I recently complained on the Mixed in Key forums about the fact that MIK kills whitelabel files and received this response - figured it was something worth raising here.



community.mixedinkey.com

the songs that i dowload at withelabel.net doesn't work with my mixed in key either.
Theres is any think that we can do to make it work?
thank you

Hello, we are currently working with Mixed In Key on a fix so that it works with Whitelabel files. We'll keep you posted.

Brilliant - thanks Dave!

thanks man
i'll be here waything for that

We've made some good progress, more news soon.

how long has whitelabel and serato been putting out tracks??? you are industry standard and you should have fixed this months if not years ago. Im VERY VERY VERY frustrated with this, I called serato once to find out why my files were not converting and they said NOTHING about it possibly being mik, it took me forever to realize.
anyway, if you cant figure out how to fix this soon (!!!!!) why dont you just include the key in the tag yourself?!?!?!?!?!?

Yes.

I ruined a bunch of Whitelabel tracks so I had to delete them.
Not a huge problem though cause I do have a back up on another external drive.
It's just a pain in the ass to search & copy over again.

Thanks for the update Dave. Happy that you usually deliver pretty solid solutions in the end so I'm happy to wait.

does anyone know if it will corrupt the file if you manually enter the key info?? Just want to confirm its the MIK scan that ruins the MP3

If you have all the options in MIK to update the file turned off, it will not try and re-write anything in the file, so no damage can occur. You can then manually update the key field from within Serato.

^^ What he said ^^

Scanning the files is not the problem, tag re-writing is where things go wrong.

Also, it's worth pointing out that MIK (and indeed any software other than Scratch Live or ITCH) can only access the low quality audio portion of the file. This may affect MIK's effectiveness in detecting the key of the Whitelabel tracks.

i glad you guys are working to fix it
is not because i can't use the music to mixing them. is just because with the key is simpler
thank you for keeping us inform
i'm wayting for the good news

def not an option, i have 22 gigs of whitelabel files, anyone know if theres a tag editor (or other program ) that will allow me to put the tagged files in 1 folder and the identical untagged files in another and transfer from one to the other..

CHris, if i wrote a program to do this would that corrupt the files as well??

It should be possible to write a program that doesn't corrupt the files. Some open source tag editing libraries choke on tags that they don't recognize but there's no technical reason why tag editors can't leave unrecognized tags untouched.

Why doesn't whitelabel jsut put out normal ass MP3's like the rest of the world...so stupid...dumbest idea ever...I barely download any whitelabel songs anymore just becuz of the sheer annoyingness of it...there's plenty of other sites out there like gigacrate and digiwaxx that give u perfectly fine mp3s. wl.mp3 is the DUMBEST IDEA EVER. Whack. will not support. And even more whack that they wouldn't have taken this MIK thing into consideration when coming up with this lame idea in the first place...lol. You're putting out music for DIGITAL DJ'S ONLY and you don't consider that a tool that a good percentage of digital DJ's use will screw up the songs your putting out? lol. we.todded.

Hey siLLyKiD,
Whitelabel.net and its file format were developed some years ago, probably around the same time Mixed in Key was being developed. We didn't include the key section at the time as it wasn't requested by anyone we had consulted with.

Of course, now, many DJs prefer to mix either in key, or reference the field while they're performing. We're working with MIK on a solution.

Having said that, it sounds like this won't matter very much considering your stance on the wl.mp3. Thanks for your feedback, maybe one day Whitelabel might entice you back somehow.

tracking siLLyKid....i think his insightful enlightened viewpoints and posts will keep me informed and entertained for years to come

ah man, now i feel like a big ol jerk =l sowwwwwwwwwwwyyyyyyy...lol. It's just like...i dunno. frustrating =l even if the MIK did work with serato the wl.mp3 format really just bugs the poopstains out of me =\ next time i will go yell at the top of a mountain or hit a punching bag tho ^__^ sozzzzz m8 <3

and FYI- anything and everything else Rane or Serato has ever put it's hands on i am completely in love with. To the point where I am about to get the Rane logo AND the Serato emblem tatoo'd on my body. Now if that ain't love...i dunno what it =]

If I see a non Whitelabel version of the same track, I just delete the Whitelabel one.

