DJ Tips (Part 1) – An Efficient Music Library

Having a good library of music is one of the most important factors in your career as performing DJ, but much too often DJs tend to disregard the vitality of having an organised music library to use during gigs, promotional mixes, podcasts or anywhere else necessary. So in this article I want to share a few quick ways to prearrange your music library in order to use it to its full potential.

SOURCE: http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net

FILLING IN THE METADATA

A common practice amongst DJs is that knowing the name, length and BPM of a track is all the information you need to play a good set. The problem about common practice is that it’s for commoners. So in order to drop a killer set, your library must be optimised by containing as much information as possible. That way, you will have more information (such as the genre, bit rate and key) of a track in order to make more in depth decisions about what songs to play. 

There are some great free tools such as MP3 that can help you tag your music in bulk. 

This image gives us an idea of a relatively healthy tagged track:

Personally, I think that the following words are more than enough of a reason for you to practise this new habit:

“In the age of information, ignorance is a choice.”

A FOLDER STRUCTURE THAT WORKS FOR YOU

Having a well organised folder structure is essential as it will cut down the time you spend on browsing or locating tracks. This becomes complicated because as of late, it has become significantly harder to categorize music due to artists branching out of a particular genre.

A basic way to organise your music is by separating the different types into folders such as:

• Albums
• Compilations
• Live sets / Performances
• Mash-Ups
• Mixes 
• Podcasts
• Singles

These already give you a clear idea of where versions of a particular song can be found. A highly recommended additional step is to create sub-folders for each folder. This way you can organise you music by the year of its release in order to refine your music a lot more. 

HAVING LONGER TRACKS

Having some of these are great to have as part of your music collection (especially when playing long sets) as they not only give you little time to cool down, but they can help you drive your crowd into a particular state or atmosphere – one that you choose. Long tracks can also give you time to have a bath room break during your set - I highly doubt that a DJs bladder is made out of solid gold – well, mine isn’t.  

HAVING SOME LONGER TRACKS

Having some of these are great to have as part of your music collection (especially when playing long sets) as they not only give you little time to cool down, but they can help you drive your crowd into a particular state or atmosphere – one that you choose. Long tracks can also give you time to have a bath room break during your set - I highly doubt that a DJs bladder is made out of solid gold – well, mine isn’t.  

HAVING A LIBRARY WITH VARIOUS GENRES

Whether we like it or not, the once were mandatory  boundaries called "musical genres" are slowly becoming a thing of the past. In this very "unstable" time in music, it is up to you as the DJ to be well equipped with a wide range of genres in case you're asked to play for a more "target-specific" audience. For many DJs in electronic music, blurring genres is increasingly becoming the style of play. The good thing about this is that it creates very unique sets and can deliver various atmospheres to the crowd. Another perk to this style is that you would have wider scope of events & venues to play at because wouldn't be limited by the type of tracks you play.

ALWAYS HAVE A BACK-UP

Now that most of our music & performance equipment is digital, having an up-to-date back-up of your music is more important than ever. The last thing you would like to happen is for you to open your laptop 10 minutes before your set and all your music has vanished - imagine! 

The most advisable back-up media I would recommend would be an external hard-drive. If you don't have one, you should invest in one! This is an amazing piece of equipment because it comes in different volumes and you could literally be travelling with terrabytes (TBs) of music in your pocket!

Alternatively, you could have a look at other back-up technologies because there hundreds, such as; cloud storage, optical back-up medias, e-passports and so on. You could have a second laptop if you want - just make sure that all your data is duplicated and safe.

SOURCE: http://www.djtechtools.com/

Ultimately, a good music library should have good music. Do not fall into the false belief that all new music is good music. With that being said, you should constantly add new music  to ensure that whenever you have gigs or need to make a mix - your harmonic arsenal is at your disposal. 

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