How to Create Smart Playlists + Organize Your Music in iTunes: Dubspot Tutorial

[boolumaster]

Wealth of info, always wondered what smart playlist were.. Great tutorial, will have to watch a few more times to grasp everything. Appreciate the vid..

[jacopkane]

this is exactly what i was trying to do, thanks.

[m2lawren]

DJ endo is the sickest!! just finished right now and it feels good! never even used smart playlist before in Itunes



[DeeJayEndo]

@m2lawren Awesome. Feels good to have all your crates auto organized for you doesn't it? Enjoy! - Endo

[m2lawren]

@DeeJayEndo Indeed! Thanks....whats your take on using I-cloud to back up your music and itunes match...i was going to get an external hard drive but this seems like it makes more sense instead of carrying arond an extra piece of hardware. What do you do to back up your music?

[MrByronBlocker]

I really appreciate the video's! I'm JUST making the switch over to digital DJing and I'm still figuring out all these new fangled gadgets lol

[deeppeepsmusic]

how many hours do you think you have spent organizing this? Personally I think to a degree organization is good but what you've done is pretty intense, half the skill of a dj is finding the right song choices and for me that is allowing smart playlist to do to much really.



[DeeJayEndo]

@deeppeepsmusic I am upgrading my smart playlists every day and since doing this video have done so many tune ups that make my job when I'm DJing much easier and more fun and help me find music that I would otherwise have forgotten about. - Endo

[puts2121]

most obvious tutorial ever

[DeeJayEndo]

@puts2121 obvious? what do you mean? - Endo

[retsofnalanosaj]

Thanks for the tutorial. Dude you should get a pop filter. It's almost unlistenable at times.

[retsofnalanosaj]

@retsofnalanosaj Opps. i see this was mentioned already. 1000 pardons. Thanks again Endo.

[DeeJayEndo]

@retsofnalanosaj Yes, I agree the audio quality is terrible on the voiceover. I was very unhappy with it. I am pushing to get the voiceover re-recorded and re-uploaded, and we do have a pop filter. I recorded this tutorial on one of these headset / microphones and it came out really bad. Sorry about that guys!

[retsofnalanosaj]

@DeeJayEndo Cool man. I was just trying to help out, not trying to be a turd :p. Thanks again to you and Dubspot for being so generous with the knowledge. Peace.

[djleferg]

@DeeJayEndo permanently in each playlist)? Thanks!

(Now that was a very lengthy post!)

[djleferg]

@DeeJayEndo obviously irritating as when I add new music to my library I have to recreate the smart playlist. The same happens when I make smart playlists when planning for future imports (eg I tried to make a winter 2011/2012 smart playlist folder as preparation) but these playlists all got deleted as they had no content in them. Can you, or anyone else think of a workaround that would stop playlists with no content in them from automatically being deleted (apart from having to have a song per

[djleferg]

@DeeJayEndo Great tutorial thanks! I have another idea for a group of smart playlists that I'm trying to implement but failing to. I would like an 'unplayed' playlist for each genre (for when I have new music and havn't had time to listen to it when adding to library). My problem is that whenever I've listened to all the songs in each playlist, the number of songs in the list thus becomes zero and after a short while, iTunes seems to automatically delete it as there is no content in it. This is

[djstuartj]

I have taken this approach to my track collection as I think this a really great idea to order/edit your tunes/ID3 tags. Spent all day yesterday importing to itunes and creating folders & smart playlists. So when I open up Traktor Pro 2 scroll down to itunes 'Click' on the icon and in the little bar at the bottem of Traktor saying Warning: Unknown exception during iTunes import" ??? how annoying!!! is there a fix for this.

[DeeJayEndo]

@djstuartj Go to preferences / file management and point traktor to the iTunes Music Library.xml file . It should be located in your user / music / itunes folder

[markobeach01]

Muy buen tutorial, CONGRATULATIONS! 

[shampainTV]

pop filter buddy

[DeeJayEndo]

@shampainTV Yes Agreed. The sound on this video is terrible. Sorry. I wanted to redo the voiceover but I got denied. The microphone I was using was shite. 

[rupertshean]

i create genres like: Minimal upbeat very funky fun deep retro house/disco loop

[TreeOfLibera]

most obvious video ever

[DeeJayEndo]

@TreeOfLibera Huh?

[gamergrounds]

best video about organizing your playlist very nice tricks and man I got to give it 2 you, you sir are a monster! Organizing your playlist by key is the bomb! thanks for the tips and Mixed in Key is the best software out there for keys definitely worth the 60 bucks!

[DeeJayEndo]

@gamergrounds Have you upgraded to Mixed in Key 5 yet? Its way better! Free upgrade!

[gamergrounds]

@DeeJayEndo is there an update? I will check that out, I run the original mixed in key since February and I haven't check for new updates

[DeeJayEndo]

@gamergrounds Yup! Its a free update too. The new version is incredible!

[gamergrounds]

@DeeJayEndo Thanks again!

[gamergrounds]

@DeeJayEndo OMG! its a monster jaja thanks for letting me know!