I LOVE WHITELABEL.NET!!
Its a bonus when you wake up check your emails and get a message telling you theres some fresh tracks available to listen to and download.....FOR FREE!!
I also use mixed in key and have the odd issue when it comes to manually typing in the key in serato but ime gonna try what CAW posted about turning off the options to update the filename and see if this helps.
I thought i was the only one having MIK issues so its good to read all your posts for info and advice on the whole MIK thing!!
I gotta say tho that all my whitelabel tracks play fine through serato after keying them.

take it e z you lot

Anyone ever have a problem with their hard drives just not working at all. I've just recently downloaded a few songs through white label and I've already had two external hard drives go bad on me. This is very frustrating because this has happened to me TWICE in a week! Serato even closed on its own when I played M.I.A.'s XXXO the other day, which I happened to get from white label.

DJ-Majette.

I can't think how Whitelabel.net audio files would be responsible for hard drive failures so I suggest you create a Help Request for whichever Serato DJ product it is that you use.

That way the Support Team can look into your issues further.

You can create a Help Request here: serato.com

I fail to see how any audio file can cause a hardware failure.

Yes on my Win 7 machine the Whitelabel files can turn explorer into a sluggish pile of crap, once I move them to the MacBook Pro it's a non issue. I would be scared to open a huge folder of them on a Windows laptop running SSL though.

This is, unfortunately, a known issue with Windows 7 and something we hope Microsoft will fix at some point.

I've written up a couple of possible workarounds in this FAQ: www.whitelabel.net

Mixed In Key 4.1 for Mac is out, open Mixed In Key to download the update.

Mixed In Key 4.1 for Mac contains a fix for treating WL.MP3 files well.
Mixed In Key 4.0 for Windows already treats WL.MP3 files well.

One more note, if you have any troubles with older WL.MP3 files, please download replacements at whitelabel.net

cool
didnt know that.
got to give my .wl files a go in 4.0 then.
i havent even tried to test my .wl files

learned the hard way with 3.0

FAQ updated to mention the compatible versions of Mixed In Key and Platinum Notes: www.whitelabel.net

Just to let you guys know, I downloaded MIK 4.1 for Mac, and had it analyze all my Whitelabel tracks. I have it set to write the key info to the key ID3 tag.

After it was done, I loaded some of them in SSL 2.0 and here's what I found:

- some WL tracks loaded with no problems at all
- some WL tracks had lost their saved cue points
- some WL tracks became corrupted ("invalid samples")
- some WL tracks were so corrupted they were reduced to popping sounds

Weird. Luckily I had my Whitelabel files backed up, so no harm done.

As Serato explained in their FAQ (link above this post, thanks Chris), Whitelabel tracks downloaded after March 2010 are OK to analyze in MIK, it's the older WL tracks that have problems with writing the tags. It would be great if MIK could write key tags for the older WL tracks, if there's a way that I'm not aware of I'd love to learn.

djjoefresh, thanks for reporting your findings here.

Unfortunately, for technical reasons that are not very interesting, older WL tracks are most likely never going to play nice with MIK.

You did the right thing by backing up first, and I hope that everyone who reads this will follow your good sense :-)

Hey Chris... care to share some details about the technical reasons?

the whole mix in key thing is bullshit. This is just another way to your money.

It's a very useful tool for DJ's who like/want to mix harmonically, yes you can sit next to a piano/keyboard/instrument of choice and figure out the key of each track manually, but MIK does a good job of finding the key with a quick analyzation. And it's well worth the $58, if you use it a lot.

+1 its very helpful, especially if you have a large library, i couldnt imaging going through 50 thousand plus tracks and playing each on a keyboard and typing in the key

MIK is a nice enhancement no gripes about that. It isn't nuking WL mp3s anymore, but I do still get occasional tagging headaches where it will nuke my Genre or some other field on newly imported tracks.

Don't really see a point in hating on the product if you don't like or use it?

Does Mixed in Key work on Whitelabel tracks now or what?

Yep, but only with newer versions. All is explained here: