As I stated I'll include a pic... img199.imageshack.us

I don't think forum images work really? Test: [URL=img199.imageshack.us][IMG]img199.imageshack.us[/IMG][/URL]

I'll break down my system pretty much

Early = Anything I'd play early on when it's either empty, chill, or just not ready for prime time.

Mainstream = Anything I'd play that's either more popular but just setting a vibe for better & more familiar energy. Can even hold it down in this section until 11:30/12. But nothing I'd play peak hour

Club = GO TIME. GREEN LIGHT. PEAK HOUR.

My generation is just that era of what I grew up in and I use it as a reference for classic stuff that isn't stuff that my folks grew up on. Also used for newer stuff too.

Classic is obviously the older stuff dating from late oldies all the way back down to oldies.

I know some people just have one big smart playlist/regular playlist that says EARLY/CLOSE & dump everything from every genre in there that they think would be good for that situation. I have the belief that each song can have a different "feeling" to it. I like that I have a folder/sub folder structure so if I wanted to spice things up I could click on the folder which highlights every song under that sub category .

Anyhow I'd love to see more. And I can go into detail on the other things I have cooked up in my OCD system stew lol.

I dont think I'm that OCD, but I'm probably gettin close to 200 crates/sub crates now lol

That's quite a damn lot I'd say. I'm gonna post pics of how I've changed it over the years lol. Here we go...

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And probably the most condensed I've ever had it

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Another note I forgot though is that I use the grouping section to define every songs placement. Meaning "Early, Mainstream, & Club" If it's a party break that is defined in the grouping section too. Same goes for Segways. If it's a transition , the genre is listed as transition but the grouping section is listed as "Trans Up" or "Trans Down"

A part of me wants to stop using grouping section only because sometimes it can become spotty in serato. Like having to rescan all id3s and load each track before the grouping section pops up. But for the most part works really well and keeps things well organized and defined.

Sixxx Where are you!? lol

Is there any person out there who has less crates then me? :) There are no sub-crates.

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Chris- how many tracks do you have in your library?

3327

This is what I want my Serato to look like. I would add sub-crates to Hip-Hop - Golden Era, Mainstream, Underground, Dirty South. I would also add a crate for DJ tools.

Chris, is this how you organize your folders on your HD as well?

Thx

Yes, my folders has exact names to the playlists. My workflow:

All new music goes into my 'NEW' folder. After a week or so, i organise those new files into the desired folders. After that, the 'NEW' folder is empty and can be filled with new music.

Then i open Serato, clear all my playlists, and drag the complete folders into the playlists. Because there are only 6 playlists, this is done within 20 seconds.

This works out really well for me, i get booked for certain kind of music, so i don't have to take much with me.
I mainly use the 'Club & RnB' folder, that contains almost all music that i play, so it's easy to find nice combinations between tracks because they all show up in 1 list. This way i can mix r&b with club, and be very divers with mixing mashups on the fly. (Yes i'm aware i could also use the 'All' list to display all my songs, but then there would be a lot of songs in the list i could never play on a regular night).

My 'Scratch' playlist contains all kinds of tracks and scratchtools for routines and showing off :)

Classics folder is barely used, the classics that i usually play are also in my Club & RnB list. I dj'd some weddings were the folder came in handy, but i barely use it.

I had my Acapellas and Instrumentals also in my Club & RnB list before, but that didn't work out, because it happened more then once i loaded an instrumental instead of the original song during a night by mistake, so i made seperate playlists for them.

This way of serato use just works for me, but i can understand people using many folders, each has his way of organizing.

I like your organizational method and folder structure; however, it's a little too detailed in my opinion. I'll probably borrow from your examples but not so granular.

shit im jealous. wish i had time to do this..they are all sub crates so you don't have to break it don't, but you can.

O MY GOD!!! How in the world do u get the time to do this??!?!?!?! How many songs do u have?

Agreed. I like this method, but I can't see myself going through and organizing this much. I almost feel fewer folders to me would be easier. I have an issue with limiting an artist to a specific sub-genre, it doesn't feel right to me. Too confusing.

