Engine desktop help thread

Engine DJ Software Engine DJ (Mac & PC)
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Hello Fellow EngineDj Community,

I only started using the software a short while ago, so maybe I’m missinterpreting the Guide or everything I managed to find here about handling my music Library.

My workflow would be to copy my Library from windows into the internal ssd I installed inside my prime 4 plus.
So my folder hierarchy would stay in tact. More about that later on.
Then I would go to the software, analyze or add the Library to my collection by using the drives section, open up the drive in folders and drag and drop the folders I copied to my ssd into the collection of the drive…
After finishing I would go and eject the prime, edit grids analysed incorrectly, add hot cues and loops and then I would need to connect to the pc again, to rename and re color all cues and stuff.

Do I understand correctly, that now, when I want to back this work up to the PC, the engine dj software would make a copy of these files alongside the database for cues and stuff, because it doesn’t know the real source of this library is my computer?
So I would have all my music doubled on my PC?

This is why I tried it the other way around now. The way I understood it in the guide. I copied my files from the fresh analyzed library on my PC to the prime, but then it would mess with my folders and create a music folder next to the database.
The folder hierarchy would stay intact within my collection, but this bugs me that the real data isn’t stored that way as well.

Do I just have to live with this?
Am I missing something? Did I miss interpret something else or was my original way just right and I didn’t have to try again?

I want the library stored on my internal to be just like on my computer and I want to be able to sync my work from the device with the files sored on the pc and when I add new music to my library I want it to follow the folder hierarchy on my PC as well. Is this even possible?

I’m writing all this, because I was using a 5 meter usb 3.0 cable I bought, for the reason that I didn’t want to always put my prime next to my computer, but I think this wasn’t working properly with the device so I lost all my process. I didn’t back it up and wanted to copy new music to the internal and then the connection broke and I lost the whole database.
Maybe someone can recommend me a cable as well, since this one seems to be not working right.

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I would start with analyzing all your music on the laptop. So you have the Key, beatgrids and all. Then use syncmanager to transfer the collection to your device.

Why copy the complete map structure to the divisie?

When you have not analyzed the tracks there is nothing to sync between your device and your laptop.

So your workflow is a absolute no no in my book.

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okay thank you for your feedback. When I use the sync manager, does it keep the file and folder structure or would it mess it up again like when I dragged and dropped the analysed music from pc to the prime?

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Not sure about that, but looking at the structuur in my prime 4 the folders show, BPM, album, Key and artist.

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The thing to bear in mind is - when using a library/database system like Engine (or DJ software in general) there’s no need for a folder hierarchy.

Assuming your files are all tagged with artist, title, genre, year etc. then the location of any particular file is irrelevant, as you have the ability to search.

Now we also have smartlists, so you can create groupings such as decades, genres and so on using the smartlists - file location doesn’t matter.

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I don’t have a prime 4 so I don’t have a permanent drive installed in my SC live 4 but I presume the workflow is similar. Any prime 4 users, please correct me if my advice is wrong.

I think the internal drive in the prime 4 is intended to store the engine library music files that the laptop software has analyzed prior to performance, therefore you don’t need a copy of the raw mp3 files on the internal drive, just the files that are outputted from the engine sync manager.

This includes the playlists you make in engine DJ rather than your original file structure, so it would be best to do some organizing in the laptop software before you export to the prime drive.

You would be better keeping the mp3 files on the laptop and another external drive as a backup, then using the laptop software to transfer any new music onto the internal drive.

If you have added any hot cues or adjusted the grid on the prime unit, make sure that you select to write back to engine DJ from the internal prime drive before syncing from the laptop otherwise any work you have done will be overwritten.

I hope this helps.

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Okay, then I have to get used to this, thank you for the help

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Also try decide where all you music is stored once and avoid moving it or renaming the folders as engine will loose the song in the new file structure.

