If you delete a crate the files stay in the database so you shouldn't need to re-import them. I have a set of crates for A-Z by artist that correspond to A-Z folders on my system. When I add new files I just delete 1 crate and then drag the folder in again. SSL just imports the new files to the database.

think of a crate merely as a playlist of aliases (shortcuts)

Ok...I think that 158 crates may be too many to handle right now...But I had a crate list with more to add...May be all reggae will have to go in one folder..I got the Bob Marley discography, Sizzlas, Beenie man's and so on...I just wanted them in seperate crates...I have to figure out something before friday.

How many crates should I delete in order to make it work? Does anyone on the board have at least 100 crates?

How many crates do you people have without having a problem? Any one?

O.k. News flash....It wasn't the crates...My data base was corrupt..they correcting it now.

Yo, it seems like you're using crates for individual albums? Instead of using a crate on just one artist, maybe you should use the browse function? You can sort by artist so that only songs from that artist shows up on the search screen. Try that and see if that makes things more efficient for you.

158!? that sounds like a lot to me, i have less than 25.

using the smart playlist to organize by genre works well for me (rap, r&b, dance hall, 80's, party breaks) stuff like that.

158 is nothing...I got 20 more gigs of music that i have to crate up as well.Like here are some examples of my crates....2001-2002 hip hop, 2001-2002 hip hop, 90's hip hop, 80's hip hop,1960's billboard, 1970's billboards....and so on. I have to have that many crates. But I found out that wasn't the problem. MY DATA BASE WAS CORRUPT. They had me rename my Data Base, and now it works perfectly. I didn't even mention that I have, House, and Reggae seperated basically the same way. I initially didn't plan on putting whole albums on the external HardDrive, but...things changed so if I got the singles from the albums in a crate called 2004 club bangers, then I probably got a seperate crate for full albums of associated artist, like a Rocafella crate...thats where State Property,DipSet,and Jay Z,Memphis Bleek,and Now I have recently starte associating Twista wit the Roc crates. It's sort of how I got my record collection seperated. The only thing I am dreading is finding the acapella and instrumentals, then placing it beside the regular version. Currently I have to use the search function(which is the easy way).I have to make sure everything is spelled the same,like I got some joints that say B.I.G. and some that say Biggie Smalls, and some that say Notorious B.I.G., so when I use the search fuction, I have to use multiple spellings...it's just some tedious lil stuff I have to do, I'll get to it though.

if you use itunes, you can make smart playlists to sort things, provided your id3 tags are filled in correctly. no need to manually drag n drop to make crates. make sure that live updating is checked and you're good to go. then make sure that the option for integrating the itunes playlist is checked as well.

I feel your pain Kaseem...hence my subcrate suggestion. I'm still adjusting to the increased amount of mouse clicking and searches I have to perform to locate a song that used to take me ~3 seconds to find in my PCDJ crates which basically mirrored my hard drive structure. I've tried using the Browse feature but my biggest difficulty with that is remembering which reggae riddims go well with each other--as opposed to being able to put records that go together next to each other even though they are in the same crate. The Browse feature automatically sorts the fields in alpabetical order...which is great _when_ you know what you're looking for.

oh yea, I feel you on the Notorious B.I.G./Biggie Smalls etc. inconsistencies too.

here is the issue... what happens when you want to move around mp3s in different areas, and they were in crates? is there a way to find the mp3s again? rather than having to reimport all those specific songs back? That could be VERY time consuming! thanks...

just because you delete a crate doesn't mean the mp3 is lost. any tracks that are in crates are located in the ssl library (All). crates are just locators to files.

SpinThis!, I think Chita means, what happens if you move a file on your harddisk. And indeed, this will cause some problems, cause SSL wont "notice" where the song has been moved to. If SSL could link crates to folders, that would fix that problem. -> Feature suggestions area.

Does it not do that ? I was under the impression it does, as all my crates are just folders dragged onto the "+" sign from windows explorer ...

enlighten me some.

they're still not in essence "linked" though. true linking would automatically update (or drop songs from crates) when you dropped new ones in a directory.

To add to SpinThis! words, if you change anything inside that folder...
add: SSL wont recognize
delete: SSL will show file is not found
rename: SSL will show file is not found
move: SSL will show file is not found and it wont find the new location.

Would be nice if SSL auto auto updated its database .... mspinky anyone ?

you said it nik... thats exactly what i would like to see implemented (added)... it would be sooo nice if SSL could find the files that you moved around on the Hard Disk... it would make life so much easier because then when you want to keep your crates with the same songs there but on a different PC, you dont have to recreate the exact files in each folder the same way on the other PC. I really hope they can get this feature implemented! :)