Quick question (Brain freeze?)

Legacy Products Software
1

Hi folks,

So far I have just been messing around a bit with the latest engine (used it in the past with my 2900s) in order to get acquainted to stand-alone use of the MCX8000. All good (well not all, but enough to make me do what I wanted to).

However, I am now rebuilding my current collection is such a way that I can use it with Engine, RB, Cross and Serato. For this I have come up with a workflow for adding new tracks that works for me. This involves prepping tracks (Tags and track art in place, Platinum Notes to MP3, Mixed in Key) and then putting the newly finished tracks into a core collection folder that is subdivided in the alfabet folders (A-Z for you non-westerners LOL).

If I re-add the entire folder, Engine does find my new tracks, but also imports all other tracks AGAIN!. While an odd feature -on what planet could a DJ want to have doubles of exactly the same track in his/her library?-, it also makes me wonder where to go to get the folder contents UPDATED, so new tracks get added and the rest stays the same.

Clearly adding the tracks manually would not work. Say I’d have 20 new tracks, in 13 of the 26 folders, I’d have to go and pick each track individually. Not a job I would be looking forward to it.

Any help appreciated.

2

Each library software is going to have its quirks

I’d wait for the 8000 compliant version of Engine Prime before tweaking a workflow too much.

1 Like
3

Does Engine work with iTunes playlists? While I’m not a big fan of it, it is good to organize stuff - especially smart playlists are awesome if properly set up.

This video was really helpful to me, and totally destroyed the following weekend :grinning:

4

There’s iTunes options within Engine Prime.

For me however iTunes suffers the same concerns that Apple OS has for me ; Apple keep changing it and breaking it !

5

Wainting for the newest version of ENGINE Too.

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This is just an observation I’ve made when it comes to Engine and the issues people have posted so please don’t ban me.

The standard answer when it comes to Engine 1.x is “Wait for Engine Prime”. Unfortunately there is a huge issue with that answer as I see it. Why should someone who has paid for an expensive piece of hardware that boasts about about a very specific feature through it’s proprietary software have to wait for the next version of a product to get the functionality that was promised in the first version? What if Apple said hey look we have added touch screen on this new type of phone and after you bought the phone they said we are sorry it doesn’t work they way we said it would. You’ll have to get the next software to make it work and we don’t know when that software will be ready.

Anyway like I have stated in other posts I am not a professional DJ. Music and DJing is a hobby not my lively hood so things like this are just minor inconveniences to me. For the customer base who do make a living as a DJ things like this could hurt both their reputation and their finances. It would make it very difficult for me if i were a professional DJ to rely on the Engine software.

Maybe something to consider when questions are asked and answered in the next version of engine.

2 Likes
7

The things that can be missed when only a subset of posts are read, a subset of users spoken to, or a product not used, can sometimes give a very unusual slant to unusual situations.

Engine 1.5 work and indeed works well for many many many users of it, and the devices which it is designed to process/test files for.

Despite there seemingly being great ways of putting users computers in boxes by saying just Windows or Mac there are, of course, several Windows operating systems and several Mac Operating systems… suddenly those two boxes got busy…

Pick either box, and any operating system (OS) within that box… that OS can have various Service Packs or rebuilds.

Whichever OS and Service pack you picked, it’ll run on many brands of computer eg: Acer, Asus, Lenovo, HP, Toshiba, Sony and many more… within each brand of hardware they make several dozen versions of each laptop eg: different processors, different memory types, different memory sizes…

Oh and then any one of those lappys could have any number of different software programs lurking within… a software writer could test a piece of software on 1000 different builds of machine and that would still be a tiny tiny fraction of the possible combos of machine.

Short answer:

Everyone’s computer is different; different to each other’s, different to the computers which D&M (as it was previously) used in order to test Engine, which was written a long time ago (in DJ tech terms).

InMusics software writers have created Engine Prime NOT as an extra couple of subroutines or an extra chapter simply added to old Engine. The Inmusic guys have written Engine Prime using brand new methods, utilising brand new coding and techniques - as the briefest of examples; it doesn’t need QuickTime in order to run any more - which instantly add practicality for all those users of recent OS’s as Microsoft don’t include QuickTime in more recent versions of Windows.

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For me the PC software Engine is really a disaster. I have not managed to get a bunch of tracks analyzed without crashing completely. Tested on several different computers. This software, at this point, is not worth calling a software, more a beta beta

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9

Well, the remedy has already been mentioned. So don’t worry that Engine 1.5 is where it all ends.