S4/Traktor best way to import lots of music for first time

[foresdj]

Hi All,

New to digital DJing.

I would love to have 1 external hard drive with all of my music for traktor for gigs.

I have a lot of my music on an external hard drive - organized in folders by itunes as a part of my library. I am not sure how to best approach having a set folder for traktor to see with my music in it.

If I look in "itunes" in tracktor - it lists voice memos, podcasts, audiobooks and a whole log of music that I wouldnt be spinning at a gig.

I've got perhaps 9000 songs. It's going to be hard to drag them all out of their folders and into a new folder for traktor - as a traktor only folder.

Basically, I am asking for advice on how to bring only the music I want into a special folder - and if I should continue to use iTunes' feature of keeping my music in folders by artist / album etc.

Please help!

Thanks
Fores

[ksandvik]

You could just use the iTunes browser and sort your material using smart play lists in iTunes. You don't get all the benefits of Traktor playlists but maybe that's all you need. As a bonus you could import the smart play lists into Traktor as real playlists over time. iTunes smart playlists are the best that ever happened to DJ organizing, me thinks. Maybe one day Traktor playlists also have smart queries.

[foresdj]

Thanks.

Can you explain iTunes smart playlist to me? I have never used it - do I need to tag everything with the keyword Traktor for example - and then it will come up in Traktor?

What benefits does a Traktor playlist have that an iTunes playlist doesnt have?

I suppose there is no way around sorting your music for the first time - it's a pain any way you look at it?

Best,
Fores

Thanks!

[ksandvik]

You could explore the smart playlists by making one and typing in various queries. For example, if you have tagged your House tracks genres as House, make a smart playlist with Genre = House and there you have all your house tracks. Or all tracks purchased from Beatport in case you have in your comments section the string Beatport. Or all recent tracks purchased within a year that has the BPM range of 127 to 130. Or All tracks by Wolfgang Gartner. And so on. Those smart albums then show up in Traktor under the iTunes node.

[foresdj]

Is the best place to put in a tag in the "COMMENTS" field in iTunes? Some of the tracks already have comments.

If I add a comment - does this append this info to the actual file or only when I browse it through iTunes?

Thanks!!!
Fores