hey Tim!

I personally use Crates. I have a master copy of my entire library on my home workstation PC. then I sync up those folders of different genres, etc. to my external drive using AllWaySync. Then I use ScratchTools for my external to create the Crates for Serato. Easy process and I have libraries that are in sync whether it be my external or my master copy at home. I back up my serato database as well on my home workstation PC. This way I can duplicate my external drive to another if necessary. My external drive is used with a Mac Book Pro computer so I made sure it was cross-platformed compatible.

So to update I simply add a track to the appropriate library folder (example: 80's rock)... then I go through the process of syncing my external and then updating my crates in a just a few mouse clicks. ...

You seem to have the master plan for it. I would love to see your setup and get a better idea of how I can do what you are doing. I have so much shit everywhere its like a packrat that trys to start cleaning up. I gives me anxiety! I need to clean my act up so the simple fix was to close the book on crates, lose all my hard work and reopen the book in iTunes where I manage my shit now.
I was the wrong move, and I learned from it. I want to make sure it dosent happen again. Id rather the crates. I hate looking at my 6 year olds playlists while im DeeJaying. She makes a playlist for her iPod and I gotta look at it (or a playlist folder) every night.
Can you possibly go into some detail with me one night in an iChat?
I have the technology as you know with the DROBO and the Sharespace. I have the will to learn the right way. I just need some guidance. You can be my Phat AL Swift for the night.
Hit me on a PM if you have the time. Thx all

I use iTunes for my sorting...mostly because of the smart playlist option. So far I have had zero issues with it but I am using a dedicated partition and all my video and audio is on one internal drive.

Long Beach CA in the house!

crates all day everyday!

one thing i love is i can always have a small crate with me at all times on my thumb drive.

plug into any serato machine & go to town.

but either way that works with any external.

Will AllWaySync work when copying over files to my mac formatted external drive from my pc. I use mediafour mac drive to open and transfer files from my pc to external drive.

I like total control.
so I manually do all my folders/crates.

Ive heard good things about I tunes, and when I swap to a mbp Ill probably give it a shot.
plus now my library has been trimmed & perfected... no more junk/doubles ect.
and Im pushing 600gb, so finding random songs that span a few genres gets tough
sometimes....

itunes for the win. smart playlists are very powerful. as long as your tracks are tagged properly the smart playlists can't be beat. for instance i made 90's r&b playlist this weekend in seconds. it could be done in ssl using crates, but it wouldn't be as easy.

also when paired with an app like itunes folder watch, tracks are automatically added to itunes and thus automatically added to scratchlive. this is probably the most important feature for me. and as long as serato doesn't automatically add new tracks, i will be using itunes/itunes folder watch.

i do use crates for specific things tho, like making playlists for terrestrial/online radio, etc.

Thx for the tip on itunes folder watch. Never knew about that.

ok I now have read up on this.....I am a MAC user so heres what you need to know if you want to try out the new add to iTunes automatically action.
I have tested it with video and audio and it works very well. Nice cool feature
FYI this link is for windows and Mac users
make sure you hace updated your iTunes 9 to iTunes media organization
open iTunes click File > Library> organize library> check box for upgrade to iTunes media organization

lifehacker.com

enjoy

Tim

You know Tim, i saw that folder and didn't know what it did. Thanks for the link!

it's odd i read the new features of itunes 9 and it did not mention the abiliy to automatically add new music.

you will see right in that article that iTunes critics suspect that Apple snuck it in there on purpose. So many folks were asking for it I guess they tried to stick it to us.

I added that folder to my side-view in finder for even easier access, sweetness. Then it adds the files to iTunes and deletes the first copy of it. I originally was thinking of setting my downloads folder in safair/firefox to the ADD folder, I tested it that way but wasnt comfy with that arrangement.

Glad to help

Tim