It's something that didn't happen overnight. But became easy as a system just from hearing so much music daily, playing so many venues. You just come to realize what works, what doesn't and you realize that every song has placement. That goes for whether it's an opening track, how early you can get away with it. If it's more closing. If it has energy more in terms of a few folks there that are ready to dance and not RAGE. lol. There are folks that simply make opening "sets" but I've found that this gives me so much room (almost too much in fact). I do have the ability to have a lot of freedom though because of the subcrates. Without it I would be "limiting" myself. DJ Wade-West: I'm curious about your issue with limiting an artist to a specific sub genre? It's not necessarily limiting them, it's limiting the song. You can just tell by the energy of the track , where it places on billboard/radio charts, and just generally how you yourself know how your crowd/audience would respond to it.

To everyone else. I have a few ways I've gone through organizing through the years. Every time I tried to condense it seems like it just wouldnt make sense probably due to the amount of music I have. Some of the playlists/crates are about 1,000-3500 tracks each if I don't break it down in those sections persay. The subcrates keep the flexibility without limitation. I'm going to break down things the condensed way and minimize some of my folders. Like I said ...most folks just simply make opening sets but I've found that it usually keeps things repetitive and predictable unless you give yourself a heft amount of room. But then giving yourself a LOT of room defeats the purpose of a "set". I'm glad you folks are responding I'm curious to see how everyone organizes their music and such. Oh and without the "grouping" section, I would simply list the certain placement of early, mainstream, club in my genre. IE: Hip Hop | Early would be the genre.

My crates are generally pretty simple but I decided the other night it'd be a good idea to break all my EDM into it's specific genre (electro house,progressive- that kinda thing) so when I was playing for people more into it I could stay in the same styles and also find gaps in styles I have not much of.

The problem I have is now I have a couple of hundred tracks that I just can't quite decide where to put them and just throwing them anywhere seems like it's defeating the whole purpose of organising everything in the first place.

Same with all the new top40 that is basically house, doesn't really seem to fit properly in any of my crates.

It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Certain producers, certain sound. I break my house into several categories

House - Dutch
House - Progressive
House - Minimal
House - Disco
House - Big Room
House - Club
House - Mainstream (usually opening style house music I'd say)
House - Deep Set/Late Night

Similar with Electro. All Electro & House are not created equally

As far as the top40 new age dance stuff I have them all in a genre called: Pop|Dance|Remixes and they are broken into 2 categories - Club & Mainstream. I thought about breaking them down even more into more specific like if it was electro or whatever but have been too lazy because I believe that Pop is Pop. And it's the same broad category when you're playing peak hour at the mainstream clubs. But I will tell you this....SOME of the pop stuff that is coming out gets pretty grimey. Meaning like it sounds as if it should go in one of my house specific categories. Example: Chris Brown - Beautiful People (produced by Benny Benassi) sounds like a big room electro track for the most part even though it's a pop artist. Same goes for some of these remixes of pop tracks that are produced by TheDiscoFries or Hardwell. It's a fine line between what is still considered pop when they bring it so hard and stuff. But in the end it's up to your discretion. But stuff like the Chris Brown for example I'd say you can even get away with it at the EDM places because it's not cheesy and just is along the same lines as with what's contemporary sounding.

I have my EDM broken down similarly now, just those few tracks that don't seem to really fit anywhere.

My main issue was I had a laptop stolen way back and just made quick crates to restore all my music to the new laptop as I had a lot of gigs on, the problem was I just kept adding to it and got stuck with the system. So now I've got to try and re-arrange everything all over again.

Granted I have no experience with those genres, but I have a similar problem with lots of "tweener" songs, and quite a few that just overlap, so I put them in both crates/folders. Hate to miss something just cause I was too specific with the crate!

Here goes a quick snap shot of mine....

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my strategy is this: every new track goes into a folder called "rate me now," where I make sure it has accurate title, BPM, artist, genre, rating (I use the itunes star method) & album name.
Genre is down to just a few choices: hip hop, reggae, dancehall, jazz, remix, spoken word, rock, & R&B, just so I can find stuff easier. Album name is important because in the dancehall/reggae world so many songs and remixes are on the same beat (riddim). This is where I label the name of the riddim, it has nothing to do with actual album name. Another key is the * rating system that iTunes has, which also makes it real easy to make "best of" smart playlists in itunes (so I have a "best R&B" folder that's ready to go whether I'm DJing or making a romantic meal for the wifey).

