do I organize all my Tracks in the Track-Collection or as Playlists?

The Sarge

I´m a bit confused by an payed Traktor-Course: there said to organize f.e Techno, Acid, Trance as Playlists!

I logical thought it would be organized in the Track-Collection! For what else is it when I should organize it unter Playlists?

I asked the guy who made the course and he answered: "sorry, but after finishing it, NI made changes to the whole music-collection-thing"... as i´m new to this whole thing (yes, had to do a break since Xmas by health) I am not sure if he´s right or just talking to get rid of me ;)

thanks in advance for any help

The Sarge!

The Sarge

hey there

I found a solution that works perfect for me and don´t let me decide Playlist <> Collection anymore

simple show & edit the tag "Genre" and fill in, what I need (Techno, Schranz, Acid, Hardcore, Trance, Goa) and finished -> now I see in the Track-Collection sub-lists of the tracks f.e. matching as Techno 😍

and so I´m able to keep my understanding of playlists: just the list of tracks (out of my huge Track-Collection) I´ll play in my next set 😎

thanks again for trying to help me

best wishes

The Sarge!

zephry

I definitely just use playlists. I keep my actual collection very small since my dj sets are rarely the same tracks and only a few similar genres.

The collection keeps all the samples and really anything you have played, even stuff you may never need. (My opinion) I never use it when djing live.

When I first started using Traktor 12 years ago I spent a huge amount of time adding music analyzing, and organizing by folders, using music software to add artwork and tags, I spent most my time doing this and not listening to any tracks or practicing sets.

Now I keep a hard drive with my music that I collected but most of it isn't used and I haven't analyzed and added to the collection. I subscribed to Beatport streaming instead and also use the Beatport app on my phone to listen and preview and add to some playlists there instead.

But even before subscribing to Beatport Link, I had began only keeping a few playlists of purchased music instead, maybe a folder from the hard drive with 100 tracks, but that's it.

I stick to a small amount and manage from what I add listening outside of Traktor.

I keep about 5 or so playlists that I change in the favorites bar above the browser.

lord-carlos

I tag them and use smartplaylist for rough styles.

And then playlist for more specific stuff.

The Sarge

interesting, thank you

@lord-carlos sorry, but what is "smartplaylist"? can´t find the word in the manual

lord-carlos

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/52378#Comment_52378

https://www.digitaldjtips.com/smart-playlists-smartlists-traktor-pro/

If you tag your tracks right, you can quickly make a smart playlist that contains for example: techno, high energy, above 130 bpm

Or: downtempo, latin, low energy

And the best part is you can do that whenever, you don't have to know the intent of the playlist while your organize your tracks. It auto populates and the tracks with the tags get added.

And if you buy a new track, that contains of the of those tags it gets added to the playlist automatically.

The Sarge

thank you

it´s a Traktor-PRO-feature, so that´s the reason why I don´t find it

lord-carlos

What are you currently using?

Traktor DJ 2?

The Sarge

oopsi, my fault ! !

I mixed up "Pro" with "+" - all this little differnces in NI-naming confuse me often "Traktor gear/Traktor Pro/Traktor Pro+" - "Maschine/Maschine-Software" - "Komplete Kontrol/Komplete Kontrol Software" - "Reaktor/Reaktor-Player/Reaktor5/Reaktor Blocks" 🤬

I use the Traktor which was included with the S4Mk3, must be: Traktor Pro 3.0319

lord-carlos

3.0?

You have not updated in a few years?

The Sarge

NI-Access shows me up-to-date 🤷‍♂️

and why "few years"? got it Xmas 2022

arrgh, again NI and me...the Software has 3.7.1 and the manual is 3.1_0319 🙊

sorry 4 confusing

lord-carlos

Well then you will have smart playlists :)

The Sarge

ok, I´ll check this

but still confused why we (should) make playlists instead of organizing the Track-Collection 🤷‍♂️

lord-carlos

What do you mean by "organizing the Track-Collection"?

The Sarge

I was DJ from the beginning of Techno till the early 2000s, in this time I collected a lot of CDs and Vinyl

the CDs I´ve converted nearly all to FLAC, the Vinyl would be converted in Spring

so now I´ve a huge amount of Tracks for the Track-Collection and I want to organize them in things like: Techno, Rumble-Techno, Acid, Acid-Trance, Tech-House, Gabber, Hardcore, Hardstyle, Hardtrance and Trance. And for that I feel the track collection is the logical place to store my tracks, organized/sorted of course! Playlists are from my understanding the complete list of Tracks used in a DJ-Set, aren´t they?

and than I watched the payed Traktor-Tutorial and the guys said "you organize your tracks in Playlists and make some Sub-Playlists f.e. for BPM-Range" - that confuse me, because for what is the Track-Collection else, if not the (organized) overview of all the tracks I own?

sorry that I can´t explain it better (not only due to bad english-speech)

at last, what´s now the difference between: Playlist, Smart-Playlist, Preparation-Playlist?

PS: yes I know too much old stuff, but I still like it and have fun mixing old with new tracks, so no chance to really thin them out, except total boring stuff and fillers

lord-carlos

The preparation playlist is just like a normal playlist, but you can add shortcuts to add a song to it.

I have a prep mapping for my keyboard, where I have shortcuts for preview next songs, fast forward preview and add selected song to preparation playlist.

A smartplaylist you can't add songs yourself or change order. But it auto fills on the values you choose. For example: Genre is equals to techo and BPM is higher than 120.

Just try it.

Playlists are from my understanding the complete list of Tracks used in a DJ-Set, aren´t they?

I have no idea what you mean. Playlist is just a by hand edited lists.

Kayya

I am sharing my way of working because I think it might be useful. Maybe we can improve mine too :))

 My usage;

 music collection (standard for touring)

 unanalyzed music (smartplaylist)

 newly added music (smartplaylist)

 New sampler sounds (smartplaylist)

 ——

 all selected music (smartplaylist)

 all selected sampler sounds (smartplaylist)

 ——

 all music with high stars (smartplaylist)

 Selected lists in 5 different styles (smartplaylist)

 ——

 Prepared performance lists (manualplaylist)

 usage;

 I use the repertoire feature to make manual lists easy to work with. I then turn it off.

 I make all music selected by coloring.

 Colors contain styles information.

 rating indicates the popularity of the music

 Addition dates and production dates give information about the novelty of the music.

 what I'm missing;

 I would like to know the ones without cuepoints.

 I would like to know for the music how many times I played it.

 I would like the style information to be analyzed with traktor pro.

 I would like to analyze the energy of music.

 I would like to divide my manually adjusted lists into sections for performance. (I don't want to do it with folder)