Hey guys,
since I started seroiusly rigging my music collection, smart playlists in iTunes has been a godsend. I just tag all my tracks properly, pop up a smart playlist and I will never have to worry about losing my playlists again since in case I lose my library file and only keep my mp3s, setting them up again is done in a jiffy.
But using these playlists that constantly update themselves has proven to be bit of a hassle in Traktor - since the iTunes function is read-only I have to import my tracks into the collection to be able to modify them (and also so Traktor updates its reading of the tags, for example I lock all tracks that have been gridded and setup properly but that can’t be seen when using the iTunes tree) but when I import them they 1) don’t update automatically (not a huge problem) and 2) don’t sort themselves in the playlists!
I have a folder structure that goes DJ Library → Club → House → House - Electro but I lose all that when importing into Traktor… any thoughts?
I don’t us smart playlist… but, I have MANY playlist categorized by date. I have a new playlist every week. Then before my gig i select about 60-70 tracks i may wanna play and make a playlist out of those specific tracks. this way i have selected tracks that flow well together and that i know i wanna ply. Now i do still go into the dated playlists and play tracks from there too, but i just find this works good for me.
I only play minimal, techno, tech house, and deep… so i don’t have a bunch of genres, and most of my music flows well together, and i now my music really well…
I’ve been battling similar issues. I tag and sorted all of my tracks in iTunes using smart playlists and then imported them to my collection in Traktor. If you set Traktor to show consistency check report on startup then you will be able to see what tracks are locked in the iTunes tree. My problem is that you still can’t see the album artwork or Key data. I can live without the artwork but not the key. As you mentioned if you import the playlists they won’t auto update when you make changes in iTunes.
Unfortunately the only work around I found is to create smart playlists in a program called Trainspotter that works off off the Traktor collection database. Once you’ve added new tracks to Traktor’s collection you have to open up Trainspotter and click on each playlist so that it updates and then click save. I know it’s a horrible work around but that’s the best thing I’ve found so far.
If anyone has a better solution I would love to hear more but I find this method easier then constantly deleting and reading playlists in Traktor.
Hey man, good tip gonna have a look at it, but do you mean that Trainspotter reads the Traktor collection and not the iTunes library? What does that mean for smart playlists?
Thanks, I tried API also but I wasn’t a big fan of the software. Yea Trainspotter reads the Traktor collection and rewrites it when you save. Just in case I would recommend backing up your collection first. I was actually using the term smart playlists loosely. Trainspotter calls them dynamic playlists.
I sadly still use iTunes for other things such as writing ID tags because of other known issues with Traktor but the two get the job done for now.
It gives you smart playlist possibilities galore, arranges the lists how you want them and uses discogs. Also it can detect keys, find duplicates & keep track of songs you’ve mixed together.
It rocks, but is still buggy and crashes sometimes…
