Tips for building a library

[dsharps]

Is there an easy way to acquire large quantities of a specific genre of music? I subscribe to the 8th wonder DJ pool, but they've only got around 5,000 tracks total. I was wondering how you guys built up your libraries and how many tracks you have.

[DJMutagen]

The way I do it:

Throw all your new tracks into a new playlist in your fav media player. (Mine is iTunes or songbird) I like to make new playlists named by genre, date and how i obtained them
Then while viewing the playlists, listen to the tracks and mark them between 1-5

I then use Ean's way (kinda) to do the rest, make folders for your genre (Dub, Electro, Trance) and put a 'I' 'II' and 'III' folders in them

All tracks rated 1 or 2 stars (or 0 :-D)... throw them the fuck out... lol.

I take the 3 starred ones and put in the 'I' folder, 4 starred ones in the 'II' and the ones that give you goosebumps and involuntary movement... You put those gems in the 'III'

After this I delete those songs and the playlist to start anew

Another optional step, this is obviously up to you, but I do it, run each folder through Rapid Evo or your fav Key app or BPM software blah blah

And as for playing them from the folders, KNOW YOUR TRACKS, KNOW WHAT SOUND YOU WANT. Eventually with this system in place you will know the song, know what it makes YOU do and know what folder you placed it in... For all the times you cant remember, click parent folder and search in traktor :-D

[photojojo]

Is there an easy way to acquire large quantities of a specific genre of music?

Spend a lot of money.

[rt24]

Spend a lot of money.

About to say the same thing. I don't understand this perception of most people that DJs have 100,000+ tracks in their library. I've been djing for about 5 months and I have a total of 109 last time I checked. Even having over like 5,000 songs to cue, beat-grid, and learn about is wayyy too much. Pretty soon I will start adding songs to old libraries because it's getting hard to keep track of even 100 songs.

And uh yeah... I hope you are buying your music OP, and arent' one of those DJs who thinks he is all legit and gets half his shit from limewire.

[addNtoX]

I take the 3 starred ones and put in the 'I' folder, 4 starred ones in the 'II' and the ones that give you goosebumps and involuntary movement... You put those gems in the 'III'

Could you give an example of a couple of your 'III' tracks?
I seem to always end up with 'I' and 'II' tracks (genre is Electro and it's derivatives)

[djalexlaine]

you need to buy music... a good way to do it is to go to the music store, and buy compilation albums, unmixed versions. that will get you some of the classic tracks that everyone needs. go through beatports top 100 for that genre and just spend time. what i do is a say, im going to buy about $20 in dance music every other week. (im on a budget and i get some promos).
once you start djing more, you are going to start getting promos, which will help.

[Karlos Santos]

Dont sweat a large collection.
Its not important. My PC library has 100,00+ tracks on it. Its too much.

My gig laptop has 32,000 and thats to cover a lot of genres.
If your the kind of DJ that plays mostly one Genre (and i consider Dance music to be just one that includes anything 4/4) then you just need the tunes you want to play. Ive got 10s of 1000s of Indie related tunes and as many pop tunes cus i need em.

I have to play requests at most my weekly nites so my laptop has some of the worst shite known to mankind on it... my choice to do the gigs so i need the shite... (in fact im gonna have look for the worst song in my collection)

Im not gonna get dragged into the "buy it dont steal it" thing but you shouldnt just fill your laptop up with as much stuff as possible. It just gets in the way.

Hone your taste, get the music you want or need to play.
Or get a Top40 gig like me and spend your hard earned money on the latest Britney Spears turd...

[dsharps]

Yeah, I don't go for the limewire thing. Usually ends up in poor quality, misnamed tracks, and nobody gets paid. Compilation albums are a good idea though. I need some of the classics, you know. Beatport's solid, but a little pricey. Is that just how things are?

[Karlos Santos]

Limewire will fill your laptop with the ebola virus.

Anyone going on Limewire should ask themselves this question:
If i put a sweetie in a dog turd would you take the sweetie out to eat it.

That MP3 off limewire is covered in dog poop.

[stringerhye]

I shouldn't advocate piracy, but I do it. That's how I've gotten all my tracks and then I just store them in one folder titled "DJ Tracks" then I just organize them in Traktor. I've thought about using iTunes to do it, but I don't want to clutter it up.