[gamergrounds]

@gamergrounds the update is not free they are charging me 29.99 : (

[DeeJayEndo]

@gamergrounds Yes, I just found out that some people have to pay for the upgrade and some don't. However its definitely worth it to upgrade.

[michaelknead]

I'm using smart playlists forever but this video showed interesting features I wasn't aware of before. Thanks.

[diggy214]

@deejayendo thanks for the awesome video. I use smart playlists a lot and use iTunes as my preferred music management software. However I use traktor to DJ and the iTunes view in traktor is read only which means none of the hot-cue's or beatgrids are saved and you can't edit the playlist in traktor. Another question do you import your iTunes playlist into the traktor collection. thanks.

[DeeJayEndo]

@diggy214 You are correct. iTunes in Traktor is read only. If you want to edit the information simply import the track into the collection (it usually does this automatically when you load the track in a deck - there is a setting for this) and go to the track collection and edit the ID3 info there. Also you are wrong about the cue points and beatgrids not saving. If you beatgrid something from the itunes node or put cue's in the track, they will be the same in the Traktor collection.

[diggy214]

@DeeJayEndo your right about the beatgrids and cue points. thanks for the correction.

[DeeJayEndo]

I use iTunes to manage my playlists. I let Traktor import my tracks as I play them in Traktor, but I don't do an auto import from iTunes. I actually do an auto import for this folder on my hard drive called "2011" so when I add anything to the 2011 folder Traktor automatically imports it to the collection. Also before a gig I will make a playlist in itunes and then import that playlist into a traktor playlist so I can use album artwork since album artwork is disabled when using the itunes node

[gwaiguy]

great work. I thought I was a playlist nut, but I hadn't seen the potential of feeding off other playlists.

Now, if I could just find a way of simply getting all the genre and sub-genres correct... :)

[DeeJayPickUp]

My Traktor doesn't load my iTunes library... How do I import my iTunes library in Traktor?

Thanx

[DeeJayEndo]

@DeeJayPickUp you need to go to preferences - File Management and in the "Directories" click the box next to iTunes music library and you need to point to the file called "iTunes Music Library.xml" then it will work

[ultraDisko]

@DeeJayPickUp I'm having problems with that to. It did do it but now it has stopped doing it!

[HiroClownstep]

is this broken??

[FYICREW]

That's really creative use of that iTunes feature, having playlists be dynamic and change depending. I just arrange in genre.

[bidders77]

Yo, at 8.31...... what app is that that has the green duck with headphones on behind the turntables???

[DeeJayEndo]

@bidders77 That's Adium. Its the best instant messaging program for mac. It ties all of your buddylists from facebook, AIM, gchat, myspace, and yahoo all into one so you can have one away message for all of the programs at once.

[bidders77]

@DeeJayEndo thanks

[naysiploos]

your itunes library is perfect...

this is a great video!!!

thank you so much endo!!!

[DeeJayEndo]

@naysiploos Thank you! Its great not having to make playlists anymore. I just tag everything the right way when I buy new music and all my organization is automated!

[dass90x]

stop saying playlist just for 1 min.

[DeeJayEndo]

@dass90x Playlist.

[fuse1921]

I'm pretty sure you can't mix 3B or 5B with 4A; only 3A, 4A, 5A, and 4B.

[DeeJayEndo]

@fuse1921 Yes you can mix 3B with 4A. You can go diagonal in the camelot wheel. This is something they don't tell you on the mixed in key website. If you add or subtract one and change the letter (ex. 8B - 7A) those keys will be VERY harmonically compatible since the notes of the scale are almost the same with the exception of one note. EX 8B = C Major - all white keys, 7A - All white keys except for the Bb so only one note is different. Thats why these keys sound good together

[fuse1921]

@DeeJayEndo

Oh cool, thanks!

[onebaddazzdj]

how do you keep all t

hose playlist folders from being automatically opened when you start up serato?

[dsmrocker]

This is pretty interesting but I don't have a reason for this since i'm not a dj. But if i was or anything that dealt with music i would be so happy right now! aha

Thanks for the tut.

[DeeJayEndo]

@dsmrocker Smart playlists aren't just for DJs. Anyone can use them.

[Djetabz]

NICE WORK!

[walveg]

This may be a stupid question, but I have all my music on an external hard drive. Are you able to organize your music with itunes the same way even if your using an external hard drive?

[dsmrocker]

@walveg You can change itunes to read the music on your external as its music library. Go to apples site or search on youtube how to put itunes on external hard drive or something of the sort. when you do so you use itunes the same as if the music was on your internal hard drive. itunes just saves everything on the external.

[DeeJayEndo]

@walveg Yes, iTunes works the same with an external hard drive. Just make sure its plugged in so you can listen to the music. 

[joladehiti]

to much work DUUUUUDE

[DeeJayEndo]

@joladehiti Smart Playlists actually save me a TON of work and time. Once they're set up, your playlists are on autopilot!

[joladehiti]

@DeeJayEndo true.... its my 3. day sorting and tagging tracks. sorry but i kinda hate you now ;-)