Surely you don’t know all your tracks, but what do you know?
OK so your music collection is getting pretty hefty and your memory is full of stuff. So much so that you surley can’t know everything about all your tracks inside out? or do you?
If you do, are you a super human or do all you djs have this super human power?
If not, what do you know about each track to allow you to pull off being a dj?
I’m basically hopeless for learning stuff and just love to play music and mess around with it, i move onto the next track before i’ve learnt enough about the track before. This is why this is just a hobby to me, and i’m happy it being that.
But how about you how do you deal with limited personal headspace to keep it all up there.
I know there’s no way I can know every song I own, but I’m going through a rather laborious procedure of organizing my collection down to about 1/8th of its entirety, moving only songs I will actually DJ into Traktor.
Of those songs I can usually look at the artist name and have a really good understanding of the style of the song. For songs I spin a lot I can probably break down the structure before I even hear the opening line.
Right now I’m also going through the process of tagging genre and sub-genre, and putting needed cue points in. Eventually this is going to be a process of standardization (Cue 1 is where the mix ends, Cue 2 is the introduction, Cue 3 is the chorus, Cue 4 is the bridge, Cue 5 is the melody with no vocals, Cue 6 is the breakdown, Cue 7 is a mix in loop and Cue 8 is the outro) but that is going to take more time. And I’m going to try a star rating based on energy (not quality, though). That’ll take more trial and error.
It will also allow me to not need to process the information by memory, but instead by sight and can make my mixes much more solid. And it’ll help me get to know each song’s inner workings.
For me it’s about understanding the energy of the songs, which, really, you can know with a quick preview hit
Can I sit there in a silent room and explain to you the layout of a track from just it’s name? Not a chance.
But play me a 5 second clip and I can name the track and artist, the genre, ballpark the BPM, whether there are some really notable events in the track that should be looked at (breakdowns, vocals, classic beats, useful hooks) and probably suggest something that might go with it.
I think in pictures and dance music creates pictures in my head - tracks have shapes, grooves have colors, vocals create emotional images.
The ability to quickly preview a track is vital to me, names as words don’t work for me so well. I just wish I could add “preview cuepoints” to the tracks in my collection so that I could get to the memorable bit faster. Native Instruments? Hello?
what I miss in traktor is a comment tag thing independent of the cue point!! it would be awesome to remember certain part in song when you haven’t play for a while.
Ian did a blog on this some time ago if i remember right. The idea being that you put the name of that track in any tracks comments tag that you have assosiated it with so that when you search by track name you get all the tracks listed that are associated with it to.
I started DJing years ago using vinyl and pretty much knew what every record was and how it sounded but since going digital I have to preview some of the tracks, I obviously know how alot of them sound but the obscure ones definitely need a listen before I choose to play it.
Yeah I read that post, but that would be a mess, and wouldn’t be much of an improvement over regular playlists.
What I’m saying is much more user oriented. Like having a small “+” icon at then end of the track name and then click that icon and get the list of associated tracks. You could even have that action configured in your controller without the need of writing anything.
If the obscure ones arent known and need a listen what would make you pull them out. In th eheat of the moment have you got time to be pullin out records and havin a good old listen?
I think i must just overload myself with more new music instead of learning what i have, i think thats my issue.
I need an ipod and places to walk while listening to stuff instead of only really listening to stuff when messin about on the decks.
<.<
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well there is a ton of music that i buy or download that i personally like listening to but that may not be appropriate for a gig. usually i just make different playlists and drag and drop from there. i try not to trash any of the music i buy or download, usually its good for an ipod and study time (or for inspiration!).
i definitely dont know all of my songs though! i wish i did, but i think it would be kinda impossible. after i break it down into playlists of the same genre, i use the camelot numbering system to help me identify them in the comments. sometimes, for more obscure songs/artists, i’ll write a song/artist that is similiar to them in the comments.
well without going into a wishlist of what NI could add to make this all easier ..
i work really hard at rating all of my songs. i still keep the low rated ones around for that odd request or crazy remix idea, but i will only play rating 5 and rating 4 songs. so that already cuts my collection to about 1/4th.
now i really only focus on the rating 5 tracks which cuts things down to 1/16th from my total collection, but i do try to stay somewhat familiar with my rating 4 tracks as well.
anyways for the rating 5 tracks i try to categorize (aka playlists) them a bit, like “chillout”, “groovy”, “floor filler”, “power track”, “slow dancing”, “must play” etc. obviously tracks can be in multiple playlists. thats how far i have gotten.
once i am done with finishing rating my songs (still 1/4th left) and then categorizing all of the rating 5 tracks. i will probably move on to using comments a bit more. for tracks that i will want to use for controllerism routines i will probably explore using DJ notation. other than that trainspotter indeed also looks quite promising.
I usually write what i feel the track is: style, mood, fast/low, jumpy, deep… anything that can guide me. That is the great thing about Traktor’s search, if I Write “minimal dub” or “deep tech” I get a quick playlist with what I need.
Some tracks I remember some I don’t.
i usally prepare several playlists before a gig. every playlist contains a set a tracks fitting very well together having a similar feel/energy or some buildup over the whole playlists. these playlists differ in style and usally overlap. i also keep all these preparation playlists from former gigs.
if you right click a track and select “search in playlists” traktor shows you all playlists with that track. you also can map this function to a button on your controller.
by using this feature, i have always some associated tracks at hand… (of course directly showing the associated tracks instead of just the playlists would be even more comfortable. especialy as you can’t select the found playlists via midi… )
i don’t learn my music right away so i use notepad.exe to help me remember, then after enough repetition my memory will begin to takeover. .. but yeah i’d be pretty lost if i didn’t keep notes.
notepads are really handy because not only can i keep lists of songs that are worth going back to, but I can also jot down different combinations of songs for blends and transitions that i came up with that are noteworthy.
I guess I’m old-fashioned and don’t buy very many tunes at a time, so I play each one quite a few times before I move on from it. Guess because I used to spin vinyl and had almost no cash I’d play the same tired beats over and over…
Totally agree, with my regular music collection I used to hoard stuff I’d never listen to, then realised it was kinda pointless
I keep my Traktor and iTunes libraries seperate though, which I find helps (I use my star ratings in Traktor for how hard/ambient a track is, not how good I think it is like I do in iTunes)
Yep keeping itunes and traktor separate is a great idea. Like Dvls, i’m doing a full cleanout/reorganise from the ground up. Originally the collection was up around 6k tracks, have that down to about 3500 tracks now, of which i think over 80% are HQ. T’was with a tear in the eye that i removed some of the classic 90’s stuff, but honestly they sound like crap compared to a fresh processed 320.
I actually know my old Vinyl from years ago much better than I do my mp3, mainly because I use labels as a reference point and I would remember which track was where and which breakdown so on so forth, I am slowly adapting this to my mp3’s in Traktor as we speak but it’s a slower process than using Vinyl
Yep, also its helping me get more familiar with the tunes going thru gridding the lot as well. man i so love the old stuff but back in the day i burned off discs at 160kbps before i even considered spinning. I have re-burned some of the classics but there’s no way in hell i’m redoing 15 years of collecting lol.
