Search Speed

I agree with you 100% and have been complaining about this since day of release, with large libraries the search is very slow, it takes a while to search the track and then when it eventually finds it, it takes another 5 or so seconds to load it, then if you back out of search and go back into it, it first researches the last search before you can search again. Very bad and slow implementation of the search feature. 

What confuses the hell out of me too is if you us RB linked to the players, the search is instantaneous when searching from the players to the RB database, Why can't the players use the same indexed DB on the drive that RB is using on the Mac? I have brought this to the attention of Pioneer and I hope something is being looked into, Have not really gotten a solid answer other then "its not too bad, We will let them know"

check how slow mine is, 23,000 tracks on a usb drive: http://vimeo.com/24804004

Once I defrayed the drive it sped it up a little but still slow

Pulse, you know i was adding to this thread!!! LOL

I agree entirely. I bought the unit so that I wouldn't have to use a laptop and that was a very strong reason for buying over other units. I'm not impressed with this. Navigating directly to files is just as slow in a DB this big, so we need a solution. Backing out of the search re-searches as you've said, which only adds to the painful waiting time - an shortened workflow (suggested in another forum thread) would help in that scenario.

yup, same here, bought them to "leave the laptop at home" as mentioned by pioneer, but for large libraries, you cannot leave the laptop at home, not even close

I dont have a laptop - so i have a problem - please Pioneer can you sort this out? As a software developer i'm guessing the rekordbox database model may need to evolve meaning changes to firmware but it will make it a much more usable product!

@BriChi - I've just looked at your video. wow. my search is about 10 seconds, it looks like it gets exponentially worse as the number of tracks increase. I cant believe how bad that is. 

correct PaC, the more you add the slower it gets, you can imagine how bad yours would be if you doubled your tracks

@BriChi > Holy Honey Badger!! You have 23,000 tracks on your drive at every gig?!?! lol Have you listened to all 6 months of them too?

I'm just curious, but do you normally DJ where you never know what you will need so you have to bring your entire collection?

How many days did you leave Rekordbox to analyze all of those? lol 

@DJ PaC > It should be helpful to separate new and old tracks between different devices for the time being. BriChi mentioned Pulse and Gavin notified the engineers already so something could be in the works right now. I know a lot of others have been requesting a "Search" shortcut, so some improvements might be made at the same time.

Thanks,

Foster

Ihave some sugestions for you guys. I agree that the search function is generaly slow. BUT: It very depends from what usb drive you use, and second (believe it or not) how "clean" you mp3's are. And when i say clean, i mean clean from tags, art covers etc. My point is, i had exactly the same problem with you all, and then i buy a ssd drive (pluged in to external 2.5'' case), then everything was much faster, but still... Then i clean up my whole mp3 database (there are programms who do that automatic, you don't need to do this for 10000 tracks manual) and now i have instantly search. I write the fist letter and i get results, that fast i mean. btw my library is about 7000 tracks, i think at 10000 will be no difference..

@tasos - my collection is very clean. tagged in id3_v2 area only, no id3_v1 tags. album info removed. artwork removed. When my collection was 8000 tracks it was workable, there must be a threshold at around 9/10k somewhere.

@Foster - Yes, unfortunately i don't have the luxury of being a big name DJ so I have to be flexible and try and cater for requests; I could potentially swap to a larger (slower) collection but this severely inhibits the flow of things. I bought this device so I could take my whole collection with me as there's nothing worse than getting a good request that would go really well with your set and not having it with you or being unable to find the CD which has the track on it (think of trawling through 100 DMC DJONLY discs for a track!)

Sorry - that might sound a bit strong but i really want Pioneer to sort this out or at least specify some limits / workarounds.

Yes, there is a memory threshold for the database; the original design spec was for ~10,000 tracks and that's why there's a noticeable change in speeds when using libraries larger than 10K.  Unfortunately there's not much that can be done for the current models at this time, not even firmware changes can make significant improvements to the search, the best solution to offer is that you pare down your library or span it over multiple drives.

In all honesty, as a mobile DJ with a library of over 20K songs myself, I find that I'm still playing a collection of the same 200 songs regularly with a pile of songs from the last year on top of the classics.  While it's great to have a mahoosive collection of music with me to be able to answer the oddest requests with "Of course I have that!", reality is that the majority of the requests, I already have within a collection of 2000 songs and anything outside of that is not a huge deal to the requester if I don't have that exact song and can suggest an alternative (either by the same artist or similar in style).  For cases where the bride/groom ask for special songs, if they've arranged them before the event, no problem.  At the gig, I can always go online to grab it.  I don't need to carry 20K+ songs with me and as a result, I don't get hampered by limitations.

I think "song-hoarding" is something DJs, myself included, need to get past.  We don't need EVERY song ever made with us at all times.

@Pulse - Ok, i agree with your comments. Its a shame I didn't know about the 10k design until now but now I have an upper limit I can try to work with that. Comments well respected - you've been there and experienced exactly the things that make us hoarders!

I agree Pulse, 

Foster, as a mobile dj for the last 20 years, I own a lot of music, And with HD space being so cheap, why not carry all the tracks, I can see weeding out the odd stuff when I was carrying vinyl or cd's, but it's not like my laptop gets any heavier, LOL.... But it does slow down the cdj's unfortunately

Pulse, can we get an answer possibly from the engineers on why the cdjs can search the db in my laptop instantly but cannot search db directly connected via usb? Why can't they use the same index file just for a search and point kind of thing. 

That's because the search is performed on the laptop within the software (much more powerful processing) vs. the CDJ performing the search using its limited processing.

Figured as much, but still, I would think the engineers can have the players search a small indexed file pretty quickly unless the processing power of the 2000's are really really slow, 

@BriChi - Agree totally again - lots of years= lots of tracks so why not take them all with you?. Mobile DJing means a different night could bring a totally different crowd... we don't have our sets ready made so flexibility is a must.  At the same time i know theres probably some tracks i'd never play, i'm just wondering if i'll find enough that fall into this category to be able to cut them down.

In terms of indexing - I suspect (and hope) the engineers use an index file with a chop search algorithm or better. The added complication in terms of processing power is that all this could be happening at the same time as a track is playing, meaning the processing power is shared between threads... the most important thread being the track that is playing! 

@Pulse - I think the new feature suggestion (elsewhere in forum) of a workflow shortcut (to go back to a blank search) would certainly help usability if nothing can be done in terms of search speed.  I also think this optimum track number limitation should be made clearer for new users (possibly a warning in the reckordbox software when exporting?).