Within the folders you see I have a playlist/crate of each riddim arranged by BPM with the year it was released in the folder name (ex: 101 diwali 2002). I do this for hip hop but I also have a "hip hop by type" list as you can see.
The "answer" folder I have is basically playlists/crates of real specific things I may be looking for, as in breaks, acapellas, dubplates, instrumentals, etc. The "super answer" playlist is just every hip hop/r&b/dancehall song I'd ever consider playing at a club in BPM order... it's too unwieldy to use much unless you are in a tight spot, but if anyone else jumps on my computer (very rare) I just point them to that list & they are good to go.

Yeah at this point even if I did condense I feel like I'd always want any of my lists whether it be smart playlists/crates or just regular to be in a folder/sub folder. I need the ability to camp out in a certain genre but be able to jump out and not be limited to my collection. - As far as placement for certain music that doesn't fit anywhere... that's called HOARDING. lol. We all do it. You may like it, but may not find a use for it in your audience. You think it could be indie but it's not really. It has nothing really going for it but you're drawn to it. "I need it" "Just in case". " But what about requests?" lol

I've been doing the "maybe I'll use it" thing the last few days, a lot of the leftover files are remixes by completely unknown people and I have a bunch of others that are more popular anyway but it's still hard to delete things because I always manage to find one part of it I really like or just think I may end up playing it soon (when in reality, I've had it for 3 years and never played it once)

This is totally me as well...Just can't seem to push the delete button...I just end up putting it in another file :/

I deleted a few the other day. Went to a gig, and new I should have kept them.

I use to try and smart playlist everything by tagging a song by 1 or more catergories (HIPHOPNEW,HIPHOPMODERN,HIPHOPOLD and so on) but now I feel its real important to not only have broad smart playlists but to have crates in serato that are set specific like "commercial warmup,commercial prime time etc) I play out of smart playlists which are real broad when I feel like freestyling, but have crates that are narrowed down alot to real specific songs that all work really well with each (lots of premed mixed in these playlists)

And I dont see the point in having different crates/playlists for the same style music but in different BPM as lists are usually sorted by BPM anyway.

I want all of your thoughts on how to organize HIP HOP music. What y'all think of this:

Hip-Hop folder on HD containing ALL mp3's

Import folder into Serato crate called Hip-Hop
Then sub crates:

Mainstream/Top 40 (Present-day club bangers... think Snoop and Wiz Khalifa)
Classic Essentials (Ice cube kinda shit)
Golden Era (Pete Rock)
Underground (Demigodz)

What do you think

I do that because in each folder there are dozens of crates/playlists, each one just one riddim (beat) with multiple songs within them. So when I look in the folder I can just scan the names of the beats as opposed to list of 2000 songs when I know so many of them are on beats that I am not trying to play right then (and sometimes the beats are actually done by different producers and may be a different BPM). Also, as is the custom in the reggae world, I will "rinse" a riddim by playing 3-8 songs on it in a row.

in Regards to Hiphop organization

I have mine tagged in genre. HHPRIME,HHNEW,HH1,HH2.

hh1 = modern (not new or complete bangers, stuff like candy shop,like this etc)
hh2 = real early night stuff (older 90s joints,de la soul,112 etc)

then a smart crate called HHALL (which includes genre that starts with HH)

Sorting by tags is working alright but imma go through and reorganize more specific play lists I think

Whatever works for you! Except you will have people arguing with you about what's what. I find that for hip hop I also like to separate stuff by WHERE it comes from... there are some crowds that are all west coast/east coast, and there are crowds in oakland that consider anything recorded outside of the city limits to be wack. Also with the mainstream "bangers" I find that they are often all over the place in BPM... and usually sound best when tossed in with some older bangers as well. I also have a playlist for instrumentals as well, since sometimes there is someone at the club that really should be on the mic with a few verses!

This wold work for me as long as I remembered to look through them all pretty frequently and "bump" some prime songs down to one of the other lists.

Yeah, dream keep us posted in this thread. I like the way that is organized, but it's fucking annoying me so far.

reggae, tell me what's good with your organization. I like what you're doing there. Thing is, I'm from Canada, so I'm not playing in Oakland anytime soon. If I do, I'll worry about it then.

