Feature idea: Smart playlist for track pairing

mixomatosis · 2022-06-19T17:57:49+00:00

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I would love to see the addition of a smart playlist for paired tracks, one that is less global and more track-specific.

When I am preparing a new (or old) track, I like to find other tracks that pair well with it. Some combos work really well together, and I want to remember them for future mixes. At present, I can create playlists to preserve this information, but traditional playlists are not what I really need. I need a way of linking tracks to each other, almost like an audio thesaurus.

If this were possible, there could be a smart playlist which, when you highlight or focus a particular track, would display all the tracks you have linked to it. Because the playlist is context-sensitive rather than fixed, it would simplify one aspect of playlist management. At the moment, I tend to commit pairings to memory, or a note on my phone. Neither are ideal.

Another way to implement this might be to add linked tracks to something akin to a comment field. The field could have a pull-down menu of linked tracks. Linked tracks could be loaded into a deck from the menu, and selecting one would jump to it, populating the same field with a new list of ideal pairings. I imagine it like a mind map.

Anyway, just an idea, but one that I would find genuinely useful 😀

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alec.tron

Heh, I understood the title somewhat different... nontheless, or rather, as it feels there's 2 feature requests here, both of which have been mentioned multiple times before...:

+1 for the smart playlists having a 'currently playing track' (and/or, choose which Track A / B / C / D or a combination ) attribute. This is the one use case for smart playlists for me, and it's still missing unfortunately.

+1 for being able to save mix in/out info (other than paper notes, or shoe horning playlists, and using custom seperators & tracks that hold the notes....), ideallyt in the file itself, i.e. a metadata based MixIn / MixOut field that can be populated (from within traktor, dynamically when playing, i.e. easily, and based on existing platlist orders).

Cheers.

mixomatosis

Yeah, I’ve largely resorted to notes for writing down matches, and comments on occasion. I haven’t been imaginative with any playlist hacks, though custom separators sound like a great idea. Thanks :)

Demus

Basically, this sounds like dynamic playlist similar to the one in Traktor DJ 2. I personally like this type of playlist to the traditional smart playlist. Hopefully this will be part of Traktor Pro 4. I thought that NI had said that the pro features from Traktor Pro 3 would be added to DJ Pro 2 and become Traktor Pro 4. But maybe that plan has been abandon.

MATCH

Get recommendations on what track to throw on next based on what’s playing.

mixomatosis

I haven’t really used Traktor DJ 2 due to its inability to export metadata to Traktor Pro. So Native instruments have indicated that Traktor 4 would take from Pro 3 and DJ 2. That sounds really interesting. Maybe one day we’ll get a full-fat Traktor app for tablets. The hardware is already there. I shall live in hope.

Aquarobotics

This is my number one feature request. I call it track linking. There would only have to be one button between any two decks that you hit when the mix goes well. There. Stored to each track's own 'link' list is the other track.

This creates a library of effective mixes and makes it so that you never have to forget a bomb mix ever again and always have a choose-your-own-adventure style of track recall available in times when you need something really good really fast.

The link list could be available in the browser in place of the album art for instance, for any selected track. Or better still, each deck could feature a scrollable playlist. I imagine most tracks having between 2 and 10 songs linked to it on average but that's the beauty... it's very personal. I don't really care for playlists that tell me what the rest of the world mixes with a certain track. I want my own version of that, which grows over time.

Patch

This type of "Dynamic SmartList" is desperately needed.

Years ago, and I don't even know if it's still out there, there was a piece of software called Rapid Evolution, that did something like this.

Okay - it's still out there, but not updated since 2018:

Download Rapid Evolution 3 Beta 58 (softpedia.com)

mixomatosis

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/21693#Comment_21693

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, it looks like it’s Windows-only (I’m on a Mac). Yes, Traktor playlists could really do with a rethink. At the moment, they’re too “flat”.

olafmol

Don't get your hopes up, this has been requested for 10+ years, never happened. You can of course switch to rekordbox or another up to date dj software solution, most of them have this functionality in there for several years already.

Kubrak

There is the problem how to do it technically. How to store and keep track's links. It could be in database, so hard to copy to another computer. And what if one moves one of the files to another location?

It could be stored in files, each one would have some kind of unique ID and links would be either in DB or partly in files and partly in DB....

It is not so easy make it work well and sustainably...

lord-carlos

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/22224#Comment_22224

Just in the database like rekordbox.

If you move then you have to move your nml file as well.

J-New

Traktor 3 needs TRACK RECOMMENDATIONS just like in Traktor DJ 2. But more flexible so after you play a song it's not off the list. The ideas about notating good Matches could be put into a folder. But TRACK RECOMMENDATIONS are desperately need.

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