Many people have invested a lot of time organizing their music in iTunes but would like to stop relying on iTunes to import their files into Scratch Live, thus alleviating issues that can come along with having Scratch Live reading an iTunes library. This article will explain how to transfer your iTunes playlists into Scratch Live crates, and how to get new music imported in Scratch Live, while continuing to import and store music in iTunes.

1. Open Scratch Live and make sure the 'read iTunes library' and 'Import AAC Files' options in the Library tab of the Setup screen are checked.

Check 'Read iTunes Library' and 'import aac files'.

2. Go back to the main screen and click on the blue Library folder to view your iTunes playlists.

Open the iTunes Library folder to view your Playlists.

3. Create crates by clicking on the brown crate icon at the bottom of the crate section.

Create crates.

4. Name the crates you create the same name as the Playlists being read from iTunes. Simply double click on the crate name, rename it, and press enter. In this example I've created a House and Techno crate.

Renaming crates.

5. Select all the files in a particular playlist by clicking on one file in the playlist and holding down ctrl + a (PC) or cmd + a (Mac). Once highlighted, drag/drop them into the same named crate you created.

Drag/drop files from playlists into the same named crate.

6. Once all your playlists are transferred into crates uncheck the 'read iTunes Library' option in the Setup screen. At that point you will be left with all the same files and organized structure only Scratch Live will no longer be relying on iTunes to import your music.

Now that the playlists have been transferred into crates the question is how do you get new files you add to iTunes to show up in Scratch Live? Easy:)

There are two ways we suggest importing your new music.

1. Click on the Files tab and then click on the Music folder/iTunes/iTunes Media to get to your iTunes Music folder. Drag and drop the entire iTunes Music folder directly onto the word 'all' above your crates.

Note: This will only import the new files you added to iTunes. It will not duplicate the files that have already been imported.

Drag/drop your files from the Files window.

Once imported, create an 'added' column in your 'all' section to be able to see the newly imported files. Do this by clicking on the gray arrow pointing to the left that is directly above the scroll bar on the far right side of the main library window and clicking 'added'. You may need to use the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen to scroll to the right of the main library window but you should now see an 'added' column.

Create an 'added' column.

From there, click on the actual word 'added' in the column header to group all the files by the date they were added to Scratch Live. This will list all the new files you just imported into the program and you can then drag/drop the files into whatever crates they belong in.

Click on the word 'added'.

2. You can also import your newly added files by temporarily checking the 'read iTunes Library' option. This will import files coming from iTunes and you can then drag/drop the new files into the crates they belong in. If your having trouble locating the new files, create an 'added' column (described above) in the iTunes Library folder and group by the date 'added' inside that folder. Once you've moved the new files into crates you would then want to go back to the Setup screen and uncheck the 'read iTunes Library' option.

That's it!