I think he means a way that he can still bring his big laptop along to gigs and search for tracks in Engine Prime on laptop and then “push” any chosen tracks from Engine Prime into his chosen deck and layer from the laptop.
It was something that was popular on pioneers coz they had smaller screens, no touch screen and poor internal deck searching - the prime doesn’t suffer from those things though, so not as much need for that.
Also the direct link meant that no external hard drive was needed for exporting files to - it just meant you were dragging and powering an entire laptop around with you like the worlds bulkiest hard drive. It did mean though that you wriggled out of any hard drive syncing maintenance, at the severe cost of having no backup of your music if the laptop caught a migraine.
I generally agree with you. However, most of these ideas come from the need to to transition to DenonDJ platform in an easy way. Which is understandable.
I think that from Pioneer they should copy the beautiful things of Pioneer, not everything!
I think that anyone of us recently purchased the Prime 4, he first made a comparison with Pioneer XDJ-XZ: therefore everyone will have his own idea of what Pioneer does better than DenonDJ and vice versa.
I finally chose Prime 4, not for the lower price, but because I had the impression that DenonDJ is more innovative and more dynamic than Pioneer in solving defects, adding new functions, following customer requests.
So I thought: if Prime4 does not have that function compared to XDJ-XZ, it will probably be added in the coming months if it is considered useful by other users: fortunately, since it is software, everything (or almost) is possible.
Ok, can I ask why you are bothered about the file structure and not the crates with the tracks in instead? Just so I can understand what the problem is and try to offer any help.
Oh for the love of god, you’re just painful! Nauseating.
What an obtuse respone, silly because it’s assumptive and you’re just, well wrong!, certainly says more about you than it does me that every response jumps to assumptions that then lead to condescending comments to massge your own twisted ego… We have 2 ears and 1 mouth mate, use them in that ratio Being DJ Sammi and a Mobile DJ I guess you’re used to having more mouth than a cow has cu**.
I care not for Pioneers, else I would have bought them. I prefer the Denon Hardware, the Software is a joke, I started out in Software in the late 90’s bucko so I think I’m slightly more qualified in this area Disco Dave!
By the way I have a Q5 and an RS3, haven;t complained once, if you’re comparing the engineering of this software to an Audi may I suggest you refrain from having an opinion, you’re not mentally competent!
Thanks mate, I do appriciate the help without the condescending ridicule.
I am trying to build a library that half of which is already in the wrong place (C drive not D drive) which means losing lots of work that I need to move. No probs I can move it an reanalysie but Prime got so many cue points and BPM’s massivly out of kilter it took me AGES to get it all right.
I want to be able to build my library and if I mess something up or need to move a folder, it not require totally redoing.
I have heard you can try and change the script, file path in the database folder, but I have lots of database files, I don’t know wher eto start with that need an editor of sorts too??
Ok - trick to this for me would be to use iTunes. Create a brand new profile in iTunes and with the original library sort out playlist, organisation, everything you want on your new drive. When you are happy this is exactly how you want to do it on the new drive, move on to Prime.
In Prime, when you go into ITunes, you should see you structured. Now, on your new drive, replicate each folder as a crate, and then drag the content of each crate from the iTunes folder. Prime then pulls everything across, organises the root folder structure on the drive, and it plays out all nice for you. I’ve had to do this a few times, which is why I always use iTunes as my organisation software, as it is interchangeable with everything, and isn’t prone to just vanishing!!
I totally empathize with your struggles. I’m also like you. I delete, move, rename files quite often and I end up with a boatload of missing tracks in Engine Prime.
Engine prime is making progress and I believe that the developers are planning to add a Missing File solution in the future. I hope when they implement this it will help with missing and moved files - either to relocate or to remove from library in bulk
A workaround as suggested is to do your library management in any of the supported third party libraries eg the free version of rekordbox, serato DJ
Do all your hot cues and loops placement in those and sync over to Engine prime as needed.
