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Burning audio CDs

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  • February 10, 2014 at 11:38 am #1028963
    mauritsrotte@gmail.com
    Participant

    It think it is really personal. I think I would burn them by genre and bpm. Just make sure you divide the tracks logicically  over your cd’s. Otherwise you end up with the problem that want to play a track but you can’t because it is on de cd that is playing right now. And I wouldn’t put to many tracks on each cd. Make some good labels for each cd to put in the cd wallet. Write the track names big enough so you can read it in a dark dj booth. Also it is a good idea to write the bpm and the key on the labels.

    February 10, 2014 at 2:58 pm #1028988
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    Easier to burn one set of CD’s and then make a copy of each one. It tackles the problem of wanting to play a track that is on the CD already playing AND provides you with a back-up of each CD.

    What you can do (since you only have about 250 tracks), is the following:

    Prepare your tracks in RekordBox (which you might already be doing since you carry USB-sticks). Get an app for iPad called RekordKrate. Import your RekordBox info into RekordKrate. Take your iPad with you to the gig. You can do all your searching in the app (bpm, key, etx.) and then just grab the right CD. You could choose to add the CD number into the comment field (#01 – #02) or you could just put them in folders per artist name (first or last – whichever you prefer) in alphabetical order.

    Since you can work with playlist and everything in RekordKrate, you only need your CD’s as actual carrier of music, not for crate digging anymore.

    Greetinx,
    C.

    February 10, 2014 at 5:22 pm #1029004
    Aaron Davidson
    Participant

    Thanks for the tips.  Definitely burning two copies of the same CD without a doubt.  As for organizing, maybe some of you have tips on how I could translate what I do today into how best to do it later.

    1) All of my tracks have the filename in the format of <Key> <BPM> <Artist – Title>… – seems like if I burn CDs by key first and list the BPMs on the liner notes for each, I’m good

    2) Tracks are organized mainly by what ‘part’ of the night they fit into best.  Early/ warm up, transition, middle, and late/ wind down.  Almost everything is EDM but spans across a few genres (mostly progressive house and trance, some dubstep) – This one feels harder to sort.  Maybe use the ‘rating’ function in iTunes based on when in the night it’s best, then make a smart playlist?  0 = not played at all, 1 = early, 4 = late, 5 = ‘must play’/ save the set?

    3) I’ve seen some guys who will highlight tracks on their liner notes (e.g., beat lead in vs. vocals, etc.) – do you guys have a system you like?

    I actually have about 800+ electronic tracks total, but many of which I wouldn’t play during a set.  They’re just part of albums which I like.

    I haven’t imported them into Rekordbox yet – would that be somewhat compatible with the iTunes suggestions above?

    Hoping to only have to do this once, then burn new stuff every month or two.  This is more part-time for me, so I’m not necessarily getting hundreds of tracks every month (more like 6-10).

    -Aaron

    February 11, 2014 at 12:16 pm #1029237
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    My main thought is that chronolgy seems very important as well as adding to your collection.

    Since you don’t want to burn hundreds of CD’s a year, I would go with a chronological setup. That way you can just add tracks as soon as you have another CD full and toss out the oldest if you don’t use them anymore. Don’t use rewritable CD’s by the way!

    You’d need some kind of indexing system. Could be an Excel sheet on a laptop or tablet. Or the aforementioned RekordKrate (which also gives you harmonic track selection advice as well 🙂 ) or anything like that. If you find a way to mention the location (CD-name/number) somewhere in the index, you can find the relevant CD quickly and don’t have to worry about marking lists and such.

    Greetinx.

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