- As DJs, our music collection
is at the heart and soul of what we do,
and regardless of the gear we use,
a successful event really boils down
to music and programming.
Now, in the age of digital music,
and with how inexpensive
music storage has become,
DJs, as a result have developed
these colossal music databases
that are difficult to manage and navigate.
In addition, DJs feel the added pressure
to keep up with the Jones', so to speak,
because our clients have
unlimited access to their music,
at the touch of their fingertips,
through popular streaming apps,
like Spotify and YouTube.
This makes DJs feel that they have to have
everything under the sun,
in order to have a successful event.
This means now, more than ever,
that DJs are turning to technology
to help them be more
efficient and creative
with these large libraries.
Now Virtual DJ is a pioneer in this arena,
and has one of the most
sophisticated and robust
music management systems
that I've ever seen.
So today, we're going to take
a broad look at the programme,
and some of the features
that are available
to help you get more organised,
correct some of those metadata issues,
and ultimately, make you a better DJ
by knowing what to play,
and where to find it.
So let's dive on in.
To make this a little easier,
we're going to use the browser zoom view.
Now Virtual DJ gives us several options
to organise our music
within the programme.
The focus of this video
is on filter folders,
but it's worth mentioning
the other options,
just so we understand the differences
and what we're looking at.
Now Virtual DJ has three
music management options,
and those are: favourites,
virtual, and filter folders,
and each one serves a different purpose.
To get started, let's look
at the favourites folder,
which is this one here in yellow.
Now depending on how you
have your music organised
on your hard drive,
finding a specific music folder
may be a little cumbersome
when navigating through
the browser window.
And this is where favourite folders
can be extremely helpful.
So let's just say I have a
90's and early 2000's party,
and I don't want to have to navigate
through my hard drive
to get to it every time.
So I can simply come to local music,
hard drive, passport,
then click on my music folder,
then click on the folder where
my 2000's and 90's music live,
and then I can come down to the
folder that I'm looking for,
right click, and put set as favourite.
So now I only have to do that one time.
So now I can access these
favourite folders really easily
without having to go through
this navigation browser.
Now if I don't use these folders a lot,
and I only needed it for one party,
I can simply right click,
and then come to remove from favourites,
and they're gone.
So you have complete flexibility,
in terms of what is over
here in your browser window.
Next, we're going to take
a look at virtual folders,
and these are the ones in red.
Now they are amazing for
staying super organised,
and I absolutely love them for
private events and weddings,
where very specific
songs need to be played,
and there's no room for error.
Virtual folders allow you to drag and drop
songs from your hard drive
into a folder you create,
and it does not alter
your database in any way.
So let's take a look at an example here.
To create a virtual folder,
we're going to come right
over here to the left.
It's going to bring up a dialogue box.
So I have a Steve and
Becky getting married
at the Candlewood Inn on 5/5/2019.
Now what I find really helpful
is that their names are right here.
So under the stress of the wedding,
I can make sure that I'm
calling them by the right name,
I have the location, and the date.
So now we can start making nested folders
under their main one,
based upon what I need to play.
So if I make another virtual folder,
I can call this first dance,
and now I can find their
specific first dance song.
Let's just say it's Ed Sheeran, "Perfect",
like everyone else in the entire world,
and now this is the only
song within this folder,
so now there is little to no chance
of me dragging up the wrong tune.
Now we can make as many
of these as we need.
Let's just say we want
one for their cake cutting
and their dinner music.
So this will keep you
really organised and focused
playing only what you need to.
Now once you're done with the event,
if there's no other need
for this virtual folder,
you can right click the main one,
select delete virtual folder,
it will disappear,
and it will not change
your hard drive in any way.
Now we're going to cover the basics
of using filter folders
for music management,
and that's these blue
ones right over here.
Now the benefit to this is that
it can save you a tonne of time,
organising and cleaning up your database.
But before we can get into any of this,
I first need to say that filter folders
will only work as good
as the tags you have.
Now if your tagged files
are an absolute disaster,
this really won't work
since the system is
going to use the tag info
to pinpoint and sort through the files
that you've told it to look for,
based upon the script that you've written.
So in reality, the first
step in using this feature,
is getting your tags right.
Now you can change a tag by
coming to one of your songs,
right clicking it,
opening up the tag editor.
From here you can add or
change whatever you need to
to make sure it's properly tagged,
then come down here, click write tag,
click OK, and then now
it's going to be ready
for the filter folder feature.
We will be creating our own filter folders
in just a second,
but Virtual DJ does come with
some helpful and commonly used ones,
which can save the DJ a little bit of time
instead of having to set
these up on their own.
So genre is obviously going to show you
different genres on your database,
based upon the tag.
Recently added will show you your
50 most recent songs that you've added.
