how to import collection from external HD

nobody?

@Mark  Yes great thnx!!  I will tell if all worked, highly appreciated!

Again, thnx for the video, but i'm afraid it's not that simple.

First of all i used around 30000 tracks taken from my 85000 track ITunes database, so relocating is not an option since every track is within a different subfolder in my 'ITunes Music Library' folder.

So here's what i did. I made a backup from these 30000 tracks by using rekordboxes:

file > library > backup library  and included all the files  ..stored this on my external HD. It actually builds up a completely new folder system.

also i exported rekorboxe's hml to this external HD by selecting file > export collection in hml format.

Finally i also exported the ITunes Library.hml since i'm using the library within rekordbox.

After that i plugged the HD from my Mac to my PC where i attached both .hml files in the Rekordbox preferences > advanced field. It also pointed to my extHD in Preferences  Analysis folder (F: PIONEER/master)

Then i went to File > import > import folder and from my external HD i added the Rekordbox_Bak file where these 30000 files are stored.

So far, so good, it actually imported all info in my rekordbox and dropping a song of choice in the player actually works!...however all my GRID work i did on a lot (thousands) of tracks are not copied. It just re-analysis the tracks which makes it completely useless for me.

So 'Brazilian Love Affair' by George Duke is offbeat as was before  :(   ..thank god its still perfectly on time on my Mac. As mentioned i'm pulling my hair out for weeks and i'm seriously thinking of taking my desktop with me and forget about the laptop PC .But again i hope i'm doing something completely wrong here.

Hope somebody has the key to all this! I'm sure there must be one since Pioneer didnt offer a license key for a 2nd device for no reason??

@Frank > If you let iTunes manage the location of your music files, it will cause nightmares when trying to relocate files as everything is in subfolders within subfolders.  This is part of the problem you are experiencing.

@Frank > You could simply use the Database Backup feature and tell it to also backup all of your music, then when you move it to another computer and do the restore, it will unpack all the music as well as the database (and analysis files).

@Mark @Pulse  .. thanks for your respondings.

@Mark this is a fact and mentioned in my last post ;)  but at the same time why does Rekordbox let you import all your itunes playlists when in the end this problem comes across? Or am i really the only one using a desktop @home and PC @gigs? Fact is moving the database to another device is anything but flawless and this i just found out after weeks of work.

@Pulse This is what i did couple of weeks ago but after an hour or so i got the message restoring failed. This is why i now instead of 'restore backup' used the 'import folder' option. As mentioned database is restored but analyzed options disappeared. However, since you're mentioning this i will give it another try, it does make sence this is the way to do it. i'll keep you posted on the results.

Thnx guys!

pdate:

more food for thought. This morning i tried another way just by exporting my disco 12inch collection playlist using the sync manager. Total amount of just under 4000 tracks took me 5 hours (!) to export which is almost as long as doing the method library > backup library as described earlier containing 30000 tracks!!

The way it manages folder/subfolders looks exactly the same on both methods as well.

anyway, in a way i was hoping this would solve the analyze issue but to my surprise when importing the folder on my PC i had exact same results. All tracks are recognised and playable but no grid whatsoever. At least not the way i edited tracks by using the grid. ...Useless!

I'm getting a bit annoyed at this point.

Please tell me i'm stupid and give me the golden tip.