ATTN: all Serato peeps

[Kraig]

(First off, I'm using a Windows based laptop and not a Mac)

Alrighty... so I got an iPod for Christmas and obviously you need to ultimately manage your music files in one place and on one laptop or system to use BOTH an iPod and of course on a system like Serato.

My question:
1.) What tools do you use to manage your .WAV/.MP3 library's? -- I noticed with Itunes that even if you create seperate Windows Explorer based folders (IE: House, Breaks, etc.) that iTunes will end up importing everything into one "Music" folder. It seems from there you have to customize each file manually.
--- So... what tools do you use? ID3-TagIT 3 to manage all of your music file tags and info? MixMeister to note the BPM's on all of your music files?

2.) Having said the above (that no matter if you create these individual folders of music genre, it moves everything into your iTunes "Music" folder), how do you organize your music physically on your hard drive or doesn't it matter any more?

3.) What process do you go through from start to finish to do the above?

Just curious on these things as I'm in the process of FINALLY putting together my home studio.

Thanks in advance.

[FireWire]

1) Get iTunes/iPod out of the picture... they are not professional studio software/hardware systems. Do NOT use iTunes for a music library... there are way better programs to manage your music. Although I don't even use anything to 'manage' my music, I just put it into specific folders and play the music with Winamp or spin with Serato.

2) If you have Serato Scratch, then best way of organizing your files is to make separate folders for each genre and place the physical files into those folders.

3) When you have all your music organized into specific genre folders, you can then do mass tag editing with software like Tag&Rename (one of the best for tag editing), mass filename/extension renaming with software like Name It Your Way (the only mass renaming software), or playing back your music with Winamp.

4) When you have everything organized into specific genre folders, tags edited, files renamed, extensions modified... (if necessary) - then you are ready to import your folders into Serato. Each folder will show up as a "crate" in Serato and that "crate" will display all the music you put into it.

[Kraig]

Firewire -- very cool answers there. Thanks for that. You answered my question on ultimately if creating individual folders (by genre) on my Windows-based laptop was a waste of time. -- You're it's not a waste a time and in fact is step 1 before doing anything else.

Cheers.

[rawb]

SUP KRAIG

I MAKE SURE MY TRACKS ARE ID3'D RIGHT, THEN IN ITUNES I CREATE SMART FOLDERS (SMART FOLDERS ARE FOLDERS THAT ARE AUTOMATICALLY CREATED/UPDATED WITH CRITERIA IE: GENRE, BPM, ETC). I WILL MAKE A SMART FOLDER FOR EVERY GENRE I HAVE, AS WELL AS OTHER FOLDERS FOR SPECIAL KINDS OF TRACKS.

ALSO SINCE MOST OF MY STUFF IS OF DIFFERENT GENRES I MIXMEISTER BPM ALL OF IT.

ALSO, I HAVE ITUNES ORGANIZE MY FILES SO THEY ARE ALWAYS ONE PLACE ON THE HARD DRIVE

THEN, IN SERATO, I USE THE ITUNES IMPORT FUNCTION THAT AUTOMATICALLY SETS UP CRATES BASED ON YOUR ITUNES PLAYLISTS/FOLDERS. THIS WORKS WELL BECAUSE AS LONG AS ALL MY TUNES ARE ID3'D RIGHT, THEY WILL SHOW UP IN THEIR NEW FOLDERS

THE BPM FUNCTION IN SERATO IS GOOD AND WILL UPDATE YOUR TRACKS BPM WHEN MIXMEISTER IS WRONG, WHICH IS OFTEN IS. IT IS ALSO CHEATING BUT I DONT GIVE A FUCK.

BUT HEY, IM GHETTO

[Kraig]

DJ Rawb --- how do you create Smart Folders? I see only an option to create smart playlists.

[hirshee]

^^ it's about time u get ure serato sorted dj krang :p

[dave mcnasty]

you can organize your files with itunes pretty well now

im pretty sure the newest version of itunes will organize your library for you......like it'll put every artist into their own folder according to how you have them named on itunes

[djplasma]

Sony Media Manager / NativeInstruments Browser + proper ID3 tags

[rawb]

Originally Posted by Kraig

DJ Rawb --- how do you create Smart Folders? I see only an option to create smart playlists.

THATS WHAT I MEAN, SORRY DOGGY

[dabbler]

Originally Posted by Kraig

Having said the above (that no matter if you create these individual folders of music genre, it moves everything into your iTunes "Music" folder)

the number one reason to NOT get an IPOD (or use ITunes)

[dj_soo]

^ y'all know you can turn that feature off right?

[Kraig]

Originally Posted by dj_soo

^ y'all know you can turn that feature off right?

Soo -- how are you currently organizing your tunes bro? Programs? How did you get started etc? I just don't want to spend all of my time organizing all of these music files to then have to do it ALLLLLLLLL over again later on.

DABBLER - I got an Ipod video for Christmas as I travel a LOT and it will come in handy to listen to tunes and watch movies, shows, etc.

Cheers,

[Leviathan]

If thats your reason for not getting an ipod or using itunes then thats a pretty easy thing to fix. In the preferences you can turn that option off and organize your music manually in folders. I find my ipod works great as a 60gig firewire bus powered hard drive and its small. Its also a great way to back up your tracks for shows.

