My Ideal Workflow requires 2 or more PCs to always be in sync via Cloud. Will this work? Any tips?
Hey everyone, very new to MIXO and I'm not sure if this is going to make sense or if it will work with MIXO
CAUTION; This is a lengthy post :).
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Current State:
I have a Macbook Pro which I use to DJ. This is my primary device, storing all my music and running Serato to DJ. When I travel, I like to look for new music and organize them into my crates.
My current workflow involves Google Drive's sync tool which gives me a 2-way sync of all my music between the cloud and my Macbook. I drag and drop new music into my folders (currently organized by Genre), and it will sync to the cloud. After a gig, I make sure to run it again, to update any additional metadata back. (e.g. Added a new cue point during a gig)
Then I'll open up Serato, and drag the folder on top of the main genre folder to update it with the new songs I have. Once that's done, now I can start to organize my music into the crates and playlists I need for my gigs.
I have another PC running Windows at home where I do all my music production work and also manage my music library. When I'm not on the move, I prefer to work on my home PC as the setup has a bigger screen, and it's got all the things I need to be productive.
Currently, I download my new music and directly upload them to my genre folders on Google Drive. This will then sync to my DJ laptop through Google Drive's Sync tool when I open it. I've downloaded Serato and imported my crates to manage it there before having to re-upload it back and update it on my DJ laptop.
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Challenges Today:
What I don't have today is a way to organize my crates and playlists without opening Serato. All of this today is sort of manual:
- Need to upload directly to Google Drive folders by drag and drop.
- Need to drag folders into Serato to update crates with new songs.
- Crate/Playlist organizing can only happen in Serato.
- If I modify my crates, I need to export it between the 2PCs as well so that they're synced.
- Sometimes it takes a while for the crates to load my new songs when I drag them into Serato (minor frustration)
- I haven't even gotten started on gigs where I need to use Rekordbox - RIP
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My Ideal State:
- Centralized location to manage my music library and crates. I'm hoping this can be MIXO.
- Cloud synced between all devices. If I downloaded a new song on my DJ laptop and add it to the app, it syncs perfectly to my Home PC and vice versa.
- 2-way sync between Serato and MIXO. For example, If I added a cue point in Serato, I can easily export it back to MIXO and vice versa. I don't mind if this process is not automatic and I have to click a button to export.
- Import/Export to Rekordbox
- If I added a 3rd device, this should work as well
I think most of my challenges are around the management of my music files and crates rather than the ability to convert them into different DJ software. I'm a firm believer in backing things up to the Cloud and making that my "single source of truth" if that makes sense.
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Benefits I'm looking for:
- Productivity boost by reducing the need to open multiple different devices and software to manage my crates.
- Reduce duplication and inconsistencies in my music crates/files. A centralized repository in the Cloud where it acts as the single source of truth, with pipelines for my other sources (devices) to update it.
- Manage everything from a single screen (MIXO) whether it be uploading new music into the repository or organizing them into crates/playlists, from more than one device.
- Time savings from conversion. Export all my crates into Rekordbox and other DJ software easily without having to manually re-do my crates.
TLDR; I want to be able to manage my music and sync between 2 or more devices and sync it to the Cloud, making it the source of truth, with as few manual steps as possible like importing my crates and music one by one.
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So my questions are:
- Can MIXO help with this?
- If Yes, what would be the features I would need to achieve this or reach closer to it?
- Steps to execute, as I've been trying to figure this out for a while but can't seem to get my music files synced properly when I download new songs on 2 separate devices.
The same question 
Hi there,
I'm Remko, the CTO at MIXO. Perhaps some of our users can offer some real-world advice/ideas for your particular workflow but I can certainly answer a few questions from a technical point of view.
Firstly, Serato saves everything to the tracks themselves, which makes cross-device management slightly harder but not impossible. When you add cue points to a track in Serato, for example, you'd need to re-analyse the track in MIXO and select 'Replace cues' to see the changes. MIXO will then sync those changes to your other devices. It's also possible to drag and drop tracks into MIXO and it will check the timestamp to see if it needs to re-analyse any of them, whilst skipping tracks that have not changed.
The downside in the case of using Serato on a second computer is you will need to export and update the ID3 tags (Advanced Export Options) which will write the changes to the downloaded track. You can then re-analyse the track in Serato on your second computer to see the changes.
So MIXO can help simplify your current workflow by eliminating the need to manually upload tracks to GDrive. Instead, once the library is imported and uploaded, future changes to existing tracks can be done through re-analysing and letting MIXO sync the changes.
The manual part is re-analysing and exporting/updating downloaded tracks on other devices.
I hope this helps! Please feel free to contribute if anyone has some alternative ideas/suggestions.
Remko
Hi there,
I'm Remko, the CTO at MIXO. Perhaps some of our users can offer some real-world advice/ideas for your particular workflow but I can certainly answer a few questions from a technical point of view.
Firstly, Serato saves everything to the tracks themselves, which makes cross-device management slightly harder but not impossible. When you add cue points to a track in Serato, for example, you'd need to re-analyse the track in MIXO and select 'Replace cues' to see the changes. MIXO will then sync those changes to your other devices. It's also possible to drag and drop tracks into MIXO and it will check the timestamp to see if it needs to re-analyse any of them, whilst skipping tracks that have not changed.
The downside in the case of using Serato on a second computer is you will need to export and update the ID3 tags (Advanced Export Options) which will write the changes to the downloaded track. You can then re-analyse the track in Serato on your second computer to see the changes.
So MIXO can help simplify your current workflow by eliminating the need to manually upload tracks to GDrive. Instead, once the library is imported and uploaded, future changes to existing tracks can be done through re-analysing and letting MIXO sync the changes.
The manual part is re-analysing and exporting/updating downloaded tracks on other devices.
I hope this helps! Please feel free to contribute if anyone has some alternative ideas/suggestions.
Remko
I should also add that for Rekordbox you simply need to export the XML and read that in Rekordbox (you can set the path to your exported XML in Rekordbox Preferences).
More info on that can be found here:
https://support.mixo.dj/guide/mixo-to-rekordbox
Remko
I should also add that for Rekordbox you simply need to export the XML and read that in Rekordbox (you can set the path to your exported XML in Rekordbox Preferences).
More info on that can be found here:
https://support.mixo.dj/guide/mixo-to-rekordbox
Remko
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