How to have 2 independet libraries in Rekordbox

Hi guys,

I have a huge collection of electronic dance music of various genres that I keep organized mainly through Playlists.

Recently I've started to mix other things like Hip-Hop / Trip-Hop / Jazz and other cool and more lounge-like stuff and want to have a completely separate library just for that kind of music that quickly got to hundreads of tracks as well and obviously doesn't fit anywhere near the other library for dance music.

How can I do that seamlessly with no hassle in order to keep both libraries completely separated?

Joao Silva July 10, 2018 15:24

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Short answer: You can't.

Long answer 1: You can, but it involves some technical explanation I won't get into here (I'll give you the overview)... You create a database specifically for that content, then export it all to an external drive (of whatever kind - hard drive, stick, SD card). When you want to use that content, connect the device and rekordbox will show it. You could store the database for that content on that export drive so you can easily swap to that database as the primary at any time.

Long answer 2: Why? There are so many features within rekordbox allowing you to filter down what you need, why would you go through the unnecessary effort to separate the content and make it less convenient?

Pulse July 10, 2018 15:29 0 votes

About the why: If I am a musician who has two completely different projects - where for example one is about Hardcore/Industrial/supper violent distorted music and the other one is about Trip-Hop/Downtempo/Chillout music - there is no way I will ever need those two libraries in the same situation (or even in the same USB Stick) and therefore I do not need to to have a Collection of 3000 tracks where 1500 of them are enormously divergent from the other 1500. Having "one global library" only makes it harder and slower for processing, organizing, exporting and backing up.

I organize the harder music using intelligent playlists, separating them through BPM ranges and also genres that I write down myself according to each track, plus I fill in all the possible tags and info on the fields available in rekordbox. I also have a "Full Case" intelligent playlist that shows my full collection, as exporting the "Collection" itself is not an option and I want to have every single track available when performing live, just in case I remember that one specific track from 7 years ago that I don't usually play anymore but would fit perfect on the current performance. If I have all my music in the same Rekordbox database, all my playlists will get totally messed up and include things that fit the parameters but that definitely I do not want there.

In conclusion: I like to keep things really tidy and organized and having to fit this two universes in the same in the room does not allow me to do so.

Will try to do that database swap to see if it is as smooth as it seems.

Joao Silva July 10, 2018 16:00 0 votes

lol - okay, I see why you might want to split those two. ;)

Here's my suggestion...

- BACKUP your database, don't include the music; we'll use this later.

- Remove any "chill" tracks from your collection. Don't worry, this will only remove the entries from the database, not the audio files from your drive.

- MOVE your database to an external drive, we'll call this the "Angry DB," you can follow the instructions here to move your database (and music if you want, more on this later).

- Disconnect that drive and open rekordbox again. It will tell you it can't find the database and will ask if you want to create a new one / open the default database location. Once back in rekordbox, you'll have an empty database. Go and RESTORE the backup. It will overwrite the blank with your database from step 1.

- Remove any "angry" tracks from your collection.

- You can MOVE this database to an external drive.

You can now load either database as the primary (by itself), BUT the contents of the second database won't be available unless you create an EXPORT drive. This can be the same drive your database is on (externally), and this is why I would suggest having your music stored on that same external drive as the database; no actual "exporting" is required during the export step. rekordbox recognizes that the source and destination are the same, and all it does is create an export database. After that, you'd be able to connect that drive and it would appear under DEVICES and you could load up any track to play.

Pulse July 10, 2018 16:19 0 votes