Firstly, before I write anything, I’d ask you to go ands first read this really inspiring interview with Avalon Emerson, an American DJ based in SF. She organises (and sub-organises) her collection in all kinds of interesting ways. I’ve come back to this interview numerous times.
I’ve found my organisational methods seem to be constantly shifting and changing according to the needs of the gigs I do. This is partly because I get booked to play a lot of different styles. Since the end of the pandemic I’ve done sets based around the Paradise Garage, Studio 54, Paul McCartney, New York disco, Downtown New York (early 80s NY basically). These are the ones I can think off the top of my head. So they all make you look at your collection in different ways and how you organise it.
So the core crate that I use is called PLAYOUT. I start a new ones of these each January. This contains all the newest releases, plus new old discoveries, any new edits I’ve made, and also old tracks that I want to revive; been playing When You Love Someone by Daphne a lot recently, for example (PS Daphne was Danny Krivit’s girlfriend at the time!).
But then I also have DISCO PLAYOUT, AFRO/LATIN BANGERS, HOUSE BANGERS (I’d maybe lean on this one towards the end of a night when I want to play some more familiar tracks), DISCO NOT DISCO, AFTER HOURS, DOWNTEMPO JAMS (Not funk exactly, but stuff like I Wanna Do Something Freaky To You by Leon Haywood). In total, I have nearly 100 categories, but not all of them are loaded up on my USB.
I haven’t played vinyl for many years. I started using CDJs in 2001, when I was still resident at Fabric, because they were the first people I knew who had 1000s. I carried a box of vinyl around with me for years, though, like a comfort blanket, until I probably stopped doing that in about 2005. About seven years ago I moved over to RekordBox and haven’t used any format since. I sold my record collection in April 2019. Getting rid of almost all my vinyl completely changed my relationship to it, too, so I only buy records if there’s no way of getting a digital copy. I buy way more CD singles now than 12-inches or vinyl LPs.
It’s honestly just so much more fun playing digitally than playing with vinyl and when you look at where François K is going with his stems DJing sets, I think it makes playing vinyl look laughably ancient, like making tea by putting a pan on an open fire rather than pressing the button on a kettle. I found @papaloudj’s comments really interesting in the Rate Thyself AS A DJ thread, because the one thing you have to really think about so much more is organisation when you play digitally cos I have about all these categories that are constantly evolving when I DJ, and, as I said, I have a main PLAYOUT folder.
I also write the artist name into the title section (D-TRAIN - You’re The One For Me) so that I can work out what I’m looking at much quicker. It really forces you to learn songs much better than playing vinyl, because you no longer have those visual cues to aid you. I’m currently using one of these Samsung HDs, which has 500gb on it (it’s currently holding over 7,000 songs on it!):
Remembering names/titles etc is definitely where vinyl will always beat digital hands down, so you have to use other techniques to help you, but many’s the time when I can’t think of the name or title of something I want to play.
So I was curious, how do YOU organise everything if you play digitally?
