Music Library organization
Not sure if this would be better in r/Beatmatch but we'll see. I've been a laptop DJ for a while now and mainly just do friend's parties and just jamming b2b. Over the years i've ensured that my USB has all my music separated into specific folders for each sub genre and crates in serato that correspond. My current process for downloading music has me doing the following:
Song gets downloaded to the same specific folder automatically on my computer
Move the new song(s) to a seperate folder on the USB titled "New"
Drag new songs from "New" folder to crate in serato titled "New"
Listen through the song and add it to the correct subgenre crate
Move the song from the "New" folder to the correct corresponding subgenre folder
In serato use the relocate feature to bridge the song in the correct crate to the correct corresponding subgenre folder
As you can probably tell this is pretty annoying. Also since I usually collect/find songs over time and download in bulk I have to relisten to confirm what subgenre it is and since I end up moving the source file from the original folder it was in, setting cues and adjusting beatgrids or anything like that is pointless to do on my original listen through - if that makes sense.
Been looking into using the auto-import folder feature in serato as well as potentially having all my music just sitting in one folder and only doing any organization within my crates. Wondering if you guys have tips for this or any experience with something potentially going wrong.
I dont really care as much to use smart crates that auto read the song's subgenre from the metadata but i think i cant avoid using smart crates while also using the auto-import feature.
Either way the process I imagine is more so something like this:
Song gets downloaded to the same specific folder automatically on my computer
Move the song to the general source file on my USB - add it to "New" crate in Serato
Do my listen through and adjustments and just move it to the correct subgenre crate
This will make the process less tedious and will have my crates always good and ready to go - my worry is if anything happens with my computer - it'll be a pain to retrieve those .crate files unless I store a backup of the_Serato_ folder on my USB.
Am I overthinking this and there is a simple solution in front of me? please let me know