After reading all the “good” & “bad” stories from this forum regarding building / maintaining a constant & reliable workflow with Engine Prime & it’s ecosystem I finally decided to breakdown step by step the workflow I’ve been using since I’ve purchased my Denon Prime Setup which consists of 2x SC5000’s Media Players (both at v1.3.1) and 1x X1800 Club Mixer (v1.2) that has been working ALMOST perfectly for me (98% of the time)
I’m running EP on my MacBook Pro 2016 with Intel Core i7 2.9Ghz, 16GB ram & 1TB Internal SSD
and I currently have 2 types of drives that I use with the players;
Sandisk 128gb Pro SSD Flash Drive (2019 songs with crates & subcrates)
Custom ADATA m.2 2280 3D NAND 1TB External SSD (entire music library with crates & subcrates)
***NOTE: My music folders are organized on my laptop by genre / and divided in 3 "sub"folders:
1- 2019
2- 2018
3- 2017<
Also I’m an underground Techno / Progressive DJ so here’s a list of my main music folders;
Afro House
Deep House
Progressive House
Tech House
Techno
Melodic House & Techno
Minimal / Deep Tech
So my “file-path” goes as followed:
Example:
Desktop ---->
MUSIC ---->
PROGRESSIVE HOUSE —>
2019
2018
2017<
I decided to start my Engine Prime library from scratch since all my music is bought (I’m specifying this to basically say that all my files are properly ID3 tagged so after import it’s easy to classify)
So now my workflow is as followed:
once new music is downloaded run all my tracks through MIXED IN KEY / PLATINUM NOTES
take all songs from DOWNLOADS folder and put them in their designated MUSIC folder
open Engine Prime (of course lol)
drag all new files in the collection section (AUTO ANALYZE FUNCTION IS SET TO OFF)
highlight all new imported files (SET “SORT BY ADDED DATE”)
right click and start with RE-IMPORT TRACK INFORMATION (I do that to make sure all ID3 properties have been imported properly)
highlight all new imported files again
right click and now choose ANALYZE TRACKS
now sort ALL COLLECTION by GENRE
then drag & drop 1st all “SAME GENRE” songs into appropriate GENRE crate (I do this every time to make sure I don’t forget to classify any of my tracks. Engine Prime will not create duplicates just add the new songs)
expand GENRE crates (1 genre at a time) and now sort by YEAR
highlight songs year by year (so ALL 2019 then ALL 2018 ect…) and again drag and drop them into the corresponding sub-crates
open SETTINGS / OPTIONS menu then RUN CLEANUP
drag and drop COLLECTION into appropriate external drive
open SETTINGS / OPTIONS menu then RUN CLEANUP (again)
so there it is my complete step by step workflow with Engine Prime
I know it may look overwhelming at first but once you get the hang of it it’s smooth sailing and I don’t encounter a lot of the problems I’ve been reading on this forum!
Feel free to ask questions… I’ll try and answer them to the best of my knowledge!
you have one Folder on your Desktop with all your music In it? Is that recommended? Any reason why you don’t use the MUSIC folder in Mac?
Similar to my workflow in Serato but I don’t have any music on my laptop.
I think most of the issues folks report is unrelated to just transferring tunes. Windows Media player can do that
It’s about stuff like syncing iTunes, syncing databack from usb after playing, bpm algorithm and advanced beatgrids option (people play other types of music),
If you need a test track try 50 cent - In Da Club.
So I just got the internal SSD from the prime4.
I haven’t really looked at the EP prep workflow properly up until now. I got all my tracks in a folder on the MBP (no structure) then sorted everything out in EP. (analysis / crates by genre etc)
Rather than fully going through each track fully (things like using the stars for energy level and tweaking the grid markers) I planned to make a few more passes on the library, gradually sorting it out. There is always something more to do, its a work in progress…!
In between doing this I got the SSD, so I copied everything to date over. (couldnt wait.)
For some reason I really thought that the files would NOT show as duplicates on EP. - now I have duplicates for every track . I am guessing I now have to re copy everything back over to EP each time I do a few edits to a few tracks? bit time consuming! - a sync facility would be so much better here (I cant face the idea of not having it all backed up on the laptop).
I like your flow, but I am guessing it has to be bang on from the off? it seems EP needs it all done from the word go. no room for work in progress…
You asked " you have one Folder on your Desktop with all your music In it? Is that recommended? ".
I answered you. Your happiness with the answer is down to you.
Having three folders on his desktop is no better or worse than having one in music. The better option is what I gave you, having three copies of your music on separate disks/places, that is recommended
My question is related to having that folder on the “Desktop”.
Why not use the “Music” folder?
Personally I think for important stuff like one’s music files, I worry that I will accidentally click on it and eg changing the file name or Accidentally drag files into it.
Perhaps you may want to point me to where I suggested having multiple folder copies on the same computer?
No your question as you wrote it was " you have one Folder on your Desktop with all your music In it? Is that recommended? ".
you might have meant it differently, but that’s not what you wrote.
You also mentioned one folder as if that were as opposed to have more than one folder?
Also for “Personally I think for important stuff like one’s music files, I worry that I will accidentally click on it and eg changing the file name or Accidentally drag files into it.”
You can easily accidently drag files into the music folder as drag them to a desktop folder however if you have 3 copies, as recommended, this isn’t an issue for you or the OP
fellow #primetribe 
