What's your #1 tip for using iTunes?

This topic has 12 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 8 months ago by Lamid45G.

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March 28, 2012 at 12:37 pm #1003390

Haroon
Participant

smart playlists for organising my tunes, particularly using the star rating for energy – 1 start for chill out, 2 for warm-up, 3 for transition, 4 for peak and 5 for classics or bombs. Combine that with keys and generes means finding the next tune in traktor is easy.

March 28, 2012 at 12:51 pm #17490

J-Zed
Participant

Mine looks something like this

Tech House
Tech House – Percussive
Tech House – Funky

Then I got, dark, melodic, warm, cool and ect… Same goes for every genre. Then I also go with a star rating based on how it shows up in Traktor, basically intensity but a bit different. It’s only been like that for a week or so, I’ve star rated some 500 tunes in the last few days, it works like charm when wingin it.

March 29, 2012 at 5:00 pm #1003408

Felipe Lima
Member

A folder playlist called ‘DJ’ (very creative!)
which contains 6 more folders playlist with genre, bpm and releases by month/year,
more 6 smartplaylist with acapellas, instrumentals, original mix, most played, recently added etc
and more 5 normal playlists with preparation list, intro etc
and, of course, a main playlist with all the tracks
p.s. here in brazil we don’t have a music streaming like Spotify which works well, so i have my entire collection in my iTunes
and i’m a little obsessed about the organization of my library
another p.s. i’m not a DJ for real, i’m learning by time, that is one of the reasons i’m here

March 30, 2012 at 4:40 am #1003416

2SHAE!
Participant

I keep mine organized by month. since alot of music i download are also classic tracks, all the new tunes i download in the current month are not forgotten by putting them into current month playlists. through most of the month i will only listen to the songs in the current months playlist, for both enjoyment, as well as learning them. By months end im typically ready to separate the tunes into both DJ playlists, or my Unqualified list (songs that wouldnt go so well with what ever crowd your dealing with).

March 30, 2012 at 1:23 pm #1003426

Dieter Deelight
Participant

Maybe a useful video:

Ean Golden using itunes, Traktor 1 and Mixed in Key to organise his library and dj-sets.

[media=youtube]nFaqAQa17yE[/media]

Cheers

March 31, 2012 at 8:40 am #17666

GarethPenman
Member

I don’t like to contradict those with more experience, but my advice would be NOT to automatically add music to iTunes library. As far as I’m aware it doesn’t confer any advantage. It doubles the amount of storage space you need to use, if you keep copies outside of the iTunes library, and if the file becomes corrupted you have to navigate the files yourself. This is not always easy as I’ve found iTunes sometimes organises files in a way that doesn’t fit with how I think about my collection. I find I organise my music better which is helpful when using a programme other than iTunes.
What should be done is back up, and consider doing so twice. You can do this without iTunes organising your files. I use both a local external drive and an online storage service. Perhaps I’m paranoid, but if someone broke into my house and stole all my computers etc I wouldn’t lose all my music.

March 31, 2012 at 4:21 pm #17674

DjMonstar
Member

Echo freeze always works perfectly for long tempo changes. Just match the key.

March 31, 2012 at 9:32 pm #1003445

DjMonstar
Member

Tag early in the comments section and tag often. Regularly update tags too.

April 3, 2012 at 6:49 am #17842

Terry_42
Keymaster

For Backup I have an external Firewire Raid Drive. You can get lots of free and good backup software for Macs or use the built in TimeMachine. So my tunes will hopefully not get lost.

I use smart playlists a lot, it has lots of features as when I have sets of compilations etc. I use stacked smart playlist (e.g. Smart playlist with added options).

I also totally agree: Tag and Rate. No matter what system you develop, you need to have one. For the few gigs I played digital so far I simply made folder playlists with what I inteded to include in the set. Preparation is everything (back in the day you packed your vinyls in your system order, today pack your set playlists…)

April 3, 2012 at 10:17 pm #17902

Global Underground Fan
Member

Grid View is a must. It makes cover flow look disgusting. Grid view with the large album covers is the closet you can get to really feeling like you have the music physically like on cds or vinyl. Also recommend sorting by genre/artist name.

July 14, 2014 at 9:07 pm #2043250

Juan Atunes
Participant

Heres the way i do it:

1. Use mixed in key
2. Use Platinum Notes
3. Use Metabliss to change anything that is not to my pleasing on the music file info.
4. create a playlist folder for the current year then create monthly playlist on that folder.
5. Finally Drop the same playlist folder into traktor and enjoy to play my music.

July 15, 2014 at 10:20 am #2043321

Lamid45G
Participant

@Juan you do realized its a 2 years old topic ?
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