DJing Software.

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russell
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Location: Canberra, Australia

#16 Post by russell » Tue Feb 28, 2006 6:28 am

Jeff,
I have been trying Media Center and like it. Only one issue I haven't resolved - how to set start and end times on an individual track (for editing out intros/outros) - any ideas?

JohnDyer
Posts: 87
Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2002 2:52 pm
Location: Denver CO

#17 Post by JohnDyer » Tue Feb 28, 2006 2:01 pm

For you JR Media Center users, how many songs do you have indexed in its system? I have about 8000 songs in PCDJ Red right now (and growing), but my Recordcase groups (topical playlists) seem to be getting slower and slower. So I guess my question is: Will JR Media Center scale to say over 10,000 songs without a performance hit on searches or indexing?

I am also interested in setting queue points, as PCDJ Red lets me do this, and I don't want to give that up.
John Dyer, Denver CO

Skippy
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Joined: Thu May 08, 2003 4:22 am

#18 Post by Skippy » Tue Feb 28, 2006 3:37 pm

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3.0

go there and post a question. I have only ever had 9,000(give or take a few) tracks. But logically the larger the database the longer it takes to search. My current work machine has 6,534 tracks and and if I type "joe williams" (for example) into the search field embeded in the display the results are displayed instantly.

Even if I type a query like:
[Last Played]=>7d, [Album]=[All The Ladies /(disc 1/)]

the results are displayed instantly.
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jmatthew
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#19 Post by jmatthew » Tue Feb 28, 2006 7:24 pm

I have about 1500 songs + a ton of videos and photos and JRiver still runs fine and searches quickly on my 6 year old laptop.
I'm not an obsessive personality. I just happen to pick hobbies that seem to consume my life.

www.lindyguy.com

Nate Dogg
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Location: Austin, TX

#20 Post by Nate Dogg » Wed Mar 01, 2006 7:58 am

I have not started my JRiver evaluation yet, looking forward to playing with it this weekend. However, I have had built 10K+ media libraries in WinAmp on a regular basis and it searches/plays fairly quickly.

Awhile back I tried loading 500 gigs into the media library, it took all day and was very slow. So, there was a limit for useful WinAmp Media libraries, but I think 10K is way below it.

I imagine that your computer and OS will have an impact on how fast either software runs though.
Last edited by Nate Dogg on Wed Mar 01, 2006 2:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PitchTheWoo
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#21 Post by PitchTheWoo » Wed Mar 01, 2006 12:04 pm

Hi Russell,
That's a good question. I've never had to cue up a track other than at the very beginning so I don't know. You've got me curious now though, so I'm going to look into it. When I've DJ'ed comps I've always edited special versions of the tracks to be the specified length and with a nice built in fade out (even though Media Center could have done the nice fade out for me automatically) because I burn these competition tracks to an Audio CD just in case. I'm all about the prep work and worst case scenarios.


All,
With regards to the the size of libraries, I've got a 4 year old desktop machine (we're talkin USB 1.0 and a built in ZIP drive, don't laugh!) with my entire collection of about 90K tracks and it works flawlessly and very fast. My laptop is about the same vintage and has about 8K tracks on it and needless to say is also a great performer.

Cheers,
Jeff
Here's the beat to hep ya...

jmatthew
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#22 Post by jmatthew » Thu Mar 02, 2006 2:11 am

bah, I meant 15000, not 1500 :P
I'm not an obsessive personality. I just happen to pick hobbies that seem to consume my life.

www.lindyguy.com

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PitchTheWoo
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#23 Post by PitchTheWoo » Thu Mar 02, 2006 12:17 pm

Hi Russell,
I've got an answer for you about setting a playback range via in and out points for a track. Bottom line is that yes, you can do it, although it's not super elegantly supported in the UI right now.

Here's the outline, and I can walk you through it off-line if you need help:
  1. Create a playlist with all tracks you want to set a playback range for
  2. Export the playlist in MPL format (it's just like XML)
  3. Edit the playlist in a text editor, adding a line to each track to specify the desired playback range
  4. Import the edited playlist
  5. You now have virtual copies of the tracks in your library which only play the desired range
Kinda cool, because you probably cue up the track the same way all the time, so it's worth the tiny inelegance to do it this way for the few tracks that need it. Plus if you play the track 2 or more different ways on a regular basis, you can have as many of these virtual tracks for any single song as you want.

Cheers,
Jeff
Here's the beat to hep ya...