My music file is a nightmare, I almost wish I had it all dumped in one file and did all the organizing in engine dj. I’m sure lots of others are way better at keeping their file structure neat and tidy.

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Ah okay, Good to know, I always thought it like that:
The music on my PC is the master data, I analyze it and then there will be a database in wich everything like bpm and hot cues is stored.
After this I could copy the music alongside the database to the device and use it there.
So then the software would recognize any changes to the database and add it to the master data.

But I think I’m getting it now.
The whole system is completely different. It’s more like the PC Holds the music and manages the database and the device holds just the copy of the data in order to work standalone.
So changes to the data can be saved to the main database on the pc and so far and so on…

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Exactly. You only need the files that engine creates on the internal drive, rather than having a copy of the original music file and the engine output.

You’ll find the laptop software is much faster to do some tasks like analyzing beat grids etc, especially as it will analyze batches of files. It also seems to nail the grids better than the units in my opinion. If the grid is still off in the laptop software you can right click on the track and reanalyze them individually, it normally find it gets it right on a second attempt.

Making playlists is also much easier on the laptop so I’d do as much of that work on there if you can, then export to the prime 4.

I personally find making cues, loops, etc much easier on the unit, but currently you cannot name cues and loops from there so you would need to write them back to the laptop and edit them in there then write back to the unit.

Hopefully this gets addressed is a future update, luckily the engine guys are really good at adding new features in updates.

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Hi :purple_heart:

I do not have a Prime 4, but a set of SC6000M players. I have my files organized on an external SSD drive, I use folders for general genres like Techno or Trance and I create subfolders for record labels. And in there I create a folder for each release, it contains the artwork and the FLAC files. Certainly, many others will have a different system, but I am so used to sorting things by record labels, it is the way I have been sorting and organising my vinyl records :relieved: …

I use Engine DJ on a laptop to analyse the files, the playlists reflect my actual folder structure. Then I use the Sync manager to transfer everything to the players, each has an internal SSD drive. What is visible on the player are the playlists, this is the means by which tracks are accessed. You can create additional playlists which do not correspond to a folder, for example all tracks in a planned DJ set. In this sense, the universe of possible playlists is much bigger than the world of folders …

At least on the SC6000 player the actual folder structure on the internal SSD, created by Engine DJ via the Sync manager, is different though. In my case it seems that there are now folders named after the artists, special characters like the dot . occurring in the names are swapped for compatible characters … so yes, the folders and structure on that level are different. But this does not really matter, because all that we get to see on the player are the playlists. I guess, that it will be the same with the Prime 4 and its internal drive. As long as the library knows, where the files are, it is ok, right? :blush:

I hope this info helps you a little. :blush:

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Yes this sounds about like how I would like to handle it.
Can you try to give me an as detailed as possible step by step description how you set this up? Because I still struggle to set it up to just like what you said.

I tried over and over and I’m now trying it as following.
I got the files from my computer
drag and drop the folder containing all my music sorted in folders and subfolders, similar to how you mentioned, into the engine library.
auto analysis needs to be on, otherwise it won’t do anything.
After it rufly analysed everything I will try to get everything right by selecting the proper bpm for each genre and re analyze sub folder by folder.
After this is finished I’ll try to get this now basic library to my internal drive of the prime using the sync manager, or do I have to drag and drop the library collection into the drive collection?
After this is finished I should be able to disconnect the prime and start editing beat grids and setting up my hot cues and loops.
when this is done I connect back to my computer, use sync manager and then edit the cue and loop color and names to just then re sync it with the device to have everything set up perfectly to how I wanted it for djing.

Is this finally right and how it would work or did I still miss something or did something wrong.

I can later on make a playlist for sets and sync them to the device, but I would still keep the folder structure as som sort of playlist to always have all my music on hand how I like it?

When I want to add new music I drag and drop them from the new folder to the engine dj library and then I can move it using sync manager to the prime like above and rinse and repeat what steps came next?

