Metadata Support For DJing With Live
bruce wrote:I would love to be able to store info against a track, and then be able to sort/filter on this info (Artist, Genre, Date etc) - great suggestion.
I would like to add something else tho...
As a turntable (remember those old things!) DJ of over 10 years, the biggest thing i miss about vinyl was flicking thru ur record box frantically trying to find the next track to play, when all of a sudden the sleeve of that next track magically stands out from the rest, you instantly recognise the track by the picture/logo on the front, u know the artist even tho the name isnt on the sleeve, you cant read the text on the vinyl but u know its the side with a '*' on it that you've put on with a black marker pen, or it has some obscure design or logo on it.
Whereas now, dj'ing with Live, I feel that when i'm having one of those nights, when i scroll thru 100's of lines of text, looking for the next track to play, and nothing seems to be jumping out at me, i just feel if i could physically see an image then it would instantly jump out at me and mean more that squinting to see the track name.
What i would love is Image support in Live.
It would be great if you could get a small thumbnail image against each track in your folder browser, and then when you preview it or select it in Clip view, the Info View shows it in a bigger size, with some of the Meta (ID3 type) info (you would be able to select which).
Obviously this is a quick paint job in windows, the thumbnails aren't quite fitting but you can get the gist of what i saying.
Anyone else missing this part of the DJ'ing process, or is it just me!
I think it would be great to get this in a future version, along with the meta (ID3 type) of data held against each track.
good idea.....that would make track selection a bit easier
also i would like to be able to rearange my track collection in the browser.
drag and drop the tracks as i see fit
Missing it too
Anyone else missing this part of the DJ'ing process, or is it just me!
No yu're definitely not the only missing the vinyl sleeve that instant spark a "that's the track I'm looking for." In fact that's kind of what lead to my original post about the metadata. I'm trying to think of the new way to find and recognize my music since it used to be so visual.
Grade E
Tails wrote:Kent:
Have you tried using symbolic links with Live? Do they work?
Say you have a song for DJ use called song.aif. Could you then create symlinks to song.aif called 1.aif, 2.aif, 3.aif, etc., and then create new default clip settings for the symlinks?
That way, you could keep a bunch of different clips in a folder that all reference the original song, unedited. (A workaround for the feature most of us DJs have been begging for!)
I'll give it a shot sometime soon, but if you know offhand, that'd be great.
-- Casey
yeah i do this to get different clip prefs for the same clip.
if you look around on this forum i even wrote some scripts for macosx users to help with this. the link is porbs down now tho but if you want the scripts (which are ery simple) i could put em up somewhere
me 10.
I have seen the live 5 specs and see what I think means you will be able to make multiple live clips which relate to the one wav file and that they are updating the browser which is GREAT but I don't see anything that fixes the problems outlined in this thread. If it will be sorted it would be good to know and if not WHY. Being able to sort/search your files/clips by bpm, key, genre, artist, etc is essential and I would think relatively easy to implement. I mean you can do it on even the most dinky free/share ware mp3 player. Live has a team of developers/programers and what I would imagine a large and ever expanding market of paying customers. PLEASE let us know what is happening with regard to the lack of this essential feature.
ALSO why can't you minimise the browser with a key or midi shortcut. You can minimize/max other less obtrusive fields with a key press. The browser takes up a huge amount of screen space and is used infrequently. I want to abandon using my mouse or at least minimize its use and I find not being able to minimize the browser with a key VERY annoying.
Don't get me wrong I am very supportive of everything that Ableton have done with LIVE. I love the program and am extremely excited about live5. I just think that with everything that has been done to the program in regard to midi etc which would have been quite challenging to implement this seemingly simple yet essential feature should have come first. Live has SET a standard in its market. THANKS
I have seen the live 5 specs and see what I think means you will be able to make multiple live clips which relate to the one wav file and that they are updating the browser which is GREAT but I don't see anything that fixes the problems outlined in this thread. If it will be sorted it would be good to know and if not WHY. Being able to sort/search your files/clips by bpm, key, genre, artist, etc is essential and I would think relatively easy to implement. I mean you can do it on even the most dinky free/share ware mp3 player. Live has a team of developers/programers and what I would imagine a large and ever expanding market of paying customers. PLEASE let us know what is happening with regard to the lack of this essential feature.
ALSO why can't you minimise the browser with a key or midi shortcut. You can minimize/max other less obtrusive fields with a key press. The browser takes up a huge amount of screen space and is used infrequently. I want to abandon using my mouse or at least minimize its use and I find not being able to minimize the browser with a key VERY annoying.
Don't get me wrong I am very supportive of everything that Ableton have done with LIVE. I love the program and am extremely excited about live5. I just think that with everything that has been done to the program in regard to midi etc which would have been quite challenging to implement this seemingly simple yet essential feature should have come first. Live has SET a standard in its market. THANKS
Although real metadata would have been nice, the global search feature in Live 5 is handy..
It might take a little work (if you're not scripting...
), but you could have really long filenames with the searchable fields at the end:
bpm-128 key-12a gen-prog label-deep
Then it's just a matter of typing "key-12a" into the global search to find loops and tracks in that key.
I might try making a database (MySQL) that keeps all the metadata for tracks I use, including label, genre, key, BPM, key vocals, etc., then writing a script that renames files into a consistent format based on the metadata. If I find myself not searching by genre very often, then I can change the script to remove that field from the filename, and make it shorter.
Another workaround, which I'm more likely to try, is to write a script to make aliases based on the metadata, and sort things into folders:
Songs
- Actual song file in a folder, "song", here
Genre
- Prog
--- (alias to) "song"
- Techno
Key
- 11A
- 12A
--- (alias to) "song"
etc.
This would make a mess of directories on your hard drive, but wouldn't take up much more space... it'd be easy to delete the alias directories if they were no longer needed.
Thoughts?
It might take a little work (if you're not scripting...
), but you could have really long filenames with the searchable fields at the end:bpm-128 key-12a gen-prog label-deep
Then it's just a matter of typing "key-12a" into the global search to find loops and tracks in that key.
I might try making a database (MySQL) that keeps all the metadata for tracks I use, including label, genre, key, BPM, key vocals, etc., then writing a script that renames files into a consistent format based on the metadata. If I find myself not searching by genre very often, then I can change the script to remove that field from the filename, and make it shorter.
Another workaround, which I'm more likely to try, is to write a script to make aliases based on the metadata, and sort things into folders:
Songs
- Actual song file in a folder, "song", here
Genre
- Prog
--- (alias to) "song"
- Techno
Key
- 11A
- 12A
--- (alias to) "song"
etc.
This would make a mess of directories on your hard drive, but wouldn't take up much more space... it'd be easy to delete the alias directories if they were no longer needed.
Thoughts?