I create playlists in Apple Music and then utilize UKeySoft on a PC to rip that playlist into FLAC files. Sometimes the size of the playlist is 25 - 80 tracks. I add them to a folder and then import folder to Rekordbox on the iMac used exclusively for music storage and Rekordbox. Rekordbox then used to export a USB which is then plugged into an XDJ-1000 MK2. I may not be the help you were asking for but thought to explain my setup. Outside of my iMac using an operating system that is steadily becoming unsupported by Apple (High Sierra)…think my setup is somewhat standard.
Managing your tunes across multiple devices
DJing sounds like an absolute ball ache.
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Funnily enough, storing on certain cloud solutions would be way easier than what you are doing.
I have everything backed up on Google
Drive. So when I paste a file into my music folder within a minute it’s mirrored on the cloud. That’s it.
My computers could go up in flames and I’d be up and running in a few hours of downloading everything on my next machine.
We are usually just intimidated by what we haven’t learned.
Mad_Cyril this is what I miss.
Beatport link helped me find 2400 tracks in about 6 months.
When I stopped using Link I got better by default at choosing tunes and putting them in a potential hold bin. Coming back to them the next day to see if I really liked them and then only buying those.
It really trained my brain. However I do occasionally still come across tracks I love that won’t fit anywhere and either buy them wasting money or discipline myself to just not buy it (and spend a moment being quite sad).
My idea for using beatport link would be to use it to experiment with loopy techno that I wouldn’t usually rate enough to buy a full track of. With link I would just download all sorts of shit and start experimenting. I think that sounds like fun.
Defo. There’s bags of potential to do this if you are well organised with playlists / crates.
NasserAlazzawi It really trained my brain. However I do occasionally still come across tracks I love that won’t fit anywhere and either buy them wasting money or discipline myself to just not buy it (and spend a moment being quite sad).
Eh surely you should be buying those tracks you like and learning how to use them within a mix. Your mixes improve and you improve as a DJ no? Is that not the “discipline”?
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SM001 usually, but some are little buggers when you go through as many as I seem to be.
I think it’s down to wanting a real flow but I know some DJs do killer sets by jolting/changing the rhythm more suddenly and frequently.
I’ve been training myself not to do that - some of my early sets were (imo) full of great tunes but the rhythm/groove changing didn’t make sense. It took Alan Ruddick to train me to focus more on that and create a journey. I don’t get that right all the time but I’ve even seen Sasha get that wrong lately.
Thinking about it I would have been much more likely to shoehorn tracks like this in 2018, 2019 than I am willing to do today.
NasserAlazzawi You’re assuming that Apple doesn’t burn to the ground (see the fire at Universal for ref)… or get hacked, or fuck up, or just fuck you off. I don’t trust the platforms much. Having my own drives works for me at the moment.
NasserAlazzawi wanting a real flow
It’s such a killer when you can’t find the tracks that allow you to do this. Proper head banging against the wall stuff as you spend hours on Beatport looking for the ‘one’ right track that works on all levels.
It’s a fair point about Apple. It seems unlikely but is possible.
The cloud solution I mention let’s you keep your files on your machine and it just picks up when you add a new one and mirrors it up there.
So if google ever died it is still on my machine at least.
NasserAlazzawi Oh I get it, it’s just that when you have a few petabytes of music, they want you to pay for it every month, and they can do one!
I manage my tunes on separate devices.
Hope that helps.
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It would be nice if Apple gave you back a HQ file that you uploaded.
I use Itunes Match and the way music syncs across devices / Macs is superb, unless you need to download the original HQ file on a Mac that doesn’t have the orig WAV/FLAC/HQ AIFF file. What Music does is just give you their version at 256 kps…….Does my head in.
That said i’m not playing out at Fabric any time soon, so do mixes/streams really suffer when using AIFF at 44.1 kHz/ 256kps? I suspect not so should just get over myself and suck it up! lol
I found out last year that the regularly streamed 256 AAC actually sounds slightly better in the mids and highs than 320kbps MP3 and the AAC format was developed by the same guys who made MP3.
It turns out that it’s not all about the number. I feel really sorry for Beatport Link who actually send out high quality streamed sounds and people are always grilling them for being 256.
There are countless articles about it, I just googled this one and to quote it:
“A rule of thumb is to use 320kbps MP3s and 256 AACs for professional use (highest bitrates). Or use the original WAV/AIFF uncompressed files.”
As for the lossless files, I genuinely can hear a slight difference in WAV/FLAC on a good sound system.
To me though, everyone has fun, loves the music, and it sounds great, when on a dance floor listening to a DJ playing MP3/AAC. That extra 2% shine doesn’t seem worth the storage costs at all. You can become very efficient with MP3/AAC files.
I do admire when someone has actually pulled that off and has thousands of tracks on those formats, mind.
I buy the odd tune on Bandcamp, but my mate luckily runs her own promo company and so you get to see what FK, Terry Farley, Optimo, Jimpster, Ashley Needle and Bill Brewster think of them The tracks are free and upfront. I could never sit there and go through Beatport anymore.
I know it’s lazy…..I organise monthly music/ideas into crates.
