section to sort through everything by BPM, artist, release, etc..

Now, playlists.

You can create as many playlists as you want. They kinda resemble Crates in Serato. This is where I think you want to master. These, also, will hold to the order you put them in. Now you can create as many playlists as your heart desires, AND you can create folders for those playlists. So, hypothetically, you want to organize all of your Drum and Bass. You create a DnB folder. Then you place another folder in there for subgenres. Then you put specific playlists in there separated by feel/origin/time frame/whatever your heart desires.

Now, you should start by importing everything into your collection. The issue with running only out of the explorer is that only tracks you have played are in your collection. So you might want to import them, and then sort them into playlists.

The Artist folder that pops up is linking you based on your tags, I believe. So it's telling you how many artists you have, and will sort based on the artists that are tagged (I believe, once again. Traktor is not in front of me)

Where is your collection playlist? I've never seen that. Regardless, make sure there aren't any duplicates, and run a consistency check on your Track Collection.

Hope this helped at least a little.

[DJLp]

Uhhhh....maybe I described my issue wrong (though I appreciate the quick response). I'm FULLY familiar with what you're describing as my collection with the 4 subfolders. I used to spin directly from the genre folder with Traktor 2. But because Traktor 3 doesn't hold or remember it's sorting using the browser folders, I'm now moving over to playlist for the first time.

Under what you're refering to as "my collection" which is labled Track Collection, you'll see the Explorer folder and then the Playlist / Mixes folder which is what I'm speaking of. Under that, the defaults are:

Demo (that folder is only there if Traktor's Demo tracks are still in your collection)
History (all the stuff you've played sorted by date since the collection was created)
Mixes (self explanatory)
Purchased Tracks (same as above)
Collection (it's supposed to be all of the tracks in your collection from what I understand)

What I was saying is that under my Playlist / Mixes folder, I have a ton of artist folders that I didn't create. That's what I'm trying to delete or move or something.

[DvlsAdvct]

OH! That makes a lot more sense then... good thing work is slow today or I would have felt jipped by making that long response ;-)

If you delete a playlist it won't delete from your collection. It is weird it's there, though. never heard of that.

[DJLp]

Yeah...I took a gamble and deleted that collection playlist. No issue there BUT it did not rememdy the artist folders. Then I went ahead and deleted the track collection and re-imported it and they're still there. I'm going to see if anyone has any ideas within the next few hours and if nothing arises then I'll do a full reinstall -sigh-.

Thanks again for your quick responses.

[DvlsAdvct]

You can't delete the artist folders?

[DJLp]

Nope...not under the playlist tab. When I hit delete nothing happens. When I right click, I can only create a folder or a playlist.