Nate Dogg
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Location: Austin, TX

#24 Post by Nate Dogg » Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:11 pm

Doing my J. River Media Center evaluation today. So far, I am finding it can do what I want, although the learning curve is a pain. It is not as simple as WinAmp (or perhaps I just am so used to WinAmp that it seems easy to me).

- It can do the Smart Playlists, setting them up is somewhat different, but works the same for the most part.

- Still working on getting a handle on how to use the Zones, Playing while searching your library, etc... Should not be a problem, although I am going through some trial and error to figure it all out.

- The feature below is very useful and it is on that I did not have in my verison of WinAmp, perhaps a plug in existed or perhaps it was a part of WinAmp and I just never knew about it. But, this feature alone justifies switching.

From the Help Text in J.River.
Audio Settings and Analysis
Have you ever had to run for the volume control when a very loud song starts playing? With Media Center you can playback all your files at the same volume level, even if Glenn Gould follows Metallica in a playlist. All you have to do is set the program to analyze your files, and then turn on Replay Gain during playback. You can then also guarantee that any CD you burn will always playback at the same volume, even for “Various Artists” type CDs. The program analyses Replay Gain levels, BMPs (beats per minute) and intensity, so you can easily create a playlist suitable for Aerobics or dancing.

You can also adjust the playback of your files using other tools as well. Media Center includes a 10 band equalizer and various effects that can simulate a concert hall or a living room. And if your sound card supports it, you can listen to your music in surround sound, with modified bitdepths and sampling rates, or through multiple channels.

These playback options are all available through DSP Studio.

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Jonas
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#25 Post by Jonas » Mon Mar 13, 2006 1:09 am

Skippy, Jeff or Jason:

When entering BPM:s in J River Media Center, does that edit the actual ID3v2 Tag, so the information stays with the file, or is it just an in-program feature, like some shitty functions in Windows MP, so that the information is erased if you switch computers and/or software? Does that apply for any information you add to the file? I wouldn't want to re-edit 7K+ songs if switching.

I drive WinAmp right now, it's free and quite ok, but Media Center seems to have a complete package, so it just might be worth the cash. I love the idea of being able to set the same output volume to all tracks automatically when burning compilations or just playing them from the computer.

Thank you for the heads up!

/Jonas

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PitchTheWoo
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#26 Post by PitchTheWoo » Mon Mar 13, 2006 9:46 am

Hi Jonas,
That's just one of many great things about J. River Media Center... It supports the ID3v2 tags really well and lets you store them all inside the mp3 file. It even lets you store the album cover art inside the file. Best of all, you can create your own custom tags and it will store them inside the file too!!!

It also lets you easily move the content of your tags around... for instance if you were using the Tempo tag in some other program to hold BPM, you can just select all the tracks in your library and then have your choice to either Move or Copy or Swap the info between the Tempo and BPM tags.

Cheers,
Jeff
Here's the beat to hep ya...

Skippy
Posts: 34
Joined: Thu May 08, 2003 4:22 am

#27 Post by Skippy » Tue Mar 14, 2006 5:26 am

the BPM column/tag in JRMC is a calculated column that can be manual edited. If you chose to "analyse" your audio files with options for auto bpm etc IT WILL CHANGE THIS COLUMN/TAG.....I choose to use Custom1 or another custom field to store the BPM with the audio file.

oh yes, tags are indeed saved with the files.
http://www.swinggear.com.au

now selling authorised WWII posters and featuring a newly refined black t-shirt printing method. Now even greater quality than before.

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main_stem
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Location: Seattle, WA

#28 Post by main_stem » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:25 am

I use the iTunes DJ1800 combo on my Mac. It's quick easy and cheap.
"We called it music."
— Eddie Condon

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Jonas
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Location: Uppsala, Sweden

#29 Post by Jonas » Tue Mar 14, 2006 4:02 pm

Jeff and Skippy: thank you for the information, I will seriously consider switching.

/Jonas

jmatthew
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#30 Post by jmatthew » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:37 pm

the BPM column/tag in JRMC is a calculated column that can be manual edited. If you chose to "analyse" your audio files with options for auto bpm etc IT WILL CHANGE THIS COLUMN/TAG.....I choose to use Custom1 or another custom field to store the BPM with the audio file.
JRiver's BPM analyzer is steller. I haven't seen it disagree with me by more than 1 or 2 bmp on a song yet (and it's probably more accurate than I am). I'm pretty impressed with it and don't mine trusting it to calculate the BPM on songs at all.
I'm not an obsessive personality. I just happen to pick hobbies that seem to consume my life.

www.lindyguy.com

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