I feel like I want to separate:
mainstream club bullshit
classic hip-hop from say the late 80's until 97
underground shit from any era
hot mainstream older shit like biggie

I would only play for an underground crowd, a mainstream crowd, and a crowd that likes hip-hop music, but not ncessarily underground shit. like an urban club that isn't a club-club... not sure if i'm making sense here

Basically, I need someone to help me out with a really good organizing system and I'm going to stick with it.

Yer man most songs are in 2 lists. It works good but im getting way more into playing from real specific crates these days.

I have a lot of lists, just works better for me. The last few years I've create a folder labeled the year, like "2011" then as I add tracks they first go in the month downloaded playlist, 1-January 2-Feb, etc, then they each go into a genre folder within the 2011 folder, top 40/hiphop/club. Everything has a folder, I just like it better that way.

Here is a screenshot with dance and hip hop folder open, won't fit but you get the idea...

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This is how I organize my hip hop:

Hip Hop Mainstream - Is all the newer and last 5 year hip hop stuff that is opener stuff but can go until 11:30

Hip Hop Club - The peak hour stuff for hip hop even in the last 5 years even including some of the heavier dirty south stuff which the world considers to be hip hop now - "I think I'm big meech", Drake, J.Cole, Jay-Z, Etc.

Hip Hop Classic Club - Peak hour hip hop from 5 years and older.. jay-z, beatnuts, whoever in that realm

Old School Hip Hop is anything that was 1989 and older - Kurtis blow.. some of the NWA stuff ,

Urban Club - Current to up to about 3-5 years ago of all the more jiggy radio stuff. with rap. I got too lazy to make a dirty south section because I just end up going by bpm anyway - Bottoms Up, Daddy's Home,

Urban Classic Club - Again is like 5 years and older stuff

So lets say It's broken down like this:

Hip Hop
Urban
Urban Classic
West Coast
90's Hip Hop
Old School Hip Hop

Each section of hip hop is broken into 3 sections by the "grouping column" - Early, Mainstream, & Club

I have a smart playlist for each of the following styles with the following rules :
Rule 1: Genre is _____
Rule 2: Grouping is _____

Every time I get new music I end up simply changing the genre & grouping section and then the song is automatically placed in the appropriate smart playlist.

I'm thinking about condensing since I know I'll always have the "grouping" section to fall back on in terms of the general tone/feel of the song. Or I could just make "opening sets" But I simply work better by visually being able to see the sections and be able to access it without typing "early" or "mainstream" .

Glad it's helpful. To be honest, I've DJed with tons of DJs—some of the best DJs alive in my opinion. If you listen to them, you can learn what songs they have (esp in the vinyl days) and what scratches they could execute, and you can see on stage what equipment they like. But the trick is to step inside their mind/soul and learn how they experience it. One very interesting way to look at it is by looking at their music organization system. Every time, it is a surprise.
I've spent hours trying to understand how other people categorize music, and it never quite makes sense to me. Honestly, when I was first introduced to digital music, the idea of how everything could be organized to eliminate those panicked seconds of looking for a misplaced record was the most alluring part. However, the reality of digging through tens of thousands of songs without record covers to see was overwhelming, especially without the spacial clues of "this crate, at the back".
What I've tried to do is have it all organized by what I see as logic, but of course that is totally shaped by how I learned music, where I play, and what I like. I think the real goal is to find what you want when you want.
As a result, I put songs in multiple places so I don't overlook them. I try to have lots of categories of music that transcend mere genre and are more difficult to quantify. At the same time, I try to avoid time-based playlists (early/late tunes) because the events I play are so diverse, and what might start the dancefloor at one place might be the last song at another. I also make playlists for specific events, usually more like 5-10 songs I want to build the night around.
What I've seen other DJs do, I could never explain. One of the best I play with in the Serato era has all their playlists by number. As in "121" and "143," and it has nothing to do with BPM. Another well known and well paid Bay Area DJ has no playlists what so ever, and literally types the name of each song in one by one (my jaw completely dropped when I saw it).

