Differences between Crates and Playlists

One thing throwing me off a little is why is there a Crate area and a playlist area? whats the difference if i create a new crate or playlist? seems exactly the same but in 2 different areas. thanks!

2 Likes

Playlist is in specific order. You decide what’s no. 1, no 2, etc… You normally use it for a fixed set. Crate is a collection of tracks sorted by title, or name, etc… you can for example put genres together, years or charts… just how you like it.

2 Likes

Also in a crate a file can be used 1 time, in a playlist you can use the same file multiple times (for example when you are doing a game show and need the same tune multiple times). In a playlist you can drag and drop for ordering (when column sorted to #). Crates are unsorted and ordered by the columns.

1 Like

perfect, makes sense now. Was just used to Rekordbox where you have one crate that you can renumber if you wanted. this works out well to, thank you!

Question about playlists: When creating a list in Engine Prime, do I drag songs from the collection or the packed songs from the drive into the playlist? Engine Prime shows all tracks in both, and I would hate to “duplicate” files on the drive.

Also, does anyone know what the true and safe limitations of Engine Prime and the players are? (Max folders and/or files and/or data per drive or collection) I have seen different things in this forum and even did a benchmark myself with 91K+ files on a laptop! If anyone knows this information, or knows where to find more official tutorials digging deeper into the SC5000 players and/or Engine Prime, I’m all ears. Thank you!

1 Like

I think I saw a video where all this stuff is explained. There is more to it then just order vs no order as far as I recall.

So it’s been 2 months and I still haven’t heard back from support or got an answer here, or in any official video explaining the Engine Prime software flow properly. I feel I’ve figured out some basics, but I’m left guessing or risking the corruption of another drive if I start to spend time organizing playlists and crates. Would really like to know proper workflow. Taking files from our existing collections (not just iTunes and Serato). Once the collections are on the drives, how to make playlists (from files packed or unpacked? Or does it matter?). When will playlists (if ever) be searchable, filterable? When will Engine Prime have a “save playlist” button, so that after creating and updating a playlist, we can save it? (without manually having to re-organize it.) Just a few things missing and I’d love to get an answer from someone about this! Otherwise, love the Prime setup…looking forward to the future!

1 Like

From the manual

Playlist (as currently implemented) and in my understanding is akin to a set list. ie a performance a set in a specific order. So one has to bear that in mind whilst creating a playlist in the Prime. It’s ordered as you export it to USB.

It will be nice to be able to search and sort by other parameters on the players.

I haven’t had a chance to make any sets or crates in Engine Prime. The usb I created I just did a simple drag from my Serato collection to the USB using Engine Prime.

Have you tried moving files around into playlists and crates? Did you discover if your files were duplicated?

I am able to move individual songs around in a playlist, but not sort and re-save. No duplicates here.

I remember being confused by this too. Then I imagined having a record collection divided by genre in crates(crates) then pulling out a few and stacking them up next to my turntable(playlist) and playing them in order from the top to the bottom of the stack.