Prep-time on tracks, setting cues etc...

[durtyjerzy609]

because i use SSL, i let it do all the BPM's and such, as for cue points, i add them as i play. also because i use the dicers, i make my loops on the fly, although for certain tracks, ill make a loop or two.. i just find it easier that way. staring at wave forms for too long makes my brain hurt and i never seem to get my cue point where it needs to be, so i let my highly skilled ears do the work,press a button, and BAM! instant cue point

[soundinmotiondj]

I work with songs in two categories.

When ripping any new music, I add all the tags, and file it in the right folder for me. I may make a playlist that includes the songs...depending on what I'm adding. Whenever I finish ripping a batch of new CDs, I will also backup my main external harddrive. I will listen to the songs as I go, but I'm not always listening critically at this point. When I am ripping more than a couple CDs, there is too much music to listen to while I'm ripping. I typically buy 10-20 CDs a month, and I can process about 4 CDs an hour when I'm ripping & tagging. (One thing I would *never* do is to rip CDs while I'm at work on looooong conference calls... )

The Vast Majority of this music will NEVER be imported or analyzed in Traktor.

When I was first working with Traktor and building a "critical mass" of songs to use, I would listen to the full song, beatgrid, drop a load point, and mark the mix out points. I spent maybe 5 minutes per song. I did this until I had about 250-300 songs processed.

Now, I take a LOT more time...but I also have a much better idea of how I like to have songs prepped for use at a gig. To start, I will let Traktor take a pass at the beatgrid. I listen to the song from start to finish and drop "rough" cue points & loops. I fix the beatgrid as needed. I go back and adjust all those cue points and set a load marker and a mix in/out marker. I fix any loop markers. I then listen to the song from the load marker to the end...with any intro/outro mix loops active. If I'm happy, I'm done...if not, there are more revisions. I update any comments or tags, and verify that the song is "fully tagged" for my own purposes. The song also gets added to whatever playlists are appropriate. This whole process takes 15-20 minutes per song...depending on how focused and picky I'm feeling on that day.

At a typical gig, I will grab about 1 song an hour from the "archive" to import into Traktor and play. These will get auto-analyzed...and I will probably drop a load marker. Unless the beatgrid is *insane* (e.g. off by a factor of 2), I typically do not mess with it at a gig. I just mix in/out by ear and try not to get fancy with loops or cue points. AFTER the gig, I will process these songs using the method I described above.