While keeping your music organised inside Serato is important, the organisation of your music outside of Serato - on your computer's hard drive - is just as important.
When importing music to Serato, the files themselves aren’t actually saved inside the software. Serato reads the track directly from it’s location on your computer. This is vital to know as Serato won’t know where to load your track from if you’ve moved its location.
Downloading Music
The first step in creating a tidy library is downloading music from reputable sources(Where To Get Music). This will decrease the chances of downloading files that are corrupt, tagged with lots of unnecessary info or low in quality.
I’ve created a folder inside the Music directory where I will save all my music. I have created sub folders for each year of downloads, a personal preference that keeps my OCD at bay. Keeping all of your music in one location really helps minimise the risk of losing files and also makes moving your library to another location a breeze.
Importing Music
Once the music is saved, import into Serato and analyze (check out this article for more info on analyzing). I have a crate called ‘NEW’ where I will import all my new music. This is like a sorting pen for my new files.
After analyzing I’ll remove any tracks that show up as corrupt or display a bitrate of inferior quality. Then using this method I tag all of my new tracks with their respective genres and add cue points.
You can now clear this crate and enjoy playing with your new music while feeling at ease with your meticulously clean library. Repeat this process next week when there’s new music to download.