Hey, I’m faced with the tough task of cleaning out my music library… I know its a broad question but does anyone have any tips as to where to start or what programs to use?
Some issues my library faces:
-multiple copies of the same track (whether it be duplicate downloads, or just same song from a diff compilation)
-old tracks you know youre never going to play anymore (any way to sort # of plays via traktor or even itunes?)
-downloads are all over my Macbook HD. Some in the downloads folder, some in the iTunes folder… id love to consolidate them all into one MUSIC place.
It won’t help you with deleting tunes you don’t like anymore, the only way to do that is to listen to each one and manually delete 'em. But it WILL help with multiple versions of the same track. It will even find tracks with similar sounding names (in case there are any typo’s in the filenames) and allows you to keep or dump 'em.
I think iTunes keeps track of how many times you’ve played a track. If it does, a series of smart playlists can easily be created (Never played, played <5 times, played <10 timjes, etc…)
The only way to considate your music is by sticking 'em all in one folder. Isn’t Finder on the MAc really good at this? (Find all files of type “.mp3”, “,aiff”, etc… and then move them to a singl efolder/library). I don’t know how this will effect your Traktor Library, though…
don’t know how many songs you have. I do clean up every duple of months.
I have a playlist in traktor I call for deletion.
sort you library alphabetically but title then scroll through it an listen to all that have 2 or more of the same song. If I have several remixes of the same song I only keep the once I most likely will be playing. add all that you like to delete to to the deletion playlist.
now go through all the rest of the songs. If you have lots of songs go through A-B today then C-D tomorrow. It will take some time but you get through it in a week or 2 and at the same time you will listen to all your songs and could find some forgotten songs you like to play again.
No when finished you go into the deletion playlist and select all the choose to delete from collection I also click the box for deleting from hard drive.
I have joined 2 DJ pools and download the songs I think I might like run them all through Platinum note, Miked in key then Metabliss. In Metabliss I remove all (clean) (Dirty) and unwanted tags even all genre tags. import them into Cross (Witch is the software I use now) listen to them again and add genre I think they should have and now I delete those I don’t think are that cool after all.
When I go digging on other places I only buy if I’m sure I like it and am going to use the song.
Took me a while to get this system but now and I only download maybe 10 songs a day now and out of them I only keep 5 or less.
If you’re in a record pool this can become a problem. In fact this is why I left my pool. Some days when you’re 1. bored or 2. itching for new tunes you just end up downloading crap.
In cleaning out your library, you have to be ruthless as keithace mentioned…however, I find that it really depends on why you are doing so as well as what type of dj you are. If you are a bedroom dj, you may not need to be as organized in tagging, organizing your collection. Now, if you are a mobile dj, the bigger and most vast of a selection you have, the stronger you are as a dj. This of course still means nothing if you cannot find what you have. To me, I tag everything to a tee. I retag, reformat the mp3, install the album art, and rate the track…I can go on and on about my specific technique. However, you must do what works for you! A rule of thumb is when thinking of a song you want to buy, download, and add to your collection is this…“would you PAY to KEEP this song in your library?” That is also assuming that you actually PAY for your music! Don’t just add and add songs into your library just because you have the ability to, but think of your hard drive as your garage (where you may have held your entire record/vinyl collection in the past) where you have limited space and energy to store your records. As a dj, this is what separates each of us from each other. I am constantly removing songs that I KNOW will never get any play time from me. Why just keep something if it takes up space? DJ’ing is about having good, unique music. I would start off by cleaning out whatever you don’t need, and music that will never even get loaded into one of your virtual decks…makes you much more efficient as a dj and makes for a better set. Removing doubles of songs can only take you so far!!!
i wonder why people are so narcissistic into thinking their one worded response is so valuable that it needs to be shared… especially when it brings zero value..
thanks for the useful advice on file management! i personally like to load all my music into to itunes and keep it there (setting itunes to duplicate track upon import) i then move the original to an external HD. when i open traktor i bring in playlist/song from the itunes menu
TC, instead of deleting your old music have you considered moving it into an archive folder (not indexed by Traktor) or an external drive? That way if you REALLY WANT that one specific song again you can get it. I do this because I’ve had the experience before of rebuying an old track because I had deleted it years ago. What rootjazz said works too, although that’s a little extreme for me.
A program like Music Duplicate Remover could be helpful here. I cannot imagine selecting every song from my huge collection manually, it would take years
all true.
as people said it before, create an archive of all tracks in case you really need some of them in the future.
and then start cleaning and SHOW NO MERCY. my rule - if you see a name of the track and you have no idea in your mind how it sounds (melody or smth) - it is of no use to you.
Just a note on this one. iTunes does actually have a very handy way of doing this with minimal damage to the library.
iTunes > File > Library > Organize Library > Consolidate files.
*Be sure to check you have TWICE the disk space of your library before you attempt this. It won’t store that much but needs it to perform the task.
Would probably be worth turning on ‘copy to iTunes folder when importing’ for future too. This way anything you download, import then delete from the downloads folder.
I’ve just started doing this. I’ve put everything on my phone and play every track while I’m on the treadmill. If I don’t like it anymore or can’t figure out where I would play it, I add it to a playlist called “Delete”.
Then at a later time, I’ll take the playlist and remove it from the main library.
