So this might be a workflow issue on my part, but it doesn’t make sense to me.
Let’s say I have a USB drive plugged in and I just created a playlist called BEATS on that USB drive. In my main Engine Library collection view it automatically creates a playlist with the same name.
If I were to change that playlist’s name to BEATS_2 on my USB drive, instead of reflection that change in my main Library it just creates a new playlist called BEATS_2.
Same thing happens with moving playlists into another playlist.
Now I’m stuck with all these duplicate playlists and an absolute mess.
A possible solution would be to work exclusively in the Library view and sync my changes to the USB drive, but then I have to deal with missing tracks because they were moved to the USB drive and can’t be relocated. Different problem, equally annoying. So my only option now is to manually delete all those duplicate playlists in my main Library after moving or editing the playlists on my USB drive.
It seems like the Engine workflow is created with the idea that people have their music all sorted out before importing and don’t change/move stuff around that much. Very inflexible.
Thanks for reading, hoping someone can shed a light on this.
Exactly. In fact I have been working like this for a few years and have never had any problems with missing tracks.
The truth is that when you create a playlist from your console on your remote drive, then when you connect it to your computer and run EDJ Desktop, you will see that playlist appear in your local computer collection as well. But that doesn’t mean that playlist is local, just that it’s available for you to edit. So when you disconnect the remote drive from the computer you will see the playlist disappear from your collection. With EDJ Desktop for now it is not possible to transfer a remote playlist inside the local collection, because it does not copy the audio tracks from the remote drive to the local library on the computer.
Thanks for your detailed reply! So I need to adjust my workflow i guess.
What would be the best workflow in general? I don’t want to keep my tracks on my computer as it’s a company machine and I might have to turn it in at some point and lose my music.
Is this a good workflow?
Create folder on flash drive for every genre and subgenre
Copy music over into the appropriate folder on the flash drive
Delete music from computer
Create playlist in Engine main Library with the same name as folder
Import music into the playlist (analyze, set cue points, change order, etc.)
Sync playlist to USB
My fear is if I don’t have the USB plugged in and open Engine, it might list all of those tracks as missing and I can’t relocate them because that feature is missing.
First of all you have to decide if you want to have only your tracks on the remote drive (ie the one you connect to your hardware), or if you also want to keep a local copy for safety.
Let’s admit that you have created some playlists but you don’t want to have them all available on the remote unit, because maybe on a given night you just want to play a certain kind of music, while on another night you will do another genre. Then you can have a main collection where you will keep all your playlists, but you can have different remote units to use in different events. Then using the sync manager you can select the playlists to be transferred on a certain remote unit, while on the other you can transfer different playlists.
So to give you some advice I need to know: do you want to have all your tracks ONLY on the remote drive, or do you also want to have a local collection?
I backup my music on google drive, but I can’t rely on a local backup as it’s a company owned laptop. So to answer your question: only on the remote drive.
Also, as I’m DJing in a club from time to time (on Pioneer equipment), I need to be able to copy my playlists into Rekordbox easily as well. I’d like to incorporate that into my workflow somehow, preferably automatically.
I anticipate that you can import RB playlists and transform them to be used with EDJ, but you cannot do the opposite, i.e. EDJ playlists cannot become RB playlists. The only solution would be to use external software such as LEXICON, but it is a paid software. Search the forum, you will see that you will find it.
In this case your tracks will only be present on the remote drive. On your remote drive create a root folder which will be called “Music” (for example). In it you will put your tracks arranged as you prefer. At this point when you insert your remote drive into your computer (the company one) and you start EDJ Desktop, you will see all your playlists appear in your local collection, but it may be empty if you haven’t created them yet.
Now you select the collection of your remote drive (do not select the local collection). Then create your playlists, within them you have to drag and drop the tracks starting from the tracks you copied on your remote drive in the previous point.
If you have divided your tracks into folders and sub-folders, you can drag the main folder and drop it into the collection of the remote drive: in this way EDJ will create a playlist with the same name as your folder, with your tracks inside.
You then have to work always and only by selecting the collection of your remote unit. That way you won’t need to use the SYNC MANAGER because your playlists will already be updated, as you don’t use the local collection. So your files will remain only on the remote drive. A local database will still be created on your business PC, which can be easily deleted by going to the “\Music\Engine Library” folder and deleting this folder.
EDIT: Since your tracks have been loaded into the EDJ playlist, you will no longer be able to change the position of them in the folders, otherwise those tracks will turn red and you will no longer be able to find them within EDJ. You can move tracks inside palylists using EDJ, you can create other playlists, but the path on the computer to find those tracks must always remain the same. For now this is a big limitation, but this defect will surely be fixed soon.
Yeah I tried using Lexicon to transfer from Engine to Rekordbox, but when I import my Engine playlists they’re missing a lot of tracks… so I just went with manually exporting the playlists as .m3u files and importing into Rekordbox. Which worked.
The workflow you described is pretty clear, although very limiting. Can’t wait until they fix the relocation issue!
Anyway, thanks for the help so far! Much appreciated.
Yes, it works. But you lose all your hot cues and loops that you added.
Yes, there are many people who have been waiting for it for a long time, so it is likely that it will be one of the features most likely to appear soon.
So… been working with the library on my flash drive and found out I can’t remove tracks from a playlist that way. Has to be from within the main Library copy of that playlist. Another missing feature…
Yeah so if I read correctly, the only way to delete a track from a playlist is by working from the Collection view (the playlist in the main library on the left, not the one on the flash drive). So it’s the same playlist, but only in collection view are you able to delete a track, not from within the original playlist on the flash drive.
This is still weird to me and feels like a missing feature.
