Library & files
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.
Measured in real DJ libraries
6.1% of a real DJ library carries a colour tag, spread across just 8 colours. Almost nobody uses this field.
This is the emptiest field measured across imported collections — emptier than rating, emptier than comments, emptier than genre. That makes it the biggest piece of unclaimed workflow in a standard library: a browser column that is instant to read, present on every player, and currently doing nothing on nineteen tracks in twenty. Three colours with one rule each is an afternoon of work and a permanently faster browse.
6.1%
Carry any colour
8
Distinct colours in use
93.9%
Left blank
Updated daily from Rekordbox collections DJs have imported to Mixgraph. Method: the field to use instead if you want words.
Why it matters
Colour is the fastest field to read and the slowest to fill, which is exactly backwards from how most people use it. Scanning a browser under club lighting, a colour registers before a word does, so a scheme with three colours and one rule each beats a rating scale you have to squint at.
The reason it stays empty is that nothing suggests a scheme, and inventing one is work you do before it pays off. If you are going to use it at all, decide the meaning first and apply it to fifty tracks in one sitting rather than colouring things as you notice them.
Frequently asked
What should track colours mean?+
Pick one axis and stick to it — set position works well: one colour for openers, one for peak, one for exits. An axis you can decide in a second is worth more than a detailed scheme you abandon.
Do colours show on a CDJ?+
Yes, in the browse list, which is the whole point. It is one of the few library fields that survives the journey to a club player and stays readable in the dark.
Should I use colours or tags?+
Both, for different jobs. Colour answers "what is this for" at a glance; tags answer "find me everything that" when you search. Colour is faster, tags are more precise.
Related terms
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.
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.
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.
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.
Explore: Library health check · Tag · USB prep · All DJ terms