Library & files
Search filter
The search filter narrows the browse list on a player by typed text or by field — genre, artist, key, BPM band, rating, colour — so you can find a track on a stick of thousands without scrolling through them.
In practice
Filters beat typing under pressure. Set up two or three that reach a short list in a few presses.
The reliable ones are tempo band and key, because the software fills those in for you. Add colour or rating if you actually maintain them, and treat genre as usable only if you have normalised your tags — a library with "Tech House", "tech-house" and "TechHouse" in it has three genres as far as any filter is concerned. Practise the search at home, because the first time you use a browse interface should not be with a record ending.
2–3
Presses to a short list
BPM + key
The filters that always work
Normalise
What genre needs first
Where these come from: Player browse behaviour and library-hygiene practice — not catalog figures.
Why it matters
It is the feature that makes a large stick usable, and it is entirely dependent on preparation. Filtering by genre works if your genres are consistent; filtering by key works if everything is analysed; filtering by colour works if you ever coloured anything. On an unprepared stick the filter is a list of empty categories.
Typing on a jog wheel is also slow, which changes what a good search looks like. The filters worth setting up are the ones that get you to a small list in two or three presses — a BPM band, a colour, a rating — rather than the ones that need a full artist name spelled out under pressure.
Frequently asked
Why is my genre filter full of duplicates?+
Because tags are text and stores are inconsistent, so "Tech House", "tech-house" and "TechHouse" are three separate values. Normalising them in a metadata editor fixes the filter in one pass.
Can I filter by key on a CDJ?+
Yes, once the tracks are analysed, and it is one of the most useful filters there is because the software fills the field in for you.
Is searching faster than browsing crates?+
For a specific track, yes. For choosing what comes next, a well-built crate beats any search, because the crate already encodes a decision and the search does not.
Related terms
Track colour
Track colour is a single colour swatch you can attach to a track, shown beside it in the browser. It carries no meaning of its own — whatever scheme you invent is the entire content of the field.
Related Tracks
Related Tracks is a browse mode on club players that filters your own library against the track currently loaded — same key, similar tempo, same genre — so the next choice comes from a shortlist instead of the whole stick.
Smart playlist
A smart playlist is a saved rule rather than a saved list. You describe what belongs in it — tempo band, genre, rating, date range — and the software fills and refills it as the library changes.
Tag
A tag is a label you attach to a track so you can find it by something other than its name — a genre, a mood, a situation. A track can carry as many as you like.
Explore: MP3 metadata editor · Tag · Crate · All DJ terms