In part one of this mini-series of blogs of how to sort your DJ library we first point our focus at David’s software of choice Serato DJ Pro.

There are an infinite number of ways you can choose to organise your library, crates, smart crates (more on those later), streaming services and iTunes (Music.app if on the Mac) but there are a few handy tips and tricks to ensure your laptop or Mac can run Serato smoother ensuring better performance and less strain on your device.

Tip 1 – Shorten those file paths

Serato DJ Pro, like any programme has a particular way it prefers to run to get the absolute best out of it. In Serato’s case it is the fact the shorter the file path = shorter the load time = less strain on your computer

Screenshot 1 – shows Music Folder

Screenshot 2 – shows Serato Music Folder

So in this example we have a generic folder in Music called Serato Music – which is where all the music is put into which aids Serato in finding the files a lot faster than having to go through multitude of folders (similar to how iTunes/Apple Music does things)

 Screenshot 3 – iTunes Folder

In the screenshot above this shows you how a standard iTunes (or on newer Macs Apple’s music application) organises music – using ABBA’s Voyage album as an example. This has to 4 sub-folders before finding the file, which can cause Serato issues in real world gigs.

Tip 2 – Move music INSIDE Serato

This may seem counterintuitive but moving your music tracks outside of Serato is actually quite bad – as it can give you the dreaded orange track (When Serato can’t find the audio) so best practise in my opinion is once you have imported the song into Serato use the in-programme library function (shown below) to move a track whilst inside Serato

Final Tip – Check your drivers

Final piece of advice that can catch many a DJ out when in the wild – always carry a USB (or on your laptop) a folder with drivers for the most common pieces of hardware found in the wild such as (but not limited to)

Pioneer CDJ-2000NXS2 (or NXS 1 or CDJ-2000)

Pioneer DJM-900NXS2 (or DJM-900NXS)

A fresh installer of Serato DJ Pro (Latest version for your machine)

Serato Control Tone

Back up music (a decent playlist) just in case you need to restart Serato at any point.

It may seem odd to carry that much on one USB stick but it will get you out of a tight spot if Serato fails you which lets face it can happen as any software can.

I hope these tips are useful and have given you food for thought – there are more advanced things Serato can do such as Smart Crates but we will visit them in another blog.

Happy Mixing..