Tag: Digital DJ

The Approach (with Caution)

Posted on by Dougie Boom in Digital DJ, DJ, Dougie Boom, Itunes, MP3 Organization, Music Libraries, Pro Tips, Serato

As part of of my ongoing blog posts regarding iTunes editing/cleaning from a dj’s perspective but could also useful to anybody who has extensive collection.

Once I knew I wanted to clean up my library and update my OS,  my next question was:

Should I edited my library first before I update the OS or just add everything back after the OS and edit my collection later?

If things are time sensitive, ie you are burning to have that piece of gear or if you think editing your library may take forever, then you may want to move everything and edit your library. I decided it would better to go through my library first, clean house and then back it up and re-add everything after the OS update. In my mind, if I was going to go through the trouble of adding back my library, I was going to avoid adding back useless files after the update. Plus, freeing up space to make the computer run more smoothly can never be a bad thing. So, better to go through the library beforehand.

Now what is your best approach?  The best thing to do is to look for unwanted files:

  • Duplicates
  • Bad Files (corrupted files, bad audio quality files)
  • Files you don’t play or probably will never play 

I will go through each of these subjects as I progress. I am looking forward to going through my collection, making changes where I can and marking the progress. I will bring up the challenges as they come up.

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Editing Your Digital Music Library

Posted on by Dougie Boom in Digital DJ, DJ, Dougie Boom, Itunes, MP3 Organization, Music Libraries, Pro Tips, Serato

“January can be the cruelest month for working DJs” (- a wise poet) once you get passed that holiday party blitz of December, which often culminates into New Year’s Eve. But for those that have a little (more) down time it presents an opportunity to “do stuff”. To get things in order. To not only take spiritual stock but to also take physical stock. So, for me I decided to take on the arduous task of cleaning out my Mac (a 2.6 ghz, Intel Core i5), which I use for djing. The mac which I have been using in professional and a personal capacity is at its… capacity (funny enough). The hard drive (1TB) is maxed out more or less, with about 10 gb left, which is unadvisable. In Serato, you begin to see weird activity: visual dropouts and slowness, which is unacceptable. Performatively, it can be stifling.

So, I figured why not take full advantage and update the OS as well and wipe the drive, start “fresh”. I figured its the sure fire way of getting rid of anything unnecessary (why do I have 100 gigs of “other” files in system info). Besides, I have been interested in getting a dj controller for gigging. I have always been a turntable guy, but carrying turntables these days seems overkill. Often, when you show up, there isn’t even enough room for them. Also, people’s expectations have changed. I could go over the pros and cons (perhaps in future blog) but now I digress. So, I am hoping to get a dj controller, however, a lot of the newer generation controllers require at least 10.10 (Yosemite), notably the Roland DJ controller series. Laugh, yes I am on 10.9. but I have always been of the mind: why update unless its for specific software or hardware? For the emojis? Plus, in light of recent news regarding Apples phones, I wouldn’t put it past them regarding their computers. They said they don’t but they weren’t so forthcoming about their phones. Anyways, I figure 10.10 shouldn’t be totally debilitating to my 4/5 year old mac.

So, this is the plan: to edit my library & update the OS. The process is going to take quite a bit of time, but I expect it to be an enlightening experience. So, I am going to do some blog posts regarding this and the issues raised as they come up.