Serato DJ Pro General Discussion

Talk about Serato DJ Pro, expansion packs and supported hardware

album / track cover art

dr pokoly 4:22 PM - 18 August, 2008
I'm an oldschool DJ who misses the visualization aspect of album covers with digital music. For example, when flipping through my record bag, I know the record and all of the tracks on it simply for the album art.

When I have a list of 98459898989899896299898988334 mp3s, it's hard to know every track name and artist, even with grouping them into genres.

Does itch support album / track art, like in itunes?

I didn't see any cover art for the tracks in the screen shot (www.serato.com) but thought maybe there's a setting somewhere.
DeezNotes 8:16 PM - 18 August, 2008
Yes, it does. It'd be at the top left corner if you turned it on.
DeezNotes 8:19 PM - 18 August, 2008
On a side-note... many DJs who are like this and make the transition just get used to looking at the track names. It's a shocker at first and takes some getting used to, but scrolling and looking at the album art isn't as fast. Plus, the task of ADDING the album art (if it doesn't already exist) is very tedious. So much to the point that you just sometimes have to force yourself to adjust. Just my opinion.
dr pokoly 9:08 AM - 19 August, 2008
Quote:
On a side-note... many DJs who are like this and make the transition just get used to looking at the track names. It's a shocker at first and takes some getting used to, but scrolling and looking at the album art isn't as fast. Plus, the task of ADDING the album art (if it doesn't already exist) is very tedious. So much to the point that you just sometimes have to force yourself to adjust. Just my opinion.


1. Thanks for the info regarding the album / cover art.

2. I hear what you're saying about making the transition, but I also feel like a lot has to do with the individual. I know that I will always prefer some sort of visualization because that's the type of memory I have.

Nevertheless, I have started to adjust...with the addition of CDs. I usually put 25 tracks on one CD and make a comprehensive, typed-out tracklisting, including notes and shorthand. Even with all of this prep, I still find myself not know every song within my collection.

Also, another point to remember about the cover art...there are usually 2-4 tracks associated with one picture. One picture is easier to remember that 4 random track names.
cMo 4:11 PM - 19 August, 2008
Yeah, but as far as organizing music goes, it doesn't get any better than the library in Serato! I used to bring a few crates to the club, but now I just have a few special key word searches - ctrl-f type tab drop

I'd rather have too few tracks than too many! Keep all your unsorted tracks out of your main DJ folder, and keep all your best tracks very selectively in sub-folders in your main DJ folder. That way when you're scrolling you like everything you see and you don't have far to go.
cMo 4:15 PM - 19 August, 2008
Album art is cool too. When I have time to kill I'll go back through various folders checking tags to make sure all the info is correct, and for special files add some album art too.

I like the idea of having it top left on the screen too.

iTunes does have the best presentation of albums with their scrolling album cover design.
DeezNotes 4:30 PM - 19 August, 2008
A very good friend of mine is a "label" DJ who knows none of the names of the actual songs. He uses CTRL-F a lot and he also asks me "hey, whats that song..." a lot as well. He tried the album art thing, and that didn't work. I spent the first month of me having SSL trying to do the album art thing, because I too loved seeing the labels... didn't work out too well.

Do what feels best for you. Although I have adjusted, I went to a friends house and saw crates and crates of records (most of mine are put away). After flipping through them for a while, it was very nostalgic. So yes... I understand.
dr pokoly 5:03 PM - 20 August, 2008
Sorry, but I'm not a Serato user yet, so can you explain what you mean with CRTL-F type tab drop.

I assume you can add key words to tracks and then while DJing type the key words in and then the tagged tracks will pop up, but I just wanted to clarify.

Quote:
...but now I just have a few special key word searches - ctrl-f type tab drop...

DeezNotes 6:59 PM - 20 August, 2008
He means Press CTRL+F to go to the search box, TYPE the song you're looking for, press TAB to highlight the song you're looking for and DROP said song to continue to crush it in the mix.

If you're not using ScratchLIVE or ITCH yet... do yourself a favor and play around with it for a while before you delve into the world of album art. Give it at least 2-3 or maybe 6 months before you dedicate that much time to one task. Organizing your music alone takes up more time that you'd think.
dr pokoly 4:20 PM - 1 November, 2008
Is there a way to change the size of the album art ?

Is would be great to be able to expand the album art in the upper left hand corner of Itch.