Organizing Music On Your DJ Laptop (A HOW TO GUIDE)

[@djkanoya]

Will these tips help you organize your music tracks? How do you do things differently than me? Let's help each other out!

[@DTrackFinder]

Awesome advice, it’s not a secret that 90% of the DJs agree that playing the right song at the right time is the most important thing to rock a party 🎊

[@DavidEsp1]

Tip: On a Mac, even on an external drive, make sure the topmost (not necessarily root) music folder has a name beginning with "Music". Otherwise the extra music-type fields (eg duration) won't appear in Finder (List-mode).

[@DJRebirth]

Awesome video dude!! Your production rocks and I love how you keep taking things to the next level. (That Promo Only shout out section was rad!!). Lately I've been getting a LOT of music videos from Xtendamix and due to the format of the venue I play at, I have been organizing things like this (below). For the most part this does help but sometimes I do get trapped in a certain decade/genre so my Virtual Folders tend to help me break the cycle and hop musical styles! ** File Folders ** [Decade 1] -> [Genre 1] (The main genre folder always contains my clean & dirty extended mix videos) -> [Singles] (This subfolder contains the single version of a song, both clean & dirty in case I need to drop the song or mix an audio remix on top of it!) -> [Genre 2] (Same organization method as above) -> Singles (Same organization method as above) -> [Genre etc..] -> [Singles etc..] [Decade 2] (Same organization and structure as above) [Decade etc...] ** Virtual Folders ** [Feel Good Songs] [Girl Power Songs] [Popular Line/Group Dance Songs] [Timeless Hip Hop] [Popular Latin Dance Songs] [Etc...]

[@djkanoya]

Thanks for your continued support ... And yes, creating a folder, by month, for your Xtendamix downloads is ideal especially since those are single file downloads. And then create filtered folders for genre, decade, etc. in VDJ!

[@kevinsummers]

Good tips, and I love the production of your video! I just subscribed

[@djkanoya]

Thanks for the sub Kevin! Looking forward to connecting with you more.

[@djmattdodge]

Personally I have all my music in one folder and that's it. You can add all the tags in serato etc. You can put the record pool in comment section....and your genre and year and month are all in the meta data. Serato knows what month and date you added it. Smart crates can find any info (as long as it's tagged properly). Personally I feel making sub folders is making you do twice the work

[@djkanoya]

I think one folder is fine if you just have a few music sources. But once you have multiple pools, CD rips, Amazon purchases and more, to me, it just makes sense to do some first level organizing on the hard drive.

[@djmattdodge]

@@djkanoya I just personally never search for music based on what pool I got it from. But then again in Serato you can search for CK in the filename and find clubkiller edits. Or like I said when you bring in a huge batch from like DMS you can write that in like ALBUM or something. But whatever works for each DJ honestly. Personally I hav tried that and I feel like im doing twice the work.

[@djkanoya]

@@djmattdodge LOL ... you're definitely NOT going to be a fan of my next video, which specifically talks about how I sort by pool within my software. For me, there are certain pools I use specifically for remixes, and when I'm doing certain types of events, I like to just go to those pool folders and see what might work, since I know those are specifically remixes and not radio edits. But, like you said, it's really up to everyone's individual needs and workflow. Appreciate you watching and providing perspective!

[@specialtyentertainmentdj]

Hey DJ K, i have everthing on an ext. HD in one huge folder, then on my laptop i have separated folders: decades >genre (80s>rock, rap, new wave, pop, etc.) Then in Vdj, i have playlists by bpm, or occasions (80s 97-99bpm or Smith wedd dinner). While it mostly works for me, i still get the occasional can't find tracks and duplicates. I have not used that "filters search", thats a good idea, thanks for the video

[@djkanoya]

Definitely recommend filters and not getting too hyper organized on the hard drive. If you haven't checked it out yet, the video I released this week shows my method of organizing in VDJ. kzbin.info/www/bejne/m2bVYZSXpqiMrdE Thanks for watching!

[@djpeteb6092]

I do .... ALL MUSIC > GENERE > YEAR within each GENERE there is a SPECIAL MIXES

[@lewismartin5291]

The Sub folders 🤯

[@Jay-ug5zm]

Looking for some assistance on finding good dj music organization software that has lyric find, so when someone asks me at a wedding for a song but don't know the song name? Any suggestions? Thank you.

[@5thElementDFW]

I dig the video and your style but I can’t do my music like that. I have mine separated by genre and I’m currently going thru and listening to every track to see which I actually know or have heard or played or would play because I have waaaaaayyyy too much. I did make a backup on some thumb drives in case I get a random request at some point but my main drive is going down drastically. I haven’t finished my hip hop (explicit folder) yet but between duplicates and songs I’ve never played, I went from 4500 to 1200.

[@chazwalker7156]

Hey, great video. I use PCDJ Dex 3 app for playing - unfortunately the tagging/editing feature (within Dex 3) doesn't seem to support the ability to tag multiple (same artist) files with the ease of one mouse click; ie. 100 Elvis tracks have to be edited individually... So time consuming - any suggestions or tricks to sort this plz? Dex 3 doesn't read the file tag from the actual file location on C drive, but Dex 3 does overwrite the tag when edited from within the Dex 3 app... but there seems to be no ability to select all (within Dex 3) and fill/paste down the entire column (hope this makes sense)

[@chazwalker7156]

Update: I've now found a trick for this 👍🏻

[@sqlforeveryep215]

dude nice video - just clean you Laptop surface

[@stevedub5006]

I hope those aren’t the only 3 pools you’re using.

[@djkanoya]

Why? I've never subbed to more that three at a time.

[@Ravinstomper]

folder structure is wrong here should be my music [master folder - any title] genres [sub diectory(ies)] style, mood, year, rating [actual mp3 files] keep it simple. to many folder titles can be mind boggling. may as well burn them on cd and flip through wallets still

[@djkanoya]

I do not organize by genre, mood, style, etc. within my hard drive. I do all of this with automation in Virtual DJ using Filtered Folders. This enables one song to be placed in multiple folders. Organizing in this manner on your hard drive, means a file can only live in one place. So placing a file in a folder in the month it was downloaded, and within a folder from the source it was downloaded from, makes the most sense to me. Because it really can only be there.

[@lennonwalker3820]

My folders are all over the place is there a software that will automatically movie and say put all 80s in one folder ect