Serato DJ Pro General Discussion

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 Serato DJ Pro General Discussion
Playlists keep moving...
Talk about Serato DJ Pro, expansion packs and supported hardware

Playlists keep moving...

DJ Nostalgia 1:05 PM - 3 July, 2017
SDJ 1.9.6 ...

I have a mixture of manually created and Smart Playlists in the left pane of SDJ -

e.g. Smart Playlists by BPM - 100-109, 110-119, etc. They all appear in logical order when I launch SDJ, EXCEPT ONE, which appears somewhere completely out of sequence with my BPM Playlists, amongst a batch of Manually created Playlists in SDJ.

I use SDJ in conjunction with iTunes to organise ('Rip' & download) music. In iTunes I have Smart Playlists by decade - 1980-89, 1990-99, etc & these are picked up by SDJ with no issues - except that 'ripped' compilation CDs often use the date the CDs were created, not the date the original tracks were released, which means an awful lot of manually editing CD info in iTunes to get them in the correct Smart Playlist!!!

In addition, I don't seem to be able to change the order individual tracks appear in a manually created Playlist in SDJ (by Drag n Drop) other than by clicking the Field headers in SDJ (#, Track(No.), Song, Artist, etc). Sometimes it would be useful to be able to sort tracks in a Playlist in a custom order - not just by Artist, Song, Track(No.) or #... - such as the order I might want to play them, especially if requested by a client!

I have tried creating a new 'database V2' file, as described here -

support.serato.com -

without success in getting my Playlists in the correct order. Is there another file in the _Serato_ folder (or any other folder) that I need to recreate?

Any other suggestions welcome.
Logisticalstyles 2:03 PM - 3 July, 2017
I have the same problem. I just learned to kind of live with it but if there is a solution I would love to to hear it.
DJ Nostalgia 2:13 PM - 3 July, 2017
Quote:
... but if there is a solution I would love to to hear it.


Maybe someone at Serato will 'chip in' with an answer!!!
AddamXavier 4:57 PM - 3 July, 2017
Quote:
In addition, I don't seem to be able to change the order individual tracks appear in a manually created Playlist in SDJ (by Drag n Drop) other than by clicking the Field headers in SDJ (#, Track(No.), Song, Artist, etc). Sometimes it would be useful to be able to sort tracks in a Playlist in a custom order - not just by Artist, Song, Track(No.) or #... - such as the order I might want to play them, especially if requested by a client!


You should be able to click on the # to sort and then reorder as you want. However reordering won't stick if there are files from different hard drives. Found that out the hard way at a wedding, I now label may crates so I know whether they're combined or not.
Serato, Support
Kane D 1:57 AM - 4 July, 2017
Hey @DJ Nostalgia, on the playlist order issue, Are all the playlists coming from iTunes, or is it a combination of iTunes playlists/smart playlists & serato crates/smartcrates?

Do you have your library all stored on 1 hard drive or multiple?

As for the song ordering issue you mentioned, you should be able to change the order of the songs in a Serato crate by the # value.
DJ Nostalgia 10:15 AM - 6 July, 2017
Hi Kane D -

Quote:
Hey @DJ Nostalgia, on the playlist order issue, Are all the playlists coming from iTunes, or is it a combination of iTunes playlists/smart playlists & serato crates/smartcrates?

Some Playlists - such as 'by BPM' are created in iTunes. Some are just created in SDJ - such as 'Wedding Playlists' for a specific event. BPM Playlists are obviously 'Smart' Playlists (Blue logo in SDJ). Wedding Playlists are bespoke (Orange logo in SDJ) for each event - with these, I prefix the name with a number to keep them in order - this seems to work most of the time!
Tracks within any Playlist are a mixture of 'from iTunes' (with the iTunes 'orb/logo' in the first column of SDJ) and not from iTunes (blank first column) - Could the location of the track/file be what is causing the iTunes Smart Playlist to be out of sequence?. (Over time, I am using the 'Add file to iTunes library' option in iTunes as I go through my SDJ library (10,000+ tracks (not including duplicates), increasing all the time!) to hopefully end up with all my music in SDJ coming from iTunes) The one Playlist which is persistently out of sequence when I open SDJ is a BPM 'Smart' Playlist from iTunes! I 'drag n drop' it back to its correct position in the SDJ Playlists panel, but next time I open SDJ it is out of sequence, usually somewhere amongst my bespoke SDJ Playlists???

