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Workflow

Library Intake Pipeline

How does a new track become a gig-ready file?

A repeatable intake pipeline is the difference between a library and a folder of downloads.

intermediatelibrarypipelinemetadata

The path

  1. Discovery
  2. Inbox
  3. Review
  4. Purchase
  5. Analyze
  6. Tag
  7. Cue
  8. Crate

Step by step

How to run it

  1. Inbox everything

    One folder, no sorting during the dig.

  2. Review on headphones

    Cut anything that does not survive a second listen.

  3. Buy the survivors in lossless

    Buy once, in the best format, so you never re-buy.

  4. Fix the tags before anything else

    Consistent artist, title, mix name, artwork, genre.

  5. Analyze key, BPM and energy

    Write the values into tags so they survive software changes.

  6. Set cues and check the grid

    A wrong beatgrid costs you a mix in the club, not at home.

  7. File into crates

    Function, energy, mood and situation — not just genre.

  8. Dedupe and back up

    Two copies, one off-machine. Do it before the gig, not after the drive dies.

Toolkit

Everything this workflow uses

Bandcamp

Artist-and-label-first store. Lossless downloads, deep label catalogs, editorial tags.

PaidstorelosslessFeatured

Lexicon

Software-agnostic library manager: dedupe, tag, fix metadata, sync to any DJ app.

PaiddedupetagsFeatured

OneTagger

Free tagger that pulls metadata, artwork, key and BPM from Beatport, Discogs and more.

FreetaggingartworkFeatured

MusicBrainz Picard

Acoustic-fingerprint tagger that repairs messy metadata at scale.

Freefingerprinttagging

Mixed In Key

Key and energy detection with Camelot notation written back into tags.

Paidkey detectionenergyFeatured

rekordbox

Pioneer DJ's library manager and performance software; the CDJ standard.

FreemiumcdjlibraryFeatured

dupeGuru

Open-source duplicate finder with a fuzzy music mode for near-identical files.

Freeduplicatescleanup

Keep going

Where this leads