Hi guys, it’s been a while. I’ve been mixing vinyl and really loving it.
However it’s time to incorporate and use my Sc6000s more in my sets.
Only problem is, my music library is about 20 years old and a complete minefield. Sadly I also have “ naughty “ tracks in there ( many because the tracks aren’t available on mp3 ).
My question is how do I tidy up my 15,000 plus tracks. What’s the best way of routing out the low quality crap? Tagging adding art work?
I really want to start buying MP3 again but I’m noticing many older tracks I love don’t have artwork on Beatport. What places do people recommend? I’m looking to buy older Anjunabeats / ASOT / Vandit stuff also newer progressive house / melodic stuff from Anjunadeep / monstercat silk ect. Should I just buy directly from the labels and skip Beatport?
iTunes for pretty much everything, its 99p a track at its most expensive, often less. ANd in the case of Trance and Prog, you’ll often find tracks are part of a larger compilation of DJ friendly tracks and can be purchased for £6/£7 etc. That way you can often replace a load of your music for far less.
Any MP3 editor software will do the job of adding artwork, but honestly id be worrying about that later, most of the itunes stuff will have artwork anyway and if you want to change it, google the track and download the image from there to add to the file.
for routing out the low quality, sort your files by their bitate or file size in your folder setup on your computer then get rid of the lower ones.
Some people recommend having every single track in a single folder then doing your sorting inside the DJ software, i prefer replicating all my playlists in a folder structure so its a mirror image and allows me to move around between DJ software easily.
Use FakinTheFunk to root out low quality that disguises it self as higher rate.
use MP3Tag or Picardz to get artwork and tags.
If you don’t use the comments tag field, use that after you’ve selected all tracks below 320kb and add the text ‘get higher quality’. And place them in to a playlist.
Now select the songs you play the most every week/month. Move those into a fresh library.
Then slowly add tracks from the remaining batch you feel are worth keeping. Hold the remaining in a separate location as back-up.
Buy from Bandcamp or directly from the label/artist if possible. Make sure you get the highest quality you can afford. If the track isn’t available directly opt for iTunes and DJ Pools. Use discount codes with Traxsource and Beatport.
Now regarding your post. You say you have naughty tracks but they aren’t on MP3.
Do you mean you have them on vinyl only? If so you’re going to need to digitize them. This is a separate process worth a long post.
Cheers Stu, great minds think alike I’m just literally sat doing that. Have listed via bit rate. I’ve got so many 192ks it’s unbelievable ha ha!
Great shout with regards to iTunes, I’ll have a look now. I’m gonna just organise it all in iTunes and then move it over to engine dj. Then I’m gonna delete everything on the drive on my Sc and update with a beautiful clean high quality legit library with artwork.
I’m taking advantage of this thread as it’s more or less related to ask what do you use to find duplicates and remove them efficiently?
I often go through Pool DJs to purchase music, notably one that many use in France: Fuvi Clan (which is legal and allows the downloading of 2000 tracks per month for €15/month)
This pool often makes monthly sound packs like Top 50 March 2024 etc. for each style and the problem is that when we download this kind of pack we often sometimes find tracks already present in the previous month’s packs.
So in the end it becomes a mess
Likewise, do you know of any software that allows you to automatically retrieve the coverarts in high quality based on the file tag because Fuvi Clan does not integrate the coverarts into the tracks.
Thanks Vesnl, sound advice. My plan was to go the direct from label / bandcamp route. Definitely gonna check out the software you mentioned especially regarding routing out the stealth low quality tunes hiding.
Right guys, this has helped me get the ball rolling. I’m going to get on it now. Can’t wait to have a clean and nice sounding library.
Just bear in mind that using software to detect “hidden” low quality tracks isn’t necessarily going to be accurate. The one mentioned works (I believe) by just looking at how much high end the track has, which is not infallible.
Some tracks just don’t have a lot of high end anyway, so could be incorrectly flagged.
I’d be more concerned if it sounds wishy washy or “underwater” which is a clear sign of low bit rate. If it just sounds a bit dull, that could just be because it is.
My only other piece of advice is to not aim to fully replace everything at once. Get a core of music you’re actually gonna use then just pick at the rest of it as and when you need, or something pops into your head.
I did this same task around 2007 to organise my own mess of a library and believe it or not im still working away at it now and then. Its not because i lost interest, its purely the fact i did the above and sorted the core stuff out, and now ill refer to my old CDs i used to DJ with on occasion and ill seek out a track i should have downloaded. It also allowed me to just plain get rid of music i wasn’t bothered about keeping.
Prime example is Afro Medusa - Pasilda… ive had it on vinyl for over 20yrs and only picked up the digital file a few weeks back after a conversation on here.
Just doing what i suggested there will save you absolutely doing your own head in.
For the sound you’re seeking, I think Beatport would be the safe choice. As for the tracks with missing artwork, I would simply just Google for it I do hope Engine desktop will soon allow ID3-tagging incl. artwork - this is easily the biggest thing missing for me in the entire Engine ecosystem.
I have a rule, any tracks I really like and want to keep I’ll buy from Bandcamp or Traxsource in lossless. Tracks I’m not overly fussed about (some new house track that is currently popular or an old classic I may play occasionally) I’ll get on the cheap from iTunes. A lot of my soul and disco stuff is from there as it’s just the easiest way to find them.
As far as the prog and trance goes, I think people would be pleasantly surprised just how much of it is available on there and not on places like Beatport etc.
Sound advice Stu, yeah I’m gonna do that. Most of my tunes are from when I was DJing clubs bars ects in my 20s ( the good old days ). It’s more for pleasure now. So this is exactly what I’m doing.
I think if you right click on one of the files you bought and choose “Show details” or “Show File Info” or whatever it’s called, it’ll show the quality. If they upped it to 320kbps they’ll seriously be competing with Beatport for my future purchases (for the ones I won’t buy as .AIFF)
The was way more annoying than it needed to be, thanks Apple.
They are showing as 264 Kris. Ive always been happy with the quality of them FWIW and I love the convenience of a single click to purchase something when I need, the auto downloads to my computer.
I do hope Engine desktop will soon allow ID3-tagging incl. artwork - this is easily the biggest thing missing for me in the entire Engine ecosystem.
