My music collection

Hey! I’m pretty sure that the manual way to go is the right one. You probably have your music sorted in some way and I think you should start creating a smaller sorted collection with the tracks you use the most. Leave the rest in the just-in-case-bucket. Personally I have a system that most DJ’s shake their heads at, because it does take som time to add new music. On the upper hand I always know which songs I have, or if I get a request and I need to get it quick, I can still use search.

1. I process my selected tracks through Mixed-in-Key and Platinum Notes
2. I name every track to a standard. Tonality/BPM or just BPM, Artist – Track name (Rmx)
3. I strip away the tag except for the cover art using Mp3 Tag.
4. I place the tracks in the right folder on my computer
5. I duplicate everything to my backups
6. I import and update my folders to Rekordbox and then I update my playlists in Rekordbox.

I use folders on my hdd that i create playlist from. Should anything happen to Rekordbox or my computer for that matter, I can just import my folders again, and create new playlists.

If you make a copy of your collection with which you can start sorting, you can continue to use what you have now. When you think your new organized crates are getting ready to use live, do the switch. In the process, you’ll probably discover a huge number of tracks you haven’t played for a decade, and can be put to rest, at least until you think it’s time to take them for a spin again 🙂 . The benefit of doing this is that you will re-discover tracks you’ve forgotten you ever had. Good Luck!

Yes, and no. For the hole 40 000 tracks to be cleared it will take a long time. I have used several ”find duplicate programs” and haven’t found one yet that does the job well without the users interaction. You can filter your searches in several ways: size, name, tag and so on, but you will still have to confirm every delete unless you are prepared to loose a few tracks here and there. I ended up doing it manually, over a couple of years. It took me a couple of weeks to sort out 95% of what i use every week, and the rest I sorted out as i needed them. Now, I don’t regret doing it careful and really well, because now I have a collection of about 11 000 tracks that i can relate to, every single one. I do everything from Rockabilly events to soul/fun/disco and house/EDM nights. Sometimes I dig in to my collection and pick out a couple of tracks and add to Rekordbox. Every track I’ve picked is based on my 30+ years behind the deck, so if a track is not in Rekordbox, it’s because I haven’t had any use for it during this time.