Do you have your library all stored on 1 hard drive or multiple?

ALL my music is on 1 internal HDD - I keep a backup on an external USB HDD.

As for the song ordering issue you mentioned, you should be able to change the order of the songs in a Serato crate by the # value.

The # column sorts them into a numerical order, which appears to match the order in which they were added to the Playlist (or in reverse if clicked again). When creating a bespoke Playlist, I may want to re-order the tracks after adding them (if a client requests a specific order of some tracks). This is particularly true if I have some tracks already, but need to download some as well. I will add existing tracks to a Playlist, then add the newly downloaded tracks afterwards. I would then like to be able to re-order the tracks in a custom order (Drag n Drop), not by Field heading.

DJ Nostalgia 10:44 AM - 6 July, 2017
Correction...

The BPM Smart Playlists are SDJ Smart Playlists, not iTunes Smart Playlists...

Quote:
Could the location of the track/file be what is causing the iTunes Smart Playlist to be out of sequence?.

- I've ruled this out as a cause, as all the BPM Smart Playlists have a mixture of 'from iTunes' and not from iTunes tracks, but only one Playlist is out of position as described. Another possible reason for this - the Smart Playlist in question is actually empty?
DJ Nostalgia 11:54 AM - 24 July, 2017
Any further ideas on how I can get SDJ to keep at least my Playlists (Crates - Custom & Smart) in a specific order in the Crates panel on the left, each time I re-open SDJ???

I can live with the order of tracks WITHIN a Playlist/Crate not being able to be custom sorted and staying in a custom order, but keeping having to reorder Crates every time I reopen SDJ is a monumental PITA!!! Especially when the Crates are mixed up between Custom & Smart Crates in the left panel...

It has been mentioned already, that the # field sorts tracks into a numerical order - apparently by the order/reverse order they were added to the Crate? - and that you SHOULD then be able to rearrange tracks in a custom order within the crate, presumably by 'Drag & drop'? Should this be done with/without your hardware connected and powered up? I thought I had tried both ways, but can't seem to re-order tracks within a custom or Smart Crate into a custom order... whether or not they stay in the custom order next time SDJ is started?!
H2o 1:27 PM - 24 July, 2017
Serato has issues with databases that span multiple drives or share tracks between regular files and pulselocker tracks.

I forget the technical reasoning behind it, but it's long been an issue. If part of your collection is on your internal drive and another part of it on an external, you'll run into sorting issues. For whatever reason, SDJ treats pulselocker tracks in the same manner. Unfortunately, the only reason I cancelled my PL subscription was because of this issue. I found it to be a pretty useful option, otherwise.
acemc 10:56 PM - 24 July, 2017
Quote:
but keeping having to reorder Crates every time I reopen SDJ is a monumental PITA!!!

I totally agree, I've had this problem ever since I started using Serato.
i have about 4/5 crates that just seem to go whoever they want each time I start up the software.
acemc 10:56 PM - 24 July, 2017
wherever!!
DJ Barticus 7:33 PM - 25 July, 2017
please fix this, i have playlists that mix songs i have, and offline pulselocker songs.
DJ Nostalgia 5:38 PM - 14 August, 2019
Update...

2 years on and the problem persists!

I have now ditched iTunes from my DJ music workflow - other than when buying tracks from iTunes (Not for much longer though, it would seem!), or ripping my own CDs. I now process ALL new music in Platinum Notes and have set this to save the resulting tracks - with a '_pn.mp3' suffix - into a single 'DJ music' folder on my internal 1TB HDD. Despite this, each time SDJ is launched some of my Smart Crates are out of sequence - e.g. 'BPM range' crates and 'Decade' crates!
In the past I have tried moving or deleting the 'neworder.pref' file, in the '_Serato_' folder on the same drive as my 'DJ music' is stored, in the hope that Serato would create a new 'version' with my crates in the correct sequence - with varying success!!!