I want to tell you about my frustrating experience.
Perhaps if you review my latests posts, you will remember my targets that I pursue and my tests.
The last thing I have done is to prepare a 256 GB SD card with several folders and a total of approx 10,000 tracks, for a Denon SC5000M player.
First I prepared and analyzed with Engine.
Synchronize importing in LXC.
I synced LXC by exporting to VDJ.
Analyzed with VDJ and resynchronized by importing to LXC.
I synchronized by exporting to Engine.
So far so good. Except that, like some tracks, I was not completely satisfied with VDJ analysis and beatgrid, I proceeded with the following:
I synced by exporting to Traktor.
I analyzed with Traktor.
I synced importing from Traktor to LXC.
At this point everything was fine again, until I decided to sync by exporting to Engine DJ. All this, remember, from the SD card.
This last process was very very slow, unlike when I synced by exporting from VDJ.
A subfolder has been created inside the Engine Library folder on the sd card, called Music, inside which there are hundreds of folders with weird names like:
[A1] Basic Implant
^2+16-a 2 -a1 2 - 2+16 - a 2
âŠ
(looks like metadata) and within these subfolders there are music tracks, so the free space I had on the 12Gb card has been used up.
Why this process?
It was logically interrupted with the following error:
Can i delete the âmusicâ folder?
Can I retrieve the previous copy of the Engine Library database, from one of the zips created inside the Lexicon subfolder?
Whats important for Engine Library in SDCard?
When you export to an Engine DJ external drive (or Dropbox) then it will copy all music files there too. Thatâs why it is much slower. It looks like it tried to copy more than available space on the external disk.
The âweird namesâ are your artist and album names. Engine always uses a Engine Library/Music/Artist/Album/filename.mp3 structure.
You can delete everything from the SD card. Lexicon can re-create it. Just make sure it is big enough to hold the music you are having it copy over.
I do not understand it. The âsourceâ of storage has always been the same: SDCard. From the beginning it had already stored the structure of folders and tracks. Why store them again when synchronizing? I do not understand it. I thought that this synchronization process (which can be import or export to a system: Traktor, Rekordbox, VDJâŠ) only affected the metadata and XML data file, dbâŠ
Is there a box to uncheck, so that the tracks or music itself are not exported again?
Am i loosing anything?
What is folder âmĂșsicâ inside âEngine Libraryâ folders?
What are zips inside âLexicĂłnâ folder inside âEngine Libraryâ?
The Music is folder is like I explained, it contains the MP3s. If you plug in your SD somewhere, it needs the MP3s to play them.
When you export Engine to an external drive, it will always copy the music. That is how an external drive works, since you plug it into a Denon device.
Iâm really sorry cristian, but I think we have a confusion or Iâm not explaining myself well.
Please think that there is only the external drive. I already have the music on the sd card and, from there, I do all the analyzes and synchronizations that I explained.
The tracks have always been and will be on this external drive. I just need to (synchronize) export the database to be recognized by Engine OS.
Why is LXC copying the tracks then? I donât understand again.
Let me know if I am worng but I think your understanding of the purpose of Lexicon and itâs use is not aligned with what you are trying to do.
The aim of Lexicon is to have a âcollectionâ on a single PC/MAC that also contains the DJ Software you are using, you then you manage and update as a daily/weekly/monthly process, when you want to DJ with this music on engine devices you would then export the database and music to the external storage - in your case your SD Card or to the engine database on the same machine.
Trying to use an sd card to store your collection and then export it to the same device wonât work and you will get the experience you have had so far, you are essentially exporting to the same drive as your collection, not syncing at all.
The software export to engine devices through lexicon works the same as Engine DJ, the device has to have the music and the collection of music together to work
@StuR I will take into account what you explain before. Thanks.
Admittedly, the philosophy for maintaining a music collection may vary across different applications.
In any case, I think my confusion was at the moment of synchronizing, both when importing and when exporting. I understood that it always referred to playlists, overlooking that it also exported the music.
With âFullâ I meant that I was synchronizing (importing or exporting) all the playlists; and with âPlaylistsâ, only those selected playlists.
My mistake would be that at some point I imported my entire collection to LXC and later when synchronizing to Engine, they tried to export all the tracks and thatâs where it crashed.
Please, I would like you to confirm this particularity, as it is very important to me. That is, as long as I select the âPlaylistâ option instead of âFullâ, will not the tracks be exported as well? or, in any case, will the tracks always be exported?
I just did one last test, in the way I explained before, that is, having the sd card as the origin, only synchronizing with âPlaylistsâ option and I have not had any problem.
If you export FULL it will export all the music and playlist structure from Lexicon to the required software/device
if you export PLAYLIST you then select a single/multiple playlist to export, this then exports just those playlists WITH the music, this can be used to sync just a few playlists to a device or to update those playlist on the device if they are already on the device
just to clarify, my explanation above is when you use a central collection and export to Engine DJ Drives.
IF you are using the sync to manage between software on the same machine as the location of the main collection then it will export only the file structure (Playlists) as the files will already exist on the pc you are using. hope this helps
So⊠the name given to the âimport tracks and playlistsâ button doesnât seem to make much sense, not at least the same as the âexport tracks and playlistsâ button.
It seems that âimport tracks and playlistsâ all it does is import playlists and the names of the tracks they contain with their reference to the location that contains them, because otherwise if you were to actually import the files, where are LXC saving them?
The âexport tracks and playlistsâ button, however, does copy the playlists, track names and files as long as the destination location is different from the source location. Am I right?
I think that in my case, in my second test, I did not have any errors or crashes, because I always used the same location and playlists for the synchronization between the different applications. LXC detected that the files already existed and did not proceed to export/save them, so the synchronization was very fast.
and I agree over the Import Tracks and Playlists button to a degree, but the problem with changing the name of that button is that some tracks included in a collection may not be in any playlist in some software.
Maybe it should be called âImport Collection/Playlistâ that is one for @Christiaan though
