So, I’m a Serato controller user and want to move away from a laptop for my gig and get the SC5000s.
However, I use my crates in Serato to store gig history, track ideas and a million other things. My crate structure is rather large!
How does this work in Prime/ on the USBs. Obviously, Serato just as the file then points the reference too it within the software. Does prime do that? Or if I have the song in two places in collection’s on usbs does it duplicate the file.
I’m going to download Prime soon to test before committing. Just trying to understand more about the workflow however!
I’m a user of both Serato and Prime. My recommendation is to first copy the Serato Crates that you want to use with Prime on to a good quality USB drive (I suggest USB 3.0 or higher). Open up Engine Prime, and in the Preferences, click the Library table and turn on Serato Integration. You should be able now to show/read your Serato library in Engine Prime and drag the crates over to create crates Engine Prime.
OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS:
I use Engine Prime to ready my USB for Prime use only. Use Serato for the majority of your music prep (i.e. ID3 tag editing, BPM Analyzation, etc.), as Engine Prime (in my opinion) still needs work in these areas.
If you export to a USB to use with the players, if the USB is plugged into your laptop, EP library is populated with both tracks from USB and your main collection. So you will see doubles but you can easily sort by DRIVE column
I don’t do much exporting to USB as my serato library is on an external drive Ab initio. I plug that same drive into the SC5000M.
You can use same drive interchangeably between Serato and the Prime players.
This means you skip the “packing step”. Packing is what you do when you export from your main collection to a USB drive.
My Workflow
Plug in external Serato drive into laptop,
start EP
refresh Serato library, new songs pop up
select all
add to collection,
In EP collection tab analyse (do not use reanalyse, it will leave your collection at the mercy of EPs bpm algorithm - you don’t want that)
i delete any old crates in EP collection and then add them back from the Serato tab (this step is essential currently as EP will not update a previously added Serato crate with new tracks)
Thank you, I will keep this in mind. I have a 3.1 Samsung one (300MBs) so I should be okay and my main music is stored on an external SSD.
I think I will Serato for my music and then use Prime to put it on USBs? Can I put my Serato crates straight onto the USB?
@mufasa So, if I have a copy of my music and Serato folder on a USB, I could plug that into the SC5000? Would I need to do anything else?
So, should I have my whole library on that one external SSD then manage the crates in Serato and then manage in Prime? Would that not overwrite the songs on the external?
Could I then create a seperate USB with songs from the request of the night for example?
Just trying to make sure I am not creating redundant songs on the USBs and still keep my work in Serato while trying to adopt the new Prime way (maybe it’s not possible…?).
Either Way, my music is getting moved from my laptop to my PC now (including the Serato folder), so I can try and have a test and a play tomorrow. This workflow is going to really influence my choice on if the SC5000 and Prime is the right choice for me tbh.
No you won’t have doubles, no overwriting per se as EP does not make any changes that will reflect in Serato. EP stores it’s info in its own database. Eg a song that’s truly 100bpm will be 100 in serato whilst it may be 70bpm in EP. It’s stores cues and loops as well in its own database. Eg a song may have 5 hot cue points in Serato and you may have 8 cues in EP. Technically EP is non destructive to your Serato info except you do something outrageously crazy to the tracks in EP. I haven’t seen that happen yet. Touch wood.
Yes you can copy your Serato crates straight onto the USB, however, there is a danger of duplicating files if you drag crates individually on to your USB. If you have file that appears in more than one crate, then you will copy that file duplicate times on to the USB.
This is my process to avoid this happening:
In Serato, create a new Crate for export purposes (let’s name it ‘Prime’ for this example).
Open a crate that you want to appear on your USB, select all of the files in that Crate files, and drag them into the new PRIME Crate. Repeat this for every crate that you want to appear on your USB.
Once you completed copying the contents of your Crates into the PRIME Crate, Open File view in Serato to show your USB.
Drag the PRIME crate to your USB. Serato will prompt you to MOVE or COPY files. CHOOSE COPY!!!
Once the copy process is complete, eject the USB. This USB is now ready for Serato playback on any computer running Serato and ALL your Crates will be appear.
** In the COPY process, Serato creates a folder named ‘SERATO’ on the USB. That folder contains information on each file telling Serato what Crate(s) a file should appear in.
I still think I’m miss-understanding, unfortunately I can’t test for myself as my prime install is not working!
So, let me try and work this out.
I have External SSD A, this has my Serato folder and all my music on it.
I have all my music on Internal Drive B, this is a duplicate (backup) of A.
I have a blank USB, C.
I plug in A, import Serato data and make it work with prime, so when I plug it in this then works with Prime with all the information etc saved? Is this all I need to do to get all my crates showing on the player?
I can then create another USB and copy the data onto USB C using the files stored on HDD B? So, Prime sees the files on B and I can move them to C?
Am I over complicating things? Or am I on the correct line?
I’d want USB A to have all my songs and a replica crate structure from Serato on it.
I’d want USB C as a minified version with just the songs I know I’ll need or playlists for it etc.
Thanks for all your replies and time. I really appreciate it. I’m going to get a test drive with a duplication with prime to test. Ultimately, all my music is safe on my laptop so I can’t break that or Serato.
I really need to get a test going but engine prime is not working for me, I made a post about that as well! I think it will all make more sense then.
A video would really assist, if you have time!
I’m almost thinking, I might just replicate all my crates within prime and then scrap the crate management within Serato and just use that for BPM etc.
That way the management of crates and the library is within prime, but the song analysis is Serato. Would that be a simpler workflow?
With all this bpms problems, and my Pioneer friend telling me to wait because a new Pioneer 4 channel stand-alone is coming out this November (2+2 apparently), I tried today the conversion from Traktor to EP and I didn’t find any problem so far now. I have to review it deeper but apparently it takes bpm, right grid and all hotcues ( differentiating even Cue loops!), so great! I haven’t test it to a Prime 4 yet but looks promising.