Rawbs solution is by far the slickest for music management.

Another thing that can be done with itunes is that you can make separate libraries as well. I don't know how to do it on the PC but on the mac if you hold down option while launching itunes it will give you a dialog box to either create a new library or select another one. This works out well because I can have a library of just electronic music for spinning that is organized by genre using folders or smart playlists and I can have a library of all my other non related music. This makes it super easy to keep things separate and manageable.

Originally Posted by dabbler

the number one reason to NOT get an IPOD (or use ITunes)

[dj_soo]

Originally Posted by Kraig

Soo -- how are you currently organizing your tunes bro? Programs? How did you get started etc? I just don't want to spend all of my time organizing all of these music files to then have to do it ALLLLLLLLL over again later on.

DABBLER - I got an Ipod video for Christmas as I travel a LOT and it will come in handy to listen to tunes and watch movies, shows, etc.

Cheers,

my itunes is a fucking mess of tracks and i've never really ordered them before. However, I just got Conectiv and am in the process of ripping CDs and recording some of my vinyl and it's a long arduous process and now need to figure a way to order them in a logical yet easy-to-find feature. My problem is that I have like 60+ gigs of less-than-320 rips that i refuse to play out so i'm working out a way to delineate between my ipod mp3s and the tracks i'm using for Torq.

Right now, my intended ordering is by BPM which basically involves manually BPMing all my tracks (auto bpm sucks), marking them and tossing them in various BPM folders (or "crates") and then ordering those by sub-folder in genres. I'm pretty sure that the smart playlists will help - just involves tagging all my torq files with a keyword and then create specifc playlists for my tracks. Honestly though, I hear Serato's database is much more robust than Torq's.

Also, for the love of god, please don't play anything less than 320 - i'm currently using m4a for most of my tracks (lossess) - it's a lot bigger (roughly 2/3 the size of wavs) but it's worth it for full frequency. I understand that Serato supports .ogg vorbis - might be worth considering.

[Kraig]

I hear ya bro -- I'm still in the process of fully setting up my Serato laptop which is why I'm asking ALL of these questions now and the beginning of the process rather than half way through.

Thanks for the info and I totally agree RE: playing anything less than 320 if at all possible.

[Kraig]

Originally Posted by Leviathan

If thats your reason for not getting an ipod or using itunes then thats a pretty easy thing to fix. In the preferences you can turn that option off and organize your music manually in folders. I find my ipod works great as a 60gig firewire bus powered hard drive and its small. Its also a great way to back up your tracks for shows.

Where do I go within Preferences on the Windows version of Itunes for this? I've looked over everything and can't seem to find it?

[dabbler]

OR, you can just get an mp3 player and not have an Ipod is all i'm saying. I don't like proprietary systems.

[dj_soo]

Originally Posted by Kraig

Where do I go within Preferences on the Windows version of Itunes for this? I've looked over everything and can't seem to find it?

Preferences -> Advanced -> General

uncheck the "keep my files organized" check box before you tranfer any files into your main playlist.

[Kraig]

Originally Posted by dj_soo

Preferences -> Advanced -> General

uncheck the "keep my files organized" check box before you tranfer any files into your main playlist.

I had done that already from the get go as I knew it created seperate folders per artist which is lame. My initial question was around having to do everything from the main "music" folder which clearly is the "iTunes standard" according to Rawb.

Thanks again.

[dj_soo]

so after fiddling some more, I second Rawb's suggestion - smart folders are where it's at. Currently I have tagged every file i plan to use in a performance situation (just select them all and write the tag in the comments) and use that as my initial filter. Then, I've BPM'd every track and created a series of smart folders that searches for the tag, the BPM range, and removes acapellas (have that in a 2nd track).

You can access these playlists in torq (and serato too from what i understand) and basically, it'll autoupdate so now, every track I enter just needs to be tagged and BPM'd and it'll appear in the playlist. You can also create genre playlists if you so choose and various others but when it comes down to it, you don't really need to organize your Music folder - the smart folders will do it all for you.

[Leviathan]

Fair enough, we all have differing needs :)

Originally Posted by dabbler

OR, you can just get an mp3 player and not have an Ipod is all i'm saying. I don't like proprietary systems.

[Kraig]

Originally Posted by dj_soo

so after fiddling some more, I second Rawb's suggestion - smart folders are where it's at. Currently I have tagged every file i plan to use in a performance situation (just select them all and write the tag in the comments) and use that as my initial filter. Then, I've BPM'd every track and created a series of smart folders that searches for the tag, the BPM range, and removes acapellas (have that in a 2nd track).

You can access these playlists in torq (and serato too from what i understand) and basically, it'll autoupdate so now, every track I enter just needs to be tagged and BPM'd and it'll appear in the playlist. You can also create genre playlists if you so choose and various others but when it comes down to it, you don't really need to organize your Music folder - the smart folders will do it all for you.

Yep... I'm with ya -- in the past two days I've discovered it's all about how you label the files in combination with using these smart filters.

Cheers.

[MissMarz]

hehehehheeh
kraig you're funny..
did u get your table and gear set up yesterday?

[Leviathan]

http://www.allthingsmarked.com/2006/...s-in-itunes-7/