Library & files
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.
Measured in our catalog
The catalog runs to 168 genre tags, but 395,353 of 443,460 tracks carry exactly one — a store files a record in a single place.
Only 48,104 tracks carry two, and 66 of the 168 tags hold 500 tracks or more, so the vocabulary is both large and lopsided: five tags account for a tenth of everything. That single tag is the whole of what you are given about a record, which is the argument for adding your own — nothing in a store’s taxonomy says a track is a good opener.
168
Distinct genre tags
66
Holding 500+ tracks
395,353
Tracks with one tag
48,104
Tracks with two
| Tag | Tracks |
|---|---|
| Tech House | 25,388 |
| Techno (Peak Time / Driving) | 25,019 |
| Drum & Bass | 23,165 |
| Deep House | 22,138 |
| Minimal / Deep Tech | 22,136 |
Measured on 11 August 2026 across public tracks, counting tag instances from the genre-tag array — a track with two tags appears in both.
Why it matters
Tagging is how you search a collection by feel. Crates answer "what did I put in this box"; tags answer "everything dark and slow that ends cleanly", which is a question a folder structure cannot express.
What makes it worth doing is that the tags a store supplies are thin. A record arrives filed under exactly one genre, so anything beyond genre — what it does to a room, when it works — has to come from you.
Frequently asked
What is the difference between tags and crates?+
A crate is a box you put a track into; a tag is a property the track carries. One track can hold many tags and be found by any of them, which is what makes tags better for searching by feel.
How should I tag my DJ library?+
With a small fixed vocabulary covering what genre does not: energy, situation, how it ends. Fewer values applied consistently beats a long list you use differently each month.
Do tracks come with useful genre tags?+
Only one each, mostly. 395,353 of 443,460 public tracks carry exactly one genre tag, so everything beyond genre has to be added by you.
Related terms
Comment field
The comment field is free text inside an audio file, and the only metadata slot nobody else is using. DJs fill it with the things no other field holds — energy ratings, where a record works, what it mixes into.
Crate
A crate is a folder of tracks inside your DJ software, named after the boxes vinyl DJs carried. A track can sit in as many crates as you like without being copied, because a crate holds references rather than files.
ID3 tags
ID3 tags are the metadata written inside an audio file — title, artist, album, genre, year, comment, and on DJ files often BPM and key. They travel with the file rather than with the software that read it.
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.
Explore: Genre chart · Tech house tempos · Comment field · All DJ terms