Before you know it, you have a condition I first heard of from colleagues in the States: Serato Face. It’s that look you take on from continuously scrolling through all music, peering at a screen, trying to find the next killer track! An outsized and out of control collection of music just creeps up on us, and the idea of fixing the problem is just too easy to avoid.
As DJs, we love music. We justify hoarding vast amounts of it, believing we need every track and every version of that track. Do you even know every track that’s on your hard drive? And have we also bought into the idea that not having every single request at a gig makes us bad DJs? If you’re anything like me, you will own tracks downloaded from record pools that you have never played, and will in all probability never play – and that's before we get into the whole thorny subject of duplicates.

In this article, I aim to help you slim down your music libraries from an overweight hard drive to something more manageable, and show you why this is a good idea.

The ways to manage your music libraries are ever evolving, and the way I worked on mine has changed, given what I’ve learnt and with new apps and programs appearing over the last few years. Hopefully, these new methods will help you save time and stay on top of your music.

Bad news first: it will feel overwhelming and it will take time. However, once you’re done, you will discover just how bloated your music library was, and you may find this was affecting your performance.

Before we start, one vital thing is to always back up your music.

Why manage my DJ music?

There many reasons to better manage your DJ music libraries:

- When you know where your music is stored and organised, it's easier to access

- You have more control over your music

- You can keep all your music in one location, as opposed to all over your hard drive

- It’s easier to back up and keep your music safe

- You can avoid lots of unnecessary duplicates

- It makes finding the next song easier – DJing will be more fun

- You will always have the best version of any tune

- It can help you to reconnect with your music and rediscover forgotten tracks.

What music should I include?

- No fillers, just killers

- Only the songs you are likely to play at your events – this is not the same as your library for personal use, these songs have to work for you

- Yes, I know, I'm a mobile, they could ask for anything!

- DJ and non-DJ music.

Don't worry, I’m not telling you to delete the tunes you paid for with your hard-earned cash. But it will be best to move them to an external hard drive or, even better, a cloud-based storage service. Aaron Trayler, creator and co-owner of the Cratehackers, used a great phrase recently: “it's not what you have, it's what you bring with you.” Most of us have music we are never going to, or at least are unlikely to play at an event – there’s no need to get rid of it, simply move those tracks to a non-DJ folder, and only point your software at your DJ folder.

Preparing your music for playout

When preparing your music for playout you need to organise it so it works for you as a professional DJ – all the preparation in the world is useless if it doesn't improve your client's experience. Think about what will make sense to you. This will take time, though it is a one-off exercise.

The best way to start organising your music library is by copying all your music onto a portable hard drive. That way you can work on it while maintaining your existing library until you’re ready to replace it. Remember to add any new music you purchase while working on your library to both drives, as you don’t want to lose any new songs you wanted to keep.

Your next step is to scan for duplicates (dump all music into one folder before you scan); this is known as flattening your files. If you're like me and have all your music in folders all over your hard drive, this is a more efficient way to manage the process. Your computer will thank you; having all your music in one file is less taxing on the processor when you search for songs.

At this point, it's worth considering how you want to categorise your music, and the rules you may want to put in place. I have three folders: