You could try NOT having a Traktor Collection, and instead, use the iTunes Node in Traktors Browser.
Then, you could set up some iTunes Smart Playlists based on the contents of those “certain folders” that you mentioned. Smart Playlists will show up in the iTunes Node in the Traktor Browser…
If I were you, I’d consider limiting what you bring based on your prep work with the bride & groom.
I get that’s still a lot of music and might not be worth the effort, but with that huge of a library, you’ve obviously narrowed it down some before the event starts…why not cut out the 100,000 that you know you won’t play?
If you’re like most wedding DJs and just playing tracks* and not doing funky things live, how much do you need well set up hot cues, load points, beat grids, etc.? I’d think the better responsiveness of the browser would be worth more. So, build your playlist in iTunes or whatever (that handles huge databases better) and then just import that playlist into Traktor (to build overviews) that morning or the day before?
Also note that I’m not a wedding DJ, so if this isn’t workable…ignore it. But, that’s what I’d try.
*: very well curated, appropriate for the event and the moment, perfectly selected tracks if you’re good…
i keep it simple… i have various folders inside my DJ collection.. one has my old stuff, one has tracks i do not play and the main folder itself has my recent tracks i do play. this way traktor loads from a few hundred song folder instead of a 12 thousand song folder.
120,000 tracks? Holy crap! If listening through your music collection were a full-time job (8 hours a day, 5 days a week) it would take 4 years to plough through your entire collection. The night has only just begun.
For a typical 5 hour wedding reception, I play under 100 songs. Of that 100, probably 40 of them are songs I almost always play, and almost always go over very well with the crowd. There’s really not much point in having 100,000 songs with you. I’d bet 90,000 of them are songs you would never play anyway, because they’d clear your dance floor. I would guess that a sizable percentage of your collection are album tracks that almost no one has ever heard of and have never made the charts.
IMO, being able to say “no” to a request (tactfully) is an important DJ skill, right up there with knowing what TO play. I happily take requests at my shows, but there is always someone who comes up and wants something that the crowd would clearly not like, and I have to say “no” in some way. Even if I actually have the track, playing that track would make 1 person happy at the expense of making 99 unhappy, and that’s simply not worth it UNLESS (perhaps, in some cases) the person requesting it was the bride/event planner who is paying you. And even then, I have declined to play those requests on occasion when it would have completely killed the vibe.
If a person requests some obscure deep album track or something, learn to say “I can’t really play that with this crowd. Do you have another request that’s a bit more mainstream - something similar to what this crowd is enjoying? I’ll play that for you if I can.”
I know you are asking for a technical solution, but in this case, a more pragmatic solution would likely serve you better.
This is eye opening for me. I was so deep in my focus on having everything possible with me that I lost the biger picture.
I’ll trim down the collection and keep a mainstream and popular songs on my laptop hdd.
The rest will be on a external hard drive not scaned by traktor but available if need be.
I’ll experiment with smart playlist in itunes and see where it takes me!
I have a library of about 30,000 songs on my dying laptop. …but only 17,000 of them are in my djing collection.
Basically, I use the iTunes node in tractor for my music management. Delete all the stuff you won’t play from your iTunes collection. Then only import your iTunes stuff in to traitor.
If you need to play something that’s not in iTunes, you can still search for it on your computer & drag it in to traktor.
Exactly. We may have had huge music collections at home, but it was never realistic to carry it all to a gig, so you had to plan ahead and build your crates (and, for me, eventually, CD cases) for your gigs. Weight-wise, you simply couldn’t pack thousands of pieces of vinyl, even if you had the space, so it was important to narrow things down.
Hard drives are small and light, so there’s a temptation to carry literally everything you have today, but IMO that still makes little sense and is more likely to get in your way, especially on a mobile gig where most of what you play is well-known, popular stuff from whatever genre. The chances of the whole crowd wanting to hear that 4th single from the album that barely scraped the bottom of the charts when it was released, much less a deep album track, is about nil. They’ll want to hear the big hit, so for most albums, that’s the only track you need to bring with you.
These days I’ll put together subgroups for the my audience… I have an alchemy drive/folder of clips that I like to use for mixing or pumping in some nostalgia.
ok guys! I have trimed out my library a lot and traktor is much more effective!
Now i got another question regarding the library, I am using Itunes to build smart playlist.
The only problem i see is when I import the itunes playlist into my collection, I lose all cue points and other track info I had!
Now i just want to clarify this, how is the library supposed to be?
I have all my less used stuff on a external hdd.
All my regular stuff and new stuff on my laptops hdd.
I manage all regular and new stuff with itunes
When my smart playlists and ratings are done in itunes I import it into my collection.
I’m confused on the workflow…
I have a show this saturday and I feel uncomforable
I hope i’m clear enough, I come a long way and really like the support from dj tech tools!
