Library & files
Record pool
A record pool is a subscription service supplying DJs with promotional music, usually including edits, intro versions and clean radio cuts that are not sold anywhere else.
In practice
A pool ships the versions stores do not sell — and enough volume to bury a library if you let it.
Set a rule before the first download. Take one genre folder rather than everything, listen before filing, and tag on the way in — a promo with no genre and no key is worse than not having it, because it will sit in the collection looking like a record you have. Check the licensing terms too: most pools are for performance rather than distribution, and the clean versions exist because venues are contractually required to use them. Then delete quarterly. A pool subscription without a deletion habit compounds.
Intro and clean cuts
What stores do not sell
Weekly
Typical delivery
Tag on the way in
The habit that saves it
Where these come from: Subscription-service convention, not catalog figures — our catalog is a store catalog, so nothing in it came from a pool. For what we can measure, see the other way records arrive.
Why it matters
It exists because the version a DJ needs is often not the version a store sells. Pools ship intro edits with counted bars at the front, clean versions for licensed venues, and transition edits built to run into another tempo — none of which appear on a normal release.
The cost is curation. A pool delivers volume on a schedule, and a folder of two hundred untagged promos a week is a way to end up with a library nobody has listened to. The subscription is the easy part; deciding what earns a place is not.
Frequently asked
Are DJ record pools worth it?+
They are if you play open format or need clean and intro versions regularly. If you buy a small number of records deliberately, a pool mostly adds volume you will not listen to.
Do record pools let you play the music legally?+
They licence promotional use for performance, not distribution or resale. Terms vary by pool and by territory, so it is worth reading rather than assuming.
What is an intro edit?+
A version with extra counted bars added at the front, so the record can be brought in on a phrase without hunting for a cue point. Pools ship these; stores rarely do.
Related terms
Crate digging
Crate digging is the search for records nobody has handed you — going past the charts and the promo mail into back catalogue, reissues and things filed where you were not looking.
Edit
An edit is a rearranged version of an existing record — a longer intro, a trimmed breakdown, a drop moved — made by a DJ for their own sets. The original parts stay; the running order changes.
White label
A white label is a record pressed with a blank or minimal label, sent out ahead of release or issued without official credits. It carries no artwork and often no artist name at all.
USB prep
USB prep is exporting the tracks, grids, cue points and playlists you need onto a drive a club player can read. What is not exported does not exist once you are behind the decks.
Explore: Reading your own library · Search the catalog · Crate digging · All DJ terms