** I posted this in the general Rekordbox forum, and only just found the Suggestion forum. Cross-posting for correct visibility.
Hello,
I've been using Rekordbox since 2012 (I think?) and it has become indispensable to my DJing, both at home in terms of cataloging my music, and for playing out. Thank-you to all of the development, management, and social teams.
I have a couple of things I would like to suggest, that would make things a lot more intuitive for me.
- Allow a function to add Separators within a Playlist
This may be my personal workflow, but it is one that I think other DJs could benefit from, if they implement it into their workflow. Essentially, what I do when I prepare a set, is to pick tracks that I want to play for that night/set/crowd. Because my music library consists of many different genres/tempos/energy and also because I play various positions in the night (opener/mid-night/peak-time/closer), I have to be prepared to swing between styles and energies readily. Many times, even during a single set, I take the energy up, then down, then funky, then techie, etc. I like to keep my sets fluid and be able to react to the crowd. I used to have separate Playlists ready for a single set, each with their own category of energy or nuance. However, I have found that having separate playlists is a bit cumbersome to move between, so I have implemented a single Playlist with all of the various styles and energies of music I think would be appropriate for that set. Because of this, however, that single Playlist is a mish-mash of various music, so that makes it difficult to pinpoint what track to play next. In the heat of a live, fluid, DJ set, it is paramount to find the next track to play quickly and easily. So, I have utilized a method to add Separators within a Playlist, which I name in terms of what style or energy of music is listed underneath. These Separators are white noise audio files (so I don't accidentally choose them to play, and their waveforms show that they are obviously not music files), but I give them names which describe the music they are representing (House, Breaks, Low-tempo, Peak-time, etc.) . This makes it so easy to select tracks without backing out and going into a different Playlist. I can keep my focus within one Playlist and know that the music there can offer what I need, at a glance. The problem with my method, however, is that when I change the Sort method for the Playlist (Alphabetical, BPM, etc.), my Separators are included in the Sort, so my categorization of tracks becomes mixed-up. This only works if I Sort in Order (numerically sequential). It would be great if Rekordbox could allow the user to add a Separator within a Playlist, that could be named anything they want and placed within the Playlist anywhere they want and not be included in any Sorting method. Basically, they will retain their position in the Playlist and the tracks under them will sort according to the Sort selection.
- Show a pop-up when device Sync is complete
When I finalize a Playlist, then want to sync it to my USB, there are times when the process of syncing takes quite a while. I usually walk away from my computer during this time to do other things. A lot of the time, when I come back to the machine, I can't remember if I had actually done the Sync or not... maybe I am getting old! But it would be good to have a message box pop-up saying what Playlist and to what device has been synced, and that it is complete.
It would be great to have an option to have backups occur automatically. Since I perform my own music data backup, I only do the Rekordbox database backup. I usually manually perform this every time I make adjustments to my Collection (either adding new music or removing music) and backup to the same location. It would be cool to have an option to do this automatically, maybe on Rekordbox exit, or at the very least, retain the last-used backup folder when doing the manual backup.
- Preview audio volume still too low
When I am choosing tracks for my set, I would like to hear the full volume in my headphones. I would like the volume of sound in Rekordbox to be equivalent to my System audio volume. Currently, it seems that the volume level in Rekordbox is lower than that of iTunes. I am using Rekordbox for Mac.
- Have a button to clear ID tag information
I use Comments extensively for my own personal categorization. A lot of the times, promos have text in the Comments (and other areas of the ID3) that I just do not need. It would be great to be able to clear user-defined ID3 tags with just one click on a per-track basis.
Sorry for the long ramble, but I have been meaning to mention these for a while. The biggest point for me would be to add the Separators in a Playlist. That would help so much.
Thanks for reading!