Here are more snaps of my organization

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So in my process of trying to condense, I realize it's only more difficult with the broader crates like Urban & Pop. Those lists span over 1,000 tracks. And even with Urban spanning to about 3,500 tracks. Urban is broken down in 3 sections. Early, Mainstream, & Club. I wanted to get rid of Early and just combine it with mainstream. As I said before Early and Mainstream are both sections I go to before prime time peak hour. I believe early has a completely different feel than the more familiar / energy driven side of mainstream but since it's still in the "opening" category I'd say just keep em in the same bucket. They are just so damn bloated though. 800-1,000 tracks to scroll through. And there's no way I wanna dump them all in ONE giant broad playlist. That's just gross. Someone help me break this up logically! #OCDproblems lol

^ in the same scenario.

+1 need help yo

So I condensed again. I need to just make a section called [Personal] - for stuff I like that I'd never really play unless I knew it was that elite group of folks that liked that stuff. Like all that filler Early 2000 neptunes/timbo stuff. lol

is anyone using the new little program to sync folders and crates?? (not scratch tools) this is a 2 minutes setup and a one click sync (doesnt work if you use itunes to make your crates)

^ what program

here

serato.com

your need to try sixxx codes

I only sort by year (sorry no pic)! For me genre doesnt matter in sorting since I know the artists and there songs.

Cheers

Hey
I'm new to club djing as just graduated from the bedroom. I've been doing opening sets for some time now on busy nights like Friday and Saturday, in what I see to be a mainstream Hip Hop/Urban scene. I'm starting to explore more sounds and find that open format is something much more desirable.

Now I've never had well organized crates in the first place, but I've realized organization is key in this game? I'm looking for tips on organization to handle a more top 40/pop/mainsteam setting (Flo Rida, Guetta, Mashups, Pitbull) they also appreciate a little hip hop here and there. I'd need a setup that allow me to flow well through moods and genres especially in the two different crowds: Pop/Top40 and Urban Mainstream.

Anything is good thanks!

You can also find the discussion here: sera.to

Also is it wrong to have pre made lists? I struggle with that... I feel as i'm cheating?

Nothing wrong with lists. Those are also what we call crates anyway for the most part. If you give yourself a lot of room (a lot of choices) it won't feel like it's just that same old boring set you perform all the time. And Chirpz..I was hoping to somehow "call out" Sixx and his codes system in this thread but either he hasn't read it or seen this yet..lol. I think this is another alternative more or less. I'm still trying to find a method more or less but we all end up using our bulletproof crates during peak hour anyway.

Also, while I see the beauty of Sixxx's code method I also dont think I could ever totally omit using crates. I use crate's for tightening up certain "sets" more or less. I give myself a set amount of room for music I'd like to play for the evening. Also depends on the venue as well. Like if I'm playing a private event, I'd like to give myself realistic room for all the music I'd play to fit that event. I'm sure if your collection is organized meticulously you wouldn't have to worry about making a "set" but even then there's only so much music you will realistically play in one particular evening. I've started aligning everything in one list again but I do miss the folders because I like clicking on the top to highlight all tracks and clicking on each to showcase a particular section opposed to just all in this one big list. Since then I've been just using my "sets" anyway. Opening/Peak/Closing sets for specific venues. Hell, even battle sets need to be tightened up. Trimmed down lists that just keep things filtered to some better choices anyway.

Crates are useful one way or another. They can help you or hinder you. The beauty of codes is that, unlike crates, you don't have to waste your time navigating through them to find what you're looking for. And, in this case:



They work great because songs that fall in many categories can have many codes attached to them. In fact, that is the beauty of codes too. If you don't know a how specific a song can be organized, you don't go into "details" with many codes. But, the more you know the song, the more specific it may get, helping you in certain gigs.

For instance:

Let's say you have no idea what specific type of rap song is because you're an EDM DJ, or latin DJ, reggae DJ, etc.

Your song may look like this:

SONG NAME [RAP]

[RAP] is the code. Nothing specific. But, as you know more of such song then this song may look like this with its codes:

SONG NAME [RAP] [WEST] [HYPHY] etc.

So, you see, the more specific you get with a song, the more codes that are added to it and the easier it is to find in a very specific way.

I could choose to type [RAP] or [WEST] or [HYPHY]. I don't have to use them all.

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Like I said before, crates may be useful from time to time so....

I may use a crate every now and then just to throw some songs for a quick set or whatever. But then, after such gig, that crate gets deleted.

