In addition, I suggested this because it seems like it would be much easier to implement for the SSL team (I could be wrong though). Let me know what you think.

Pretty cool idea.

My idea would be (vertical tabs are harder to read) maybe to have 4 horizontal lines of tabs above the "all" crate with 3 tabs each line.

interesting...

nice idea...

I quite like this

This is a ditto post. /me thinks that is pretty slick. Quite a bit nicer than a simple explorer type of sub-crate interface. That's definitely an idea I would run with.

Well it shouldnt replace the sub crate idea. I mean a reggae dj cant have one tab for each riddim, that doesnt make sense.

with an "all" or "main" tab. excellent.

Troo dat. I can see how the number of tabs could be a nuisance. However, there has to be a happy medium somewhere that is functional, efficient, intuitive, aesthetically complimentary AND relatively simple to implement. Realizing all of the decisions that would have to go into a design change of this nature, it is easy to see why this is no simple task

i really like this suggestion. maybe it could be set up so that the tabs are the main crates, and the crates now are the sub-crates .

in regards to the problem of having too many tabs. maybe a system where you have the main tabs (i dunno, maybe have a max of 8 - 4 per row, or as Nik39 suggessted, 4 rows of 3). then when you click on a tab, all the other tabs disappear, and you have the option of more tabs. each tab with crates. This way you can have a diverse organisation system, but in the same amount of space. you dont have to see all the tabs, just what you select.

another issue i can see is how will you switch between the tabs using the keyboard? power users rarely use the mouse; do you hit tab a bunch of times (which could take awhile if you have a few tabs and you're trying to get back to the main song view) or some kind of shortcut to switch between them (like control-tab).

control-tab is the way to go with the shortcut, same as on firefox.