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What I would say, if you want your engine library to replicate your own folder structure, you need to build playlists that represent your master folders, then have sub-playlists that represent your sub folders… you can then drag each sub folder into its corresponding sub-playlist and it’ll only add the music from that sub folder to that sub-playlist.

See my pic below of how I have my folders set up in correspondence to playlists in Engine desktop.

Sync manager will then add all your organised music from the desktop app to a blank drive you use to DJ, either a removable drive or internal SSD inside the device (that is in computer mode so you can see the drive)

Dont forget that when you make changes on the device itself you need to ‘sync to engine DJ’ in the sync manager before syncing the other way, that way all your changes are saved back to the desktop app. See pic below for what this looks like.

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@Towny_Drop

I am sharing with you a link which contains a video that I made to create a library with Engine Dj Desktop by dragging and dropping.

https://youtu.be/I2jQGu9hUxg

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I will try to write up the steps of my workflow:

  1. I rename files and folders consistently; I add meta data with mp3tag (very useful), like Label, Catalognumber … these files are my archive, regardless of the DJ software that I may use; so I check if everything is correct, sometimes the year given in the meta info is not correct for example. I give each file a comment and description meta tag as well, though there is only a placeholder - … details will come later. The folder of a release is named Artist - Release/Album name (Record Label).

  2. When I am happy with everything, I open the Engine DJ software:

library-setup-engine-dj
library-setup-engine-dj1920×1080 282 KB

In the menu on the left there is a folder icon, in the screen shot it is green, because it is selected. And the window which I have labelled Files and Folders is the view like in a file explorer window, these are the actual folders. In my case these are at home on an external SSD, but you can also browse on the local harddisk of your computer.

To the right is the viewport which I have labelled Playlists. You get this view by clicking on the DRIVES button, then the window expands and shows you the drives that Engine DJ can access. In my case there is the usual C drive and an external SSD named Fog Arena, which is expanded and shows some trance playlists.

You can drag and drop folders from the folders window into the playlists window, or you can create a new playlist there and drag & drop files from the left window. For example I could drag the “Trance Visions 7” album to the playlists area, I can move it around and sort the playlists. And when I open it there, the tracks are usually not ordered by track number - but you can fix that too by moving the tracks up and down in the playlist, until it resembles the actual sequence of tracks in the album.

  1. Then I do the analysis, track by track: BPM and the grid are usually the easier part, Engine DJ is doing a very good job here. I do not rely on automatic key analysis so much, I determine the key by playing along a track on a piano or a synth to identify the scale, it takes time, but it is totally worth it :relieved: … and I write my results and whatever is noteworthy about the track into the Comment field.

  2. Then comes the Sync manager into play, which you can see in the screenshot that STU-C has posted, because it is time to send the playlists and tracks to your player. You can select which of your folders, which are now actually playlists, you want to send over to your player. If you have more than one drive or player connected, you can select, where you want to sync the files to …

I hope that this helps you a little. This is more or less my current workflow and my primary goal is to recreate my usual folder structure in the form of playlists on my players - as a basis. But I am open to all the new smart playlist features as well, after all I came to Denon DJ to explore new technical possibilities and to take my mixing to the next level. :blush:

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I wonder if there are many more posts in here with guidance, the thread title could be changed to ‘Engine desktop help thread’ or something similar?…. Then have it as a kind of community workflow thread where people can post guides, tips and tricks for managing their music with Engine and Prime devices?

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Thank you so much for putting so much effort into it, I will try out later amd I hope it finally helps me.

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I finally managed to get everything running like it is supposed to be.
and since I finally understood everything I am able to adapt my workflow.

Thanks to all of you kind people!

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should I keep the topic open or can I mark Parysatis answer as solution?

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Keep it open id say, so others can chime in with their workflow/ideas… no reason why all of us cant learn something new from it, if there is a fresh idea brought in.

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