Hello friends, I’ve searched the forums and haven’t found an answer to something I thought would be simpler - is there a way to mirror my Engine library and all metadata from my USB or SD card back onto my laptop? The sync manager doesn’t seem to behave as I’d expect.
Full story: from when I first began DJing and knew nothing about how to manage my library, I started using Engine in what I think is an unintended way - I managed my entire library on the USB or SD card, not on my computer, and would make all my playlists and adjust metadata through the “Drive” portion of Engine Desktop. I now have a new laptop and am trying to manage my library in what I think is the way Engine is intended, by maintaining a library on the laptop and syncing to the USB drive… but that means I need to get a working mirror of the USB drive onto the new laptop.
Surely this is an issue that people encounter all the time, right? How do people migrate their base Engine library from one PC to another? I apologize in advance if this is common knowledge or answered elsewhere, I’ve been confounded as to how to make this happen. Thank you for your time and attention, any assistance is greatly appreciated!
Hey LAUBE, thank you so much for the reply! That’s close to what I’m looking for.. the issue is that because I didn’t know what I was doing when I started using Engine, I never established a proper Engine Library on the C: drive of the laptop, I always have done all my work, setting cues, loops, key signature, etc, on my external drive, so all my relevant metadata is ONLY on the USB and backups of the USB.
So the question is how can I get the Library from my external drive onto the new laptop, not from one laptop to another.
I hope that makes sense, and thank you again for taking the time!
Can you try to copy your music from your USB to C:(path to music folder)/My Music/Engine Library/Music, add it to the Engine DJ software, then close it, and copy Database2 folder from your USB to the C: drive Engine Library folder with replacing content there? I’m not sure if this will work though, but you can give it a try
Hey nevdo, thanks for the reply and apologies for the delay - super busy week! So, I’ve attempted what you’re describing in a couple of ways, and what happens is that once the Database2 folder is copied from the USB, all my folders show up in the master collection, but all the tracks are red, as Engine doesn’t automatically recognize their new location on C:. I tried using Auto Relocate, but I believe all that did was take a small handful of tracks and sort them into deep artist/album/track folders within the music folder, and those few tracks were recognized but no others, so I’m very confused as to what “Auto Relocate” does.
It appears that I can manually link the library, one file at a time, to their new location on C:, and I was really hoping to find a way to not do that for 3000+ tracks. Is this really such an uncommon situation that there’s no built-in way to migrate one’s library and metadata from a USB or external source to a new laptop??? I would think more folks would run into this issue when computers crash, are sold, stolen, lost, etc, but all the work is still on the USB. Anyone???
Engine DJ desktop makes a separate database, /Engine Library/Database2/m.db, on each drive from which music is added. That database references only the music on that drive. The location of each music file on that drive is stored in the database in the path field of the track table as a relative path, relative to the /Engine Library folder on that drive. That path column displays as the “directory” column in Engine DJ desktop program, but the path is then displayed relative to the root of the computer where you are running Engine DJ.
E.g., on an attached SSD created via sync, /Volumes/iMac Backup/
The path stored in the /Engine Library/Database2/m.db track table:
/Music/O_C_ Smith/Love is Forever/
OC_Smith_Everythings_Changed_(Androphonic_ReDrum2).aiff
But, displays in the Directory column of Engine DJ when the drive is connected as
/Volumes/iMac Backup/Engine Library/Music/O_C_ Smith/Love is Forever/
OC_Smith_Everythings_Changed_(Androphonic_ReDrum2).aiff
In the case of an attached drive, such as a USB, HDD, or SSD, /Engine Library is in the root of the drive. In the case of a PC or MAC desktop/laptop, /Engine Library is in the user’s /My Music or /Music folder.
You can copy the /Engine Library folder from your USB to your laptop, but you need to preserve the relative location (to /Engine Library) of the music files.
Also, if you create a performance drive via Engine DJ sync, your music from all the sources synced is reorganized on the performance drive into /Engine Library/Music in folders by artist and subfolders by album. So, if you place your entire USB performance drive (created via a sync) /Engine Library folder (as is) on your PC in C:(path to music folder)/My Music/ it should work. I’ve tested that before on Mac.
It doesn’t sound like this is how you created your USB. Take a look at the directory column and see if you can place all of the music in the same relative position.
Always make a backup of or rename your existing C:(path to music folder)/My Music/Engine Library/ before doing anything like this.
Hey, thank you androphonic! You are correct, that is definitely NOT how I set up my USB, lol. It made more sense to me to keep all my files in one folder, so I did that on an external drive, imported into Engine from the USB, and subsequently did all my prep work on the drive - essentially, I think I’ve always worked backwards from the expected Engine workflow.
I have made extensive backups before playing with any of these processes, for sure, thank you. When you say place all the music in the same relative position as on my USB, I’m confused, because even if I create the same folder structure (very simple in my case, because it’s one folder with all files), the root drive letter won’t be the same. In my case, the USB path is:
E:\APOTHECARY
And by default on the PC, Engine looks for music in:
C:\Users\APOTHECARY\Music\Engine Library\Music
So for example, would I attempt to create a directory that looks like:
C:\Users\APOTHECARY\Music\Engine Library\Music\APOTHECARY
or just
C:\APOTHECARY
???
I apologize if this seems dense or basic! I don’t see how either of those options would help Engine find the files on the C: drive, however, because if I import the database files from the USB to the C:\ drive, even though it will read the folder structure and expected metadata, it’ll still be looking for the songs in E:\APOTHECARY, not C:\APOTHECARY, no?
Or am I completely off track? Thanks for your time and patience!
You’re lucky you set it up that way because you should be able to keep your music organized on the desktop the way you kept it on the USB.
Engine DJ database stores the path for your music relative to the \Engine Library folder on the same drive as your music. That’s actually the magic and confusion as to how Engine DJ stores the location. So, place all of your music in C: in the same place relative to C:\Users\APOTHECARY\Music\Engine Library as it is relative to E:\APOTHECARY\Engine Library.
Is the USB music in E:\Apothecary now? Or in a subfolder?
? Are you saying the Directory column in Engine DJ on the desktop has the path to your music as:
C:\Users\APOTHECARY\Music\Engine Library\Music
If so, then I believe that is where your music should be located.
Also, to avoid confusion, don’t have the USB plugged in. If you do, then select just the desktop C: drive in the Drives tab of Engine DJ. The program conglomerates the m.db tables of all connected drives when it displays the library.
P.S. If you have a SQLite browser, you can open \Engine Library\Database2\m.db and look at the path field of the track table. You will see it does not store the actual root of the path, only the path relative to where \Engine Library is located on that drive. This is why the database is actually portable. If it stored the full hard path, then Engine DJ would always look back at the USB for the music, even if you tried to move the database and music to a new location.
Is this really such an uncommon situation that there’s no built-in way to migrate one’s library and metadata from a USB or external source to a new laptop??? 
