Serato just added a long-requested “play count” feature to Serato DJ Pro 2.2. This allows you to keep track of how many times you have played tracks in your Serato DJ Pro library. While this is a nice bit of data by itself, it becomes very useful when used with Serato DJ’s Smart Crates playlist feature.
Smart Crates let you make a list of songs based on conditions known as rules. These rules can be tags like genre, date released, date added, and so on, and in this latest update to Serato DJ Pro play count has been added as a rule.
Combining Smart Crates and play count can help you make more informed library decisions. It can help you figure out things such as which new tracks you’ve added to your library that you have yet to play. The best part is all of this can be done by adding just a couple rules, and these Smart Crates will update themselves on the fly giving you the most up to date information.
Here are three ways DJs can use Smart Crates with play count.
1. A Smart Crate for new songs you haven’t played
If you’re the kind of DJ who adds big batches of music to your library, it’s really easy to lose track of which songs you’ve added that could have gotten lost after adding even more new music. You can make a Smart Crate filled with newly added songs that have yet to be played. From here, you can review this crate then add songs you have been meaning to play into another playlist to make sure that you do play them at your next gig.
2. A Smart Crate for old songs you’ve never played and should remove
As your DJ library grows, you’ve probably added songs that you haven’t played in a long time. You can make a Smart Crate using play count information that keeps track of these songs so you can consider removing them from your library.
Check this Smart Crate regularly to find which songs have been sitting in your library that aren’t worth keeping. Removing these songs will give you a much more focused and useful DJ library.
3. A Smart Crate with your most played tracks in specific categories
My favourite way to use the new play count feature with Smart Crates is to keep track of my favourite tracks in certain genres, years of release, or other tags. This is so helpful for me as I regularly play a few themed parties which consist of just music from the 90s, and some nights where I play just one genre such as r&b, and this Smart Crate helps me find which songs I play most often.
One caveat to this type of Smart Crate is that you may have to play around with the number of plays depending on how often you play the kind of music in the selected category. If you play those kinds of tracks often you may have to increase the number, or if you do not play them very often you may consider making the number smaller.
Finally…
One of the biggest challenges over time for digital DJs is maintaining an ever-growing library of music. Digital libraries tend to be bigger than physical ones – but unless you know and use the music in them, they can become unwieldy and a burden rather than a blessing. Knowing what you’ve played, or haven’t played, is fundamental, and now Serato users can use that info as another way to manage their libraries.
These are just a few examples of what the new play count feature can do when used with Smart Crates. It is a powerful combination of features that is worth playing around with to get the most out of your Serato DJ Pro library.
How do you keep track of songs you’ve never played? What about your most played tracks? Do you use a similar smart playlist feature in your DJ software? Let us know below.
Marc Santaromana