Compatible songs is based on
the songs you have in your deck.
So, for example, this track right here
is 105 beats per minute.
If I click on compatible songs,
you can see that it's giving
me songs within that range.
So this can be helpful for DJs
who might not be able to
think of something on the fly,
and this can give a decent suggestion.
Then obviously, we have
things grouped by decades,
again, based on the tag,
our last played, and most played tracks.
Now to create our own folder,
we can come over here to this icon,
simply click it,
and it's going to bring up a dialogue box,
so we can type in the type of
folder we will be creating,
or we can click on filters,
and then right here in the centre,
click this, and it's going to pull up
that same dialogue box.
The first example I have,
to show you how filter
folders are really helpful,
is I'm going to create
a Latin music folder.
Now this is one genre that
I have some difficulty with,
simply because there's so
many genres and sub-genres.
And since I don't play it that much,
I'm not really familiar
with all the artists
and styles that I even have
available in my database.
So this filter folder can
really help me pinpoint
exactly what I'm looking for,
even if I don't know the specific artist.
So here's how this would work:
so I have a virtual
folder made right here,
and now I'm going to
create a filter folder,
and I will call this salsa.
So now, when I click OK,
it's going to open up a script box.
Now in general, filters are
little pieces of script,
that allow the software to
pinpoint and group your music,
based upon what you tell it.
Now I don't want to get too crazy here,
this is only an introduction,
but we're going to go over
a few helpful examples.
So specifically, with
this Latin music example,
I'm going to put genre, then equals,
and then now I can type in salsa.
Now since I want to
find all the salsa music
located on my database,
I have to come to scope,
and scope is where you're
telling the software
to go find the music.
So instead of leaving
it at a local folder,
I want it to search my
whole, entire database.
So when I click this,
it now has found all the salsa music
that I have on my hard drive,
and it put it in this organised folder.
Now there's some artists in here
that I've never even heard of,
and that I didn't even know I had,
but if I was doing a party,
and they were really into salsa music,
I now have everything
that I own right here,
in a nice, consolidated location.
It's amazing the amount of control we have
with the available fields and operators.
You can really pinpoint almost anything.
So in the previous example,
we were looking for salsa music,
but we can also find every
song I own by Britney Spears.
I can also pinpoint something
down to the beats per minute.
So let's just say I have an event,
and I want everything to be
115 beats per minute or higher,
I can click BPM is
greater than or equal to,
I will type in, let's just say 115.
I will then search my database,
and now I have a folder of all my music
that is 115 beats per minute or higher.
So you can get really specific,
and find exactly what you're looking for.
And lastly, I want to show you
how filter folders can help us correct
some issues with our database.
So I'm going to jump on over
to the Virtual DJ website,
and I highly recommend
everyone coming here.
Virtual DJ has been nice enough
to pre-write some very simple scripts
so that we don't have to figure it out,
and they have given us some of the
most popular and
convenient pieces of script
that we can use for filter folders.
Now I'm pretty sure they haven't included
everything that you can possibly do,
but they've given you a great selection.
Now what I'm mostly interested in,
is these database and
tag management filters,
because these are what we can use
to really clean up our database.
So for example, let's just say
I wanted to find all the
tracks on my hard drive
that have not been
analysed by the programme.
I can come over here and
copy this piece of script,
open up the piece of software,
create a filter folder,
and I will say that this is not analysed.
I will paste in this piece of script,
and then it's going to
give me these results,
and this is every song on my hard drive
that has not been analysed.
The last example is this display
all missing files from search database,
and I'm only going over this
because I find it so incredibly helpful.
Sometimes files can go missing,
and get shuffled around and Virtual DJ
doesn't know where to find them.
Therefore, if you go to
drag up one of these tracks,
you're going to get an error.
So this is going to show me
all of my disconnected files
that are no longer found by the software.
So again, I right click, copy this,
come back to the software.
I will make another filter folder.
I will call this missing.
Now, if I paste this piece of script,
it's going to give me all the files
that the software currently cannot find.
So if I go to drag this up to play it,
I'm going to get this error,
because it's a broken file.
So virtual DJ will pinpoint these,
so I can either reconnect them,
or remove them from my database.
I hope this introduction to
the file management basics
in Virtual DJ, has shown you
that we can really get a grip
on our massive databases,
and ensure we're playing the best music
during our sets every time.
In my opinion, a DJ is only
as good as the music they have
and know how to use,
and this starts with
proper database management.
Now Virtual DJ has given
us an incredible platform
with many powerful tools,
to ensure that we are being
our best and most creative.
So hopefully today motivated you
to get that metadata under control,
and really fine tune that database.
As always, we thank you
so much for watching.
Please be sure to like and share,
and as always, happy mixing.