You have to continuously rename and move files- that’s part of djing. That’s literally your job. I spend 4+ hours a week re-organizing my music and it’s never ending because I’m not going to be playing the same music week after week. I’m also not going to drag out having 100+ folders in EP, therefore I edit my main folders. Another supporting factor to why EP needs a proper sync feature is because if you use your harddrive on more than just Denon hardware, you need the layout and reorganized files to match the layout in each software. The corruption rate between EP and harddrives is pretty high too, so keeping your music properly organized prior to EP analyzing is a must.
It’s not ‘very simple’ to just re-add the music you want to reorganize because you have to rearrange it on your harddrive and in EP, especially when dealing with 50k+ songs. There’s no retaliation to what I’m talking about; if you need to use your harddrive in more than just EP, it’s very very very impractical. The conclusion is the Prime series is not meant for dj’s who do more than just play a single genre week after week in the same club. I wish someone had put a true review about the Denon products before I purchased because they’re super limited if you’re open format, do weddings, take requests, play a ton of music etc.
In regards to tags, they’re irrelevant. This is such a scapegoat concept Denon and their users throw around to opt out as to why you must edit all hundreds of thousands of the songs you have (outside of the file name and artist, then maybe the album). I’ve used VDJ for 10 years and never once have I needed to edit a tag outside of the title and artist. The reasoning is because the VDJ search function is quality and picks up on everything in the title, artist, and album alone, thus not forcing you to waste time editing any other tag.
Tagging, and by that I mean , making sure The tag fields of the tracks are correct, really is important for any software.
Most systems, including prime, will let you find a track by the file name. But if the file name is “Download58473738584.mp3” or the equally famous “Track 1.mp3”, then nothing’s going to find that track by someone searching for “Cent” … unless the tags are filled in properly.
No you don’t. It’s not “part of DJing”. It’s not “literally your job”.
I don’t play the same music week after week - but I’m not “never ending” moving stuff around.
No, corruption rate isn’t high. I’ve not had any issue like that with EP yet. Not even a whiff of it. If it happened, I have backups.
No, you don’t “have to rearrange it on your harddrive”. If it’s tagged and in the DB then you can find it.
What? I play anything and everything. No genre restrictions. I think the Prime 4 is fantastic for what I do. I don’t regret buying it at all. “Super limited if you’re open format”? I think you must be thinking of another product!
Tags are irrelevant? That’s probably why you appear to be so disorganised. Confused even.
There are many DJs who over the years have remained thinking about arranging their tracks in “windows folders” and moving them continuously. I once heard a fairly famous DJ who said: “I only use the name of the MP3 file, but I never fill out the TAGs because they are useless and make me waste time”. Yes, maybe at the beginning you waste more time, but in the future you save time when your MP3 will be easier to work with any archiving software.
I save my tracks by year and date of purchase, for example: I have the main folder “2020” (year) and then some sub-folders named as “0703” or “0706” (July 06) with the logic of “month + day.” Since I get new tracks once a week, all of this remains simple to manage. Then later I use MP3tag and Engine Prime as I have already explained in other threads. The files always remain in the same place and with the same path. I only edit the crates in Engine Prime and everything runs smoothly.
I agree. Anything I add to my collection this year goes in the 2020 folder. Doesn’t matter if it’s a new release or a golden oldie. Could be Grime, could be Easy Listening. Doesn’t even really matter if it gets dropped in another folder.
Once it’s tagged appropriately I can find it, whether via a direct search or because it’s in a particular crate based on year, genre, whatever.
Why do you say that? It seems to me that both with Engine Prime and with Prime 4 (Engine OS) it is possible to search for tracks using different methods: title, artist, bpm, key, date added, rating, etc., etc.
Max, if you write that PRIME 4 does not search in TAGS, YOU make a mistake, because what you say is not true. On the other hand, if you write that “PRIME 4 does not have dynamic crates”, then you are right, it does not have them. They are two different things. TAGs are used, but surely (as you write) they are not used at 100% of their possibilities, because they could ALSO be used to make dynamic crates.
