External harddrive pain / multiple laptops

[BlockParty]

I’m getting absolutely frustrated when trying to get djay Pro working with an external hard-drive.

What I want to achieve:

• Everything is on external harddrive
• I can switch laptop / gear wherever I go

It’s very simple actually and basically what every DJ does: I mean no-one has their whole music collection and settings solely on some 256GB MacBook right? We need backups and redundancy.

Baseline: I’m using Music (prior iTunes) to manage my music collection on an external harddrive.

Problems I face:

1. Other laptop doesn’t detect the tracks on the harddrive
2. Other laptop doesn’t have playlist and analyzed data
3. All djay Pro settings are back to default

For 1: I have to first alt + open Music on another laptop and mess with their location of the music library / set it to the external drive. Only then djay Pro will take the system configured Music library. Why can’t I just say: Music library is here in the settings and it will just take it from the external drive. Why must I mess with the host system? Traktor does that much better..

For 2: There seem to be no setting to set the location of the djay Pro library & settings. What the hell is that? I’ve tried symlinks, I’ve tried batch scripts in combination with LaunchAgents to work around your limitations. Nothing works really.
As a last resort I now tried to copy and paste my ~/Music/djay folder manually from Mac1 to the external hard-drive and copy it back from there to Mac2 ~/Music/djay. This step is very risky, since I can just lose data when doing that in the wrong order or forgetting about it, it’s just a mess.

For 3: Copying ~/Music/djay is not even enough. There seem to be more settings stored yet somewhere else to make the confusion complete. Even manually copying your djay folder will not set me up.

Conclusion
All this led me to give up and use Traktor as my backup system again when I have to switch gear. This doesn’t happen too often. But it’s straight up frustrating, because I really wanted to switch to djay Pro eventually. Also, my stuff is not really backed-up, I mean my iTunes music library yes, but all the djay Pro related stuff? If someone spills a drink it’s game over, my hard-drives are backed up at least..

Appeal
Boys & Girls, please: Realize how actual real DJs use this software and hardware together and understand that these requirements to the software are just plain basics. We need to be able to have our stuff fully on external drive. If we need a backup, switch gear or a drink gets spilled this is the only way to work. Having the software hard-limited to the system that it is installed on is not the way to go.
I really want to use djay Pro, but you are making it hard for me at times.

Best,
DJ BlockParty

[Armigo]

@BlockParty

Baseline: I’m using Music (prior iTunes) to manage my music collection on an external harddrive.

This here is your problem, bro…
Been there, done that. Not sweet. In future when your library grows big, “Local Music” library will start to be buggy and freeze on you mid-set.
Take time, and move your library to “My collections”
Once you do that, all you have to do is to copy djayMediaLibrary file from Music>djay folder onto the same location in target macbook. All your playlists will show up as on your mac.

[Slak_Jaw]

Hi @BlockParty, please refer to the linked FAQ below on this topic and let me know if this helps with your workflow or not: https://help.algoriddim.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014703632-How-do-I-play-or-add-songs-from-SD-Cards-USB-sticks-and-external-hard-drives-in-djay-Pro-for-Mac

[Slak_Jaw]

Hello! It’s been a week since my last reply. I’m going to consider this topic completed for now so I can focus on others. However, please feel free to respond and we can definitely revisit this. Thanks!

[MarcosAraujo]

330

Could you make a video of this? Because nowadays I also use an external hard drive, especially since Macs or iOS devices with large disks are very valuable, so the external hard drive is what I use today. However, I don’t want to lose my hotcues, markers, or grids, because I’m migrating from Virtual DJ to Djay. But I’m having a very hard time solving this.

[Armigo]

@MarcosAraujo

I don’t want to lose my hotcues, markers, or grids

No you won’t, if you already have a djay collection (library) on one laptop with external drive connected. My process above helps you to carry that library on just the external drive and perform on any other laptop (i use mac only though).

For as long as ALL tracks sit on the external drive, and your library is managed within djay collection here:

Only then my method would work.

Navigate to Finder ~Music ~djay~ and just copy this file onto the target laptop, same location (replacing similar file if exist).

Remember: What you do to your library on one laptop doesn’t auto reflect onto the other, unless you copy back the file again. This can create a confusion and potentially mess up your library, so to avoid that, I only rely on my master laptop’s library (the personal laptop) - I never copy back onto it any library file except in very few circumstances where I know there was a really nice new playlist (or play history) I must get back from the last club session
Also note, I only use this workaround when I am going to dj a club which already has an imac with djay installed on it.

Let me know if that explains it all

@MarcosAraujo

I’m migrating from Virtual DJ to Djay.

On this I don’t have solution for you but try a dj conversion software such as DJ Conversion Utility (DJCU) for macOS

Once you’re fully migrated, then try my workaround to swap laptops

[Slak_Jaw]

Nice! Thanks for sharing @Armigo

[MarcosAraujo]

@Slak_Jaw

@Armigo

Perfect, now I need to use a program like Mixo to migrate my collection to my other external hard drive in Djay format.