I see a lot of people struggling with EP, having issues with packing and not being able to find their songs etc… I don’t have any of these problems that most complain about and I honestly believe it’s due to the way things are done. I know Denon recommend to do this a certain way, however I struggle to see a valid reason for doing it like this. Hence this post. So first…This is how I do it, I grab a usb drive, I format it & create some folders (deep, tech, progressive etc…) Then I fill those folders with the specific genre of that folder. Then I start up EP, add all that music on my usb drive to the EP collection by dragging each folder onto the collection tab, which creates crates with the same names as the folders (Bonus!!). Then I analyse all the songs - Done!! All my music is in folders the way I like it. I also have crates that correspond to my folder structure. I can search & find all my tracks, all my music is on my usb drive (coz I put it there!!). I find this super simple to do & it works a treat. So I have to put this question out there. Why on earth would you want to plug in an empty usb drive, then add all your music on the laptop to EP, then manually create & name crates (deep, tech, prog etc…) then sift through your music in the EP collection and add tracks to those crates, only to (hope) that Denon “packs” those tracks onto a usb drive correctly and in a completely unknown order / folder structure, that you’ll probably never be able to navigate through. Im putting this question out there coz I genuinely don’t see a reason for doing it the Denon way. Does it not make more sense to just add the music you want onto the stick yourself & in a folder structure / order that makes sense to you, whether using a pc or folder view on a Prime deck? Am I missing something?
Am I missing something
Cue points, loops, …
I have my music also on an external (in case of SC5000) or the Prime4 drive, so databases are on those drives. Less confusing and if you change something on the device, it’s always there. No sync back etc.
If you need to import from other software you mean?
So I actually tried this as my Traktor collection was on an SD card and it did NOT work well at all.
- I had a Traktor collection already completely on an external SD card.
- I imported it into EP using the built in feature to get my cue points.
- All is well, music is there + analyzed in EP I should be able to take the card out and put it in a player right?
- It DID work at first and I was so happy
- Over time the entire collection became corrupt “circular reference error id guess” and I had to delete my entire Engine .db and restart from scratch, I tried a few times but could never get it to work.
So even if it works for the first time, NO it is NOT BUILT to do this but I wish it was.
I don’t pack as well.
My entire Serato library is in an external drive. I’ve always used an external drive with serato even before I bought the Primes
I use the serato library import thing in Engine Prime and everything I need is imported. No need to pack as it’s the same drive.
Anche io ho sempre fatto in questo modo e non ho mai avuto grandi problemi.
Two reasons.
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It works for every other DJ software that does this and Denon says it will work.
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You add songs later and then have to update.
Ok, I guess that makes sense, if you’re importing your collection from a dj software and have lots of cue points & loops then the Denon way would need to be used. Your 2nd point I don’t quite understand though. No matter which way you get your songs into EP, you will always have to update it when adding new music.
Ok I understand your method, but… Say that each week you have around 50 new songs that you want to add to your collection. How do you add these new songs? Do you copy each file in the corresponding subfolder on your pendrive? But then how do you add them into the EP collection? How do you remember which subfolders contain new tracks, so you need to analyze them?
I still don’t get it…
You would add music to the collection the way you normally would. The difference is the actual file location of the tracks you are adding to EP. Look at it like this, if you got 50 new tracks each week, how would you normally do it in EP? Perhaps you make a crate or playlist with those 50 new songs? Maybe you title that crate “Jan 2020 week1”. You would then add those songs to the EP collection by dragging those tracks from your pc’s hdd. Now what I’m suggesting is before you start EP, you make a folder with that same title (whatever you normally do for crates / playlists), then add / copy all your new music into that folder (from computer hdd to thumb drive / P4 internal). Then… you start-up EP. Drag that folder you just created (on your thumb drive / P4 internal) to the EP collection. EP will automatically make a crate with the same name as that folder & it will add those songs to your collection. All that’s left to do is analyse them (if auto analyse is off). Done!! Now you have your music on your thumb drive / P4 internal with your music added to the EP database AND… it’s in a folder structure that you can easily locate the songs on your own (if need be). When EP “packs” your songs (taking them from your computer’s hdd or wherever they are) to the thumb drive / P4 internal, it creates it’s own folder/file structure that is very difficult to navigate through on your own. There are also lots of times when people get “packing errors” etc… This eliminates all of that, coz you copied & pasted (packed) the drive yourself, so you know for sure your music is there. I hope you understand what Im getting at here.
OK I understand your method of storing the songs in the pendrive so no need to pack, but the only thing that remains unclear to me is: you have all the songs organized in EP, but if you move a song from one crate to another, then you don’t have the same folder structure as the crates, right?
In that case it would be exactly the same as if you had let EP pack the music for you. If you make a crate in EP, it won’t create a new folder on your hdd / pen drive. Then the crates won’t be the same as the folders anymore. I don’t make crates in EP that don’t correspond to my folders, I prefer to use playlists for what you’re suggesting. But even then, it should not really be a concern because you are the one that copied that music onto the drive, so you know for sure, that it is definitely there. So to summarise, if you are importing all your cue’s & loops from Dj software, then my method won’t really work for you (well… not without first transferring your entire dj software collection to external first anyways). If you are starting out with a fresh clean ssd, then I would highly recommend my way for a couple of reasons. 1) You know for sure that all your music is there. 2) You have a much easier way of navigating through your music when the drive is not connected to Prime decks or software. 3) It’s actually a whole lot faster.
Only a pleasure, I hope it helps.
This method is very logic. Great job 
this is awesome. no packing no double tracks everywhere no keeping massive amounts of music on a limited internal laptop ssd. folder structure makes sense which is a bonus
just started over to implement this workflow. hats off ! thanks
Thanks for sharing. I just hope the looney kids developing this software will have a serious change of heart in regards to the way they think one should populate their music collections.
The current prescribed way is both unintuitive, error prone and without similar anywhere in the DJ app world. I don’t know where they got the database and packing ideas from, but it’s simply an awful design that has proved time and again that it does not work the way people want it to.
That’s exactly as what I do, always keep serato as a back up 