Difficulties with file and database management in Rekordbox

I'm faced with a problem with the Rekordbox database and file management, and I'm not sure if I'm doing it right.

This is my situation. I keep my music files on a NAS drive. Rekordbox (5.4.2.) is installed on my Mac (MacBook Pro, MacOS Mojave) and I have a Pioneer controller (DDJ-RB).

I have edited my collection as advised in manuals: made playlists, set cue points, tagged files, etc.

But now I want to make sure I can DJ (a) when I'm not at home, and thus not sure to be connected to internet (and my NAS) and (b) with a different user profile on my Mac (especially interesting for informal parties where other people also use the controller and Rekordbox - I don't want people to funny about with the rest of my personal laptop, so I make a seperate user profile with only Rekordbox installed)

I want to use an external drive. I don't want my music files on the hard drive of my MacBook. Of course I want to keep all my playligs, tags and cues.

I've tried a few things, but I'm not sure which is the right way:

(1) copy my music files from NAS to External Drive, and copy the database from MacBook to external drive (but where is that stored? and can I isolate it and copy it seperately?), and then reinstall it on the other user profile. But that means: importing and analysing the whole collection. Or do I move the database in the preferences?

(2) backup my Library, and restore it in the other profile. Works one time, but that takes a long time and I can't do that for every small update I make to my library.

(3) Use the Sync Manager, and sync all my playlists to the external drive. But then what? How do I import them in that other profile?

Lesley Demuynck December 28, 2018 21:19

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7 comments

You're on the correct path. Your workflow doesn't differ that much from mine. (AppleShare file server for track storage).

The trick is: the name of the externall drive must be 100% identical to that of your external drive and the storage structure must be identical. as well.

Tracks are stored (and linked) by Rekordbox according to their filepath.

for the track (test.mp3) with the filepath

/Volumes/MyNas/Folder1/folder2/test.mp3

it really doesn't matter if ti's stored on a mounted NAS volume named "MyNas"

or an external drive named "MyNas"

Rekordbox will find the track as long as it's stored in subfolder "folder2" of root folder "Folder1"

you can watch my whole workflow including in-depth explanation here

https://youtu.be/UWTYBobq3WU

MixMasterG December 29, 2018 19:45 1 vote

Thank you very much for that tip, I had tried that before and tried it again now. But it's not working yet.

The workflow I now have is:

- I move the database from Rekordbox in my main Mac profile to an external drive

- I go over to the other Mac profile (called Temp) and I select the database from the external drive.

Works fine. All my cues and tags are there. Only problem then is the file paths to my mp3s.

This is how my file structure is set up:

my music is on a mounted NAS-drive called "music". Within that drive I have a folder "DJ" which is then subdivided into decades and genres. Leading to the example above. Actually, my folder structure follows my playlist structure, so as to always have a back-up for playlists. (barring tracks in multiple playlists of course).

I copied the DJ-folder as a whole to the same external drive (which is called "DJ EXTERNAL"). I set up a structure /music/DJ/... to no avail. I even tried to make a folder "Volumes/" above /music.

And I also tried to rename my external drive from "DJ EXTERNAL" to "Volumes".

All done with careful attention to case sensitivity.

Still can't find the files. I could relocate them all, but that would be a problem when I switch back to my main account. And I have LOTS of subfolders, so that would take me a long time.

Lesley Demuynck December 31, 2018 01:29 0 votes

@Lesley > It won't work (for the database / settings) if each username is different thanks to the settings files.

Have you edited those to reflect the paths?

Pulse January 02, 2019 01:08 0 votes

how do I do that? How can I edit the settings files?

Lesley Demuynck February 01, 2019 22:16 0 votes

Well, we don't recommend / officially support using the NAS drive, there was a post here somewhere that a user provided some instructions about mounting (or was it symlinking?) the drive as a local drive, and that allowed them to get things working okay. But again, if you have different usernames on each computer, that will present a whole heap of problems with regards to the settings. You're better off creating another user whose name matches on each computer.

Pulse February 01, 2019 22:21 0 votes

So where should I store the files I want to play, if a NAS is not the right place? On an external drive?

Lesley Demuynck February 01, 2019 22:29 0 votes

Personally, I use an external drive to house my music collection and the rekordbox library, that way I can move it from computer to computer (and to CDJs/XDJs) without any other complications.

Pulse February 04, 2019 19:44 0 votes