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I'd like to clear a misconception.



While Serato works best with 2.3 tags, it also works great with other tags. It looks like over the years, Serato has fixed issues with older tags. I don't even check what tags my songs are anymore. I may do so if I notice a song is not taking a code, but it's very rare.

Whatever method you use, use it for you and no one else. I actually have a list of all my codes on my computer. If someone takes over my set using my computer and music, I open that file and show it to them. They see the reference key of the codes and immediately know what to search for to find what they like.

Wow. Thanks for responding. And so quickly. I think the people that usually have issues generally are the ones that are super OCD about music and have an overly extensive collection. A change like this appears to be overwhelming. I'm re-reading your codes method. I guess some of the questions are answered with your input on what's considered "essential" etc. Sometimes I feel as though crates just help "me" personally visually. In effort to not "forget" about a track more or less. Considering my collection is as big. But I guess it's all relative upon what search results come up too. I'm gonna read into this more and try and see if I can break down my search results so that only the "essentials" / stuff I'd play peak hour will come up in those "code results". What specifically do you label your non peak hour stuff say for an opening set/early/mid evening?

Also for this example you used:

SONG NAME [RAP] [WEST] [HYPHY] etc

Are you typing all of that in the search box (parenthesis and all)? or just the actual words themselves?

Standby for share:

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Thats how I do it

My biggest issue is serato reading the "Grouping" Column. I feel like I gotta "read id3" tags multiple times to get the grouping section for some songs to show. A lot of grouping columns are blank until you load the song in. Really annoying because I cut down my crates specifically because the information I needed was labeled in the "grouping" (whether it be early, club, or mainstream. At first I thought it had to do with what version id3 (2.3/2.4 etc) but it's not that. Any thoughts on this???

So it's been a while & I've gone back and forth with creating subfolders and tons of them. Now I'm starting to settle down with just having less sub folders mainly because I ran into an issue that became really annoying. Serato doesn't remember any collapsed preferences for any of your iTunes subfolders. It will for the crates/subcrates but not iTunes folders. So when you first open it will automatically expand ALL of the folders. And for someone that had several folders that can be super annoying. I've pulled almost all of my stuff out of subfolders now (90%) . I do feel that some folders are necessary like things for my iPhone I have a separate folder for all playlists that relate to iPhone/iPad. Also there's a "General" folder which is general category of my genres. (Basically junk pile of music I don't want to get rid of but nothing in there is really worthy of playing.) I also have a "Home" Folder which is stuff I like but either would be a super curve ball or just generally not worth playing at a club. I'm considering dumping some of these folders to my external iTunes library. I do enjoy having everything in one place. It's like your very own jukebox filled with everything but considering I may want to a certain type of macbook air with a smaller HD .. I might really need to start condensing..lol

Also while I like the crates in serato, organizing them is a bit strange as you can't tell if you have duplicates. It won't necessarily add a duplicate song to it but there's no indication of if you already have that particular song in your crate already.

P.S. How's it going with everyone else's organizing?

When you start having too many crates/subcrates you end up missing out on songs to play.

I prefer the minimalistic approach and just like having a few crates with some subcrates.

I agree to a certain point. When your library is overly extensive/massive you have to break it down in some shape or form. Which is why multiple crates help distinguish a certain feel/style of music from another when it could be labeled the same genre. While most would say "you're only gonna play this amount of music in one night" .. I personally like the arsenal of surprise from all walks of music. I just need to pull all this stuff that needs to be enjoyed in the comfort of my own home. No listening parties at the club...lol

If you want to automatically update an iTunes playlist (and Serato/Traktor) when you add a file to a folder, check this tutorial I put together: youtu.be

What's the latest on this. I find myself wanting to condense again..lol I've been trying out using crates in serato but still don't like the fact that there is no record of duplicates etc. Sixxx system seems nice but still feels a bit blindfolded. I think visually seeing some music organized in your field of vision in a few different crates helps you not omit/forget certain songs. I don't do really the SET LISTS that are super limiting and restricted to only a certain number of songs. I give myself TOO MUCH ROOM to keep it interesting. Anyhow just wanted to see where everyone was at with this including Sixxx (still waiting for a response to my parenthesis question lol)