Library & files
Star rating
A star rating is a one-to-five score you assign a track by hand. Nothing writes it for you, which makes it the most deliberate field in a library and the one most often left empty.
Measured in real DJ libraries
81.9% of a real DJ library carries no star rating at all, and just 2.2% of it ever gets five.
Rating is the field DJs mean to use and do not. Four in five tracks are untouched, and the top of the scale is so rarely used that five stars is effectively a shortlist rather than a grade. That is the useful way to run it: reserve the top mark for records that have already earned it in a room, and leave everything else at zero.
81.9%
Unrated
2.2%
Rated five stars
5.0%
Rated four or five
Updated daily from Rekordbox collections DJs have imported to Mixgraph. Method: the field that fills itself in.
Why it matters
Ratings only work if they mean something specific. Five stars for "I like this" produces a list of records you like, which you already had. Five stars for "this has never failed in a peak-time room" produces a list you can actually reach for when a night is going wrong, and that is a different asset.
The other trap is rating on import, when you have heard the track once on headphones. A rating given before a record has been played in a room is a prediction, and predictions age badly against a field like play count that records what actually happened.
Frequently asked
What should each star mean?+
Whatever you can apply consistently in ten seconds. A workable scheme is five for proven floor-fillers, three for solid album tracks and nothing at all for the rest — a scale you never use below three is still a scale.
Do star ratings transfer between DJ software?+
Usually, because most write them into the file’s own tags as well as the database. Ratings held only in a proprietary database do not survive a move, which is worth testing on a handful of tracks first.
Is rating better than tagging?+
They answer different questions. A rating says how good, a tag says what for, and "what for" is what you actually search on mid-set. Use ratings sparingly and tags heavily.
Related terms
Play count
Play count is the number the software increments each time a track is played past a threshold. It is the only field in a library that records what you actually did rather than what you intended.
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.
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.
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.
Explore: Library health check · Culling your track list · Tag · All DJ terms