Bob the Builder wrote:I'm still using WinAmp as my DJing output program, and iTunes as my Library system. The Smart Play list system is a very powerful search tool on iTunes. I'm kind of surprised that WinAmp doesn't have some thing simular.
Brian
WinAmp does utilize SmartPlaylists, for more details, keep reading. What WinAmp lacks is the BPM field, WinAmp on shows the following ID3v2 fields:
FILENAME: Full filename (including path)
LENGTH: Length, in seconds (or hh:mm:ss)
ARTIST: Artist
ALBUM: Album
TITLE: Title
TRACKNO: Track number of file
GENRE: Genre
YEAR: Year
COMMENT: Comment
FILESIZE: File size, in kilobytes
FILETIME: Last known file date/time on disk
LASTUPD: Date/time of file imported to library or modified in library
LASTPLAY: Date/time of last play
RATING: Rating value (1-5, or 0 or empty for unrated)
PLAYCOUNT: Number of plays
BITRATE: Bitrate (in KBPS)
Lawrence wrote: The Winamp method Nathan developed also requires that you precisely remember your entire "code" list of categorizations, as well as requires perfect data entry. A drag and drop method that copies a song into a playlist or categorization would be MUCH easier.
Regarding my comments system.
I could easily build a bunch of "dumb" playlists, that is what a lot of people do. When we met about the laptop DJ stuff, I never showed you that method, since I don't like it. Being that you are newer to the MP3/laptop DJ world, I probably should have gone over it. My bad.
The problem with using regular/dumb playlists is that if you ever move a file, rename a file, get a new computer, etc..., the playlist has to be rebuilt (unless you have iTunes and and iPod, I guess you can share playlists back and forth between devices, I have not tried it, but seems like that would work, use your iPod to backup smart playlists and vice versa). What I use is called SmartPlaylists in iTunes and SmartView in WinAmp, I am sure other players have similar advanced playlist tools. The idea is that I put a lot of data in the comments field of my MP3 tags, in a organized and structured way to allow for searching. I then write and save a bunch of queries that I use as I DJ.
For example, in the old days, I might have burned a CD called "Soul songs with BPMs between 120 and 160." This was what I did to help me organize my collection, make a bunch of custom mix CDs. Today, I have queries saved for all my BPM ranges, I have other queries for genre, I also have have queries that combines genres and BPM ranges (for those sweet spots that I draw a lot of songs from).
I can't see any substitute for the updating of your tags manually, tag editing software will speed things up a lot, especially with fields like song title, album title, artist name, genre, year; but you still have to edit a lot of files one at a time if you want to track the more eclectic, Swing DJ centric info.
Here is some of the query text, from WinAmp.l
comment has "SwingDJ" and genre HAS "ClassicSwing" and comment has "180_189"
"SwingDJ" signifies the song is in my DJ book, this filters out all my non-swing stuff. For this query it would not matter, but for other queries this little piece of data is useful.
Genre is self explanatory.
"180_189" is my workaround for not being able to search directly on BPM in WinAmp, I still populate the BPM field using a tag editor. But for searching, I use this syntax in comments.
For the most part, I DON'T write queries for everything. I write them broadly to pull up matching songs and I browse within the results. I often browse through my genre and BPM queries.
I also have lots of other elements to my system, including:
Balboa songs, BluesRoom songs, WestCoast songs, LineDances, gospel songs, birthday and other jam songs, Hip Hop Lindy, Charleston Songs, songs by decade they were recorded, songs by vocal style (female vocalist songs, male vocalist songs, duets, group vocals by gender, instrumentals), Songs by primary instruments (piano songs, trombone songs, etc..), songs by geography (New Orleans songs, Austin songs, Chicago songs, travel songs, etc..), songs for the end of the night, songs to open the night, songs that other local DJs overplay, cha chas, waltz songs, songs by lyrical content (Alcohol, food, and a bunch of other silly themes), foreign language songs, songs that are kid friendly.
I can pull up lists of these songs any time I DJ. Some songs have a lot of comments in them, since they fit a lot of categories. Whenever I sit down and add to comments, I am able to make my sets flow more, I am able to compensate for my poor memory.
Sure, it takes a lot of time, but it lasts forever. I could load my songs onto any computer, spend about an hour rebuilding my smart playlists and be fully functional.
Also, there is nothing magical about WinAmp, I could migrate and DJ to iTunes in an afternoon. I don't know all the various players, but I imagine many of them mimic the features of iTunes and WinAmp.
In terms of using MP3s and media players to their fullest database potential, I am very happy with my current process. It works and it pretty easy to work with while DJing.
Nathan