Engine OS: How To Add Multiple Genres To ID3 Tags?

Engine DJ Software Engine DJ (Mac & PC)
1

Hi! I have a Denon DJ Prime 4, and I"m on the latest version of Engine OS (5.0.1). I’d like to be able to have “Genre” tags that work properly. First of all, what version of ID3 tags does Engine OS read? Second, what format works to separate genre tags? Is it a comma, semi colon, or something else entirely?

Thanks!

2

I did an experiment. I tried using:

  • \\
  • ;
  • ,

I used these to separate multiple genres on some FLAC files. None of them seemed to result in actually separate tags, but monolithic single genre composites. What is everyone else doing to organize their music so the sorting works properly?

3

EDJ and, as far as I remember, any other DJ software, do not support multiple genre tags in the ID3 genre field. They see everything the field as one entry. As a work-around, I maintain a glossary of genre and those are entered in the genre field separated by a comma. E.g., Soul >funky, Disco >funky, Disco >soul. In my system I have main categories (Breaks, Disco, House, Hip-Hop) and then subcategories denoted by “>”. I use smartlists for all of those subcategory genre Iin Lexicon DJ. When I sync to Engine DJ OS performance USB I convert the smartlists to regular playlists to relieve any processing overhead from Engine OS.

I switched to Lexicon DJ for preparation over a year ago. At the time, I had 100+ smartlists and EDJ sync stopped working properly. Now I have 200+ smartlists and all is well with LDJ. I tag carefully and the tracks mostly fall into playlists automatically.

4

No, it’s definitely possible in e.g. VirtualDJ (I just tried with ; and works fine)

It does make sense though IMO to try and make a decision on what single genre a track is, and use that.

5

Ah, good to know and I own VDJ. But, this is best for me so it exports across platforms.

Multi-sub-genre taggings work well for me.

6

thanks for the responses! I wrote a program that allows multi-genre by co-opting the comment ID3 tag to circumvent the limitation. It also allows rating your tracks, and editing song titles, albums, and artists from the comfort of your phone. Basically my goal was to be able to listen to my library and tag my music from the comfort of my hammock in my back yard. I’ll be posting in a couple days after testing is done.

7

i use hastags in the comment field #hiphop #boombap #90s #rnb etc

i use the usertag in lexicon and it automatically writes the hashtag to the comment field.

It can also import hastags in the comment as usertags eg say i write a tag outside lexicon eg in Engine DJ.