rekordbox and itunes

Rekordbox DJ Friends, I spent a couple hours last night rating my favorite tracks with 5 stars in recordbox collection, as well, added tags and genre, so I can have an intelligent playlist in RB to automatically make a playlist with 5star rating, in the genre of deep house, and release date within the last two years. Last night the playlist contained about 200 tracks, this morning I went to sync my new '5star deep house' Intelligent playlist to my flash drive, and there's only 35 tracks in this playlist! I looked at my collection folder under most recent releases (that's how i found all these 200 tracks before I rated 5 stars) and many of the ones I rated 5 stars in Rekordbox, are no longer rated with ANY stars, however, the new tags i added are there in RB.

This morning my MAC automatically did an update without my permission. And I have linked my new itunes music folder to rekordbox, for the sole purpose of being able to have the same playlists and music show up on my phone, as it does on my flashdrive.

So I'm wondering, does the rating in iTunes, trump the rating in rekordbox? I have all these tracked 'analysis locked' so I thought they would be safe. and was planning to use the new RB function 'protect library' once I get all my music rated, dated, tagged, but its not protected now.

I guess I also just want to know which categories or columns in rekordbox are permanent, and which ones can be automatically changed by iTunes. I havent found anything online about this. I've noticed the 'Date Added' is different in itunes than RB (because that was the date it was added to itunes and Not rekordbox), so i know there are some different actions these columns or categories that can be affected by different music organization software such as itunes.

I also "do not keep my itunes music folder organized' and I "don not make a copy" of my music in itunes. I have all 2000 of my tracks for DJING, in one folder called "MyDjMusic" I don't store them in Itunes. And I only have AIF files, no Mp3s.

Im wondering if my "Imported Library" in the rekordbox section of Database in the setting is wrong maybe.

Any knowledge dropping on me, would be great! Thanks

Joseph Lee October 21, 2018 22:05 Answered

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4 comments

A few bullet points of you to keep in mind:

Rekordbox only actively remains a link between iTunes and RB if the Syncmanager is used and for the playlists enabled in the Syncmanager.

Star ratings are NOT standardized id3 tags. This means they are always stored in the software's proprietary database and not in the track's file tags. iTunes does export the ratings in the XML, and the RB Syncmanager will honor and prioritize those ratings from iTunes (as all other id3 tags).

Getting ratings from Rekordbox into iTunes is a function of this app (among many other features it got) https://youtu.be/RO80SShzLzM

MixMasterG October 22, 2018 09:55 0 votes

And stop using iTunes to manage your music... everyone thinks of it as this "wundertool" but nobody comes here to say how wonderful their iTunes library synchronizes. Just use one or the other.

Pulse October 23, 2018 19:11 1 vote

Thank you for the response, although I am aware not to use 'Sync with Itunes' in Sync Manager, I stopped using the Sync manager to sync itunes with rekordbox about 3 years ago and my organizing playlist life got so much easier. In doing so, I gave up a certain function, being able to automatically sync new playlists-tracks that I created in rekordbox to automatically sync with itunes, SO THAT I could automatically sync the RB playlists to my phone-thru itunes. I drive for Uber & Lyft 8 hrs a day and that's perfect time to get familiar with new track and playlists from rekordbox in itunes on my phone without having to manually export .m3u8 or xml from RB, the import that file into itunes every time I make a change in RB, which works fine, but its time consuming, just because i added a new track to a playlist So I figured just try the Sync manager again, but didn't realize that I when I hit 'Sync with itunes' in Sync Manager, it would overwrite my carefully RATED track in RB with the rating in iTunes.

And it's weird because when I synced, it changed my ratings in RB from Itunes Ratings, but the same sync did NOT change my GENRES in RB from itunes. It left my genres alone but changed the ratings. So the Sync Manager changes some aspects (tags or id3) of a track, but leaves certain other aspects alone.

I wish there was a way to use Sync Manager and tell Sync manager what aspects (tags or id3) to sync such as RATINGS, GENRE, COMMENTS. or at least tell the user what aspects of the tracks, playlists, tags that will be changed. I think its odd that you are telling me not to use itunes to manage my music, when RB offers a 'sync with rekorbox' feature.

I would prefer to NEVER use Itunes, but I need to get those carefully edited and managed playlists, music on my phone the exact way they are in RB. I also need itunes to export my music to my phone because I ONLY have AIF files (no MP3's at all) and in order to use the Rekordbox APP on my phone, I have to convert all my music to mp3 first-(Iphone does not support AIF.) and when I sync itunes music to phone, Itunes automatically compresses my Aif's to Mp3 as its syncing. Then I import the music from itunes from phone to RB app on my phone.

If RB offered a way to get Aif's from RB on my laptop, to RB on my phone (by compressing to mp3 like iTunes does automatically) that would make a lot of Pro Djs happy. The Pro DJs that play on Big Systems, that know 320MP3 does not compare to the full range sound of an AIF or WAV.

So there is my Request to RB and Pioneer.

1) Offer a way to get AIF and WAV from computer to Iphone by compressing as it exports.

2) offer a way tell sync manager what aspects to change when syncing with iTunes. much like Analyze Lock. make a GenreLock, RatingsLock, CommentsLock etc

Joseph Lee November 02, 2018 21:35 0 votes

again a few bullet points:

Always have the "copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" disabled in the iTunes advanced preferences, this is the #1 source of troubles with the integration of iTunes and Rekordbox.

The SyncManager only uses data from the "iTunes Music Library.xml", the genre tag is stored in there and should sync. I've got to investigate this but if it doesn't sync (even only for AIFF) that would be a bug.

A reload tags in Rekordbox (at the collection level, not the iTunes tree) should reload all ID3 tags from the track's file, including genre.

MixMasterG November 02, 2018 21:57 0 votes