Interesting idea.

Only loading the database you need for that particular gig. Like!

Technically you can already do this (I've been doing this for years, actually), just got to rename the _Serato_ folders accordingly depending on which one you want to load. Whatever one you want to load, just rename to _Serato_. When you want to switch to a different database, just rename the current folder to something other than "_Serato_" and rename the other database folder back to "_Serato_"

So basically, which ever one is named just "_Serato_" is the one its going to load and use.

Of course, it would be nice to do this automatically in the software somehow, but really, it takes just a few seconds to rename the folders, no biggie.

Hey scornille,

I understand what you are wanting to do for sure. I am curious to know though; Why do you not just use crates and subcrates for this method of organization? When you go to your Wedding gig, you should just select your "Wedding" crate an play from that for the evening (you could have subcrates within this crate for further organization too).

Is it because if you load ALL your music in at once the software crashes?

I have a lot of crates and subcrates (34 smart crates) filtering by genre and year for the most of them ...
But when you have an special event (rock party for example) you don't need to see all these crates and you can specialize them for a kind of party !
If you offer us the ability to put smart crates into a crate (or smart subcrates) i will do like you say :)

I've no crash in my library ... It's just to optimize the using of serato.

As Konix says : i can do this while renaming _serato_ folder but it's manual and i don't think it's a big job to automatize it ...

Ah ok fair enough. Yes, I agree it would be cooler to have a more user friendly method than the suggestion Konix made, but that may have to be your workaround for the time being.



Definitely interested in doing this at some stage too!

Sounds cool. Maybe a prompt on start up or they can be selected from a tab in the set up menu.

I'll +1 this, good suggestion.

Hi Serato support,

I am going to be teaching DJ courses and would like for students to be able to use a thumb drive that they can build up when practicing and then use when they come to class. I dont want my students to have access to all my music and expecially do not want to risk destroying my profile.

Do you have any suggestions on how I can engineer this? I will be heavily endorsing serato for these courses.

Thanks

Maybe use your computer to make separate logins with separate settings as a work around?

thought this may be an option ... but what if Im not available and someone else has to teach?

I would prefer to not have someone else using my laptop. It would be ideal if the substitute teacher could pick up where I left off, as long as they have serato installed on the laptop (of course)

Another work around would be to rename the serato folder for each student, then rename it serato every time.

thanks for the input. Does serato "look" at external drive first when the software is launched?

If so I'm thinking if I select the songs I'm going to share for teaching, I can create folders on the student's thumb drives and then build crates with each student from there ... I'll have to experiment with this but I'm trying to cut down on the 'R&D' time :)

your opinion is valued

thanks

The Serato folder looks at what ever and where ever you have added tracks from.

What I was suggesting was have your master serato folder, the one you use.
When you have a student, rename the master to something like : _serato_master

Then open serato. It will have created a new: _serato_ folder in your music folder. Add the music via the thumb drive only, and serato will create a _serato_ folder on that drive and only read what's on that drive, unless you add the music directly from your laptop.

When ready to switch back to your library, simply rename the _serato_ folder in your laptop's music folder to _serato_ littletimmy or what ever. Rename your master folder to simply _serato_ again. Then when you launch serato, it will be your library.

Sorry, a couple errors in there, if you don't understand, let me know.

got it thanks ... little timmy - :)

The tracks and crates useage for this would not be a big deal to me, but for all of the other settings it would be great. I play regularly on about 4 different SDJ setups and i have to go in and change setting and every time I switch, depending whether it is vinyl control, CDJ, which controller or mixer I am using, etc. It would be great to be able to save those as snapshots.

Regarding your music crates for your classes, all of the music information stays on the top directory of whatever hard drive your music is stored on. This would be track information such as tempo, and also any cues or loops. Any other non-miusic information such as how your mixer or interface or controller settings for SDJ are configured will be in the "music" folder of your Mac or Windows user.

If all of your music is stored on the same hard drive as your operating suystem, then whomever is logged in on that computer can "see" your music within Serato. If that is how you are set up, I would recommend moving music to an external or partitioning your hard drive so that the music in on a different volume. If you have students on that computer, you can then simply unmount your music drive and they won't be able to see the music (unless they figure out how to mount the drive). Also, if you are using a mac, I would recommend your music hard drive be formatted in Fat 32 or ExFat because that format is compatible with both mac and windows. If you ever need to play on someone else's computer, it should be plug and play.

If you use the "move" feature in SDJ, you can easily transfer tracks from your main music drive to thumb drives for your students to use. (this will include any cues or loops).

I thought of something almost like this a while ago. It would be nice to have your profile save with your crates to an external. So when I plug in a drive into a friends laptop to play a guest set, I could simply click up at the top to switch to my profile and have the ability to automatically switch all of the settings inside SDJ to my preference (Like Crate Column Order/Library Size/Views/Waveform Zoom/Etc). It would also be great to be able to include any plugins that I may have purchased but they have not (Like PnT).

Awesome idea. Traktor does something good similar ans so do the CDJs so I'd be all over that!

Thanks,

On another note, I just updated serato dj to the latest version and have re-analyzed my library.

I now have the key information for each song but when I create a smart crate to sort by key, the crates seem to be hung (two circular arrows show up beside smart crate and wont go away).

The rule I used was pretty straightforward "key is 2A" ... what gives????

You must use the information written to the tag. SDJ writes the "Classical Key" notation to the tag. Double click on the Key tag and it will show what's really there. Copy that and paste it to your Smart Crate Rule. I discovered this back during the Beta that introduced Key analysis and that's the explanation I got and used.

+1 This is a great idea!!

Thanks, I'll try that. Also noticed that you cannot create subfolders with smartcrates ... Is there a workaround for this too?

Nope. Currently no subcrates for Smart crates. Just a long list of crates. I only use my Key Smart Crates for the purpose of editing the Grouping tag where I add all 3 Key notations. I set up an Automator Folder Action so when I move new tracks to that folder it automatically puts them into my "to rename" Playlist in iTunes and then starts a File Reamer itunes script to rename my files with bpm-grouping-artist-title-kbps. Then I move them back to the proper folder and crate.

Thanks, interesting process ...