Ableton Live DJs: How do you organize your music?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
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Ableton Live DJs: How do you organize your music?

Hey guys,

I don’t know if this question has been asked often to the Ableton DJs but how do you guys organize your Mp3s when they’re not in a live set? For example today I just finished warping about 15-20 tracks and they’re all stuck in a folder on my hard drive, but I want to edit their id3 tags and stuff using itunes but when I import them into iTunes, iTunes just makes copies of them and stores it in the iTunes music folder without the “.asd” files. Is there a way to just edit the ID3 Tags without moving it to a new folder? I’m running OSX 10.6.7 (Snow Leopard).

Thanks for the help!

P.s. I’m new to ALDJing and I’m used to TP2 where my workflow was more like: Fix 320kbps mp3 with Platinum Notes->Import into iTunes->Open in Finder->Find Key Using Mixed In Key-> Edit ID3 Tags->Import to traktor collection.

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kid3 edits id3 tags

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In iTunes’ settings you can tell it to not import new tracks to the itunes music folder, but leave them where they are, that would work. But I would recommend not using iTunes, but a dedicated program instead.

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What Lysgaard said. There’s an option in iTunes so it doesn’t fuck with moving your music around. I use iTunes for all of my organization, but I also am very particular about where I keep it on my hard-drives (and how the actual file names are tagged).

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Any suggestions for that dedicated program? I’ve got Kid3 suggested so far.

So any tips you can give me on the organization part? I pretty much just stuck all the “processed” mp3s in a folder with their .asd files. If I rename the mp3s will this affect the warping and the .asd files? I was thinking of having a main folder and splitting it into smaller sub folders by Key

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For PC, MediaMonkey all the way.

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Ah yeah heard of that one. I’m using OSX though.

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Damn.. sorry, skipped that in your original post. Well does Trainspotter help? http://www.tspotter.net/

For MAC user… how good/bad “Wine” is to run PC apps?

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Ah yeah forgot about trainspotter. Well I think I’ll just stick to iTunes and find that preference fix since I’m already familiar with how to use it. I’ve never used wine before because I’ve never really had a use for it so sorry if I can’t help there.

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iTunes should be fine for ID3 editing, especially if you use it anyway, if - as said above - you set it not to make a copy of your music but to leave it where it is - it’s in the Preferences > Advanced, untick “Copy files to iTunes library”.

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Ahh thanks for that Digital DJ Tip. :wink: Btw liking that How to Succeed at DJing feature on your site!