Library & files
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.
In practice
Export twice, onto two drives, and test one in a player before you leave — not in the software that wrote it.
Take more than the plan needs: a set list plus the crates behind it, so a room that goes somewhere else does not leave you stranded. Check that the export carried your grids and cue points rather than assuming it did, and keep the drives small and dedicated rather than using the one with your holiday photos on it. Format matters — club players are still happiest with a plain FAT32 or exFAT stick and nothing clever on it.
2
Drives to bring
Set + crates
What to export
In a player
Where to test it
Where these come from: Gig preparation conventions, not catalog figures — what a given player supports varies by model and firmware, so the test is the only answer that counts. For what we can measure, see the cues you are exporting.
Why it matters
The USB is where preparation becomes real. Every grid and cue you set at home has to survive the export, and anything that lives only in your software’s database — including tags in fields the export does not carry — stays at home.
The second stick is not paranoia. A drive that fails mid-set ends the set, and it is the single most common way a prepared DJ ends up playing off someone else’s laptop.
Frequently asked
How many tracks should you put on a DJ USB?+
More than the set needs — the running order plus the crates it came from. A room that goes somewhere unexpected is the situation the extra tracks exist for.
Do cue points transfer to a USB?+
They do when the export is done from your DJ software rather than by copying files in the file manager. Dragging audio onto a stick copies the music and none of the preparation.
Why do DJs bring two USB sticks?+
Because a drive failing mid-set ends the set. Two identical exports cost nothing and remove the one failure that cannot be mixed out of.
Related terms
Library database
Your DJ software keeps its own database of everything it knows about your collection — file locations, beatgrids, cue points, crates, play history. The audio files sit elsewhere on disk; the database is what turns them into a library.
Hot cue
A hot cue is a saved position in a track that plays from that point the instant you press its pad. Most players store eight per track, and they are stored with the file rather than with the session.
Set list
A set list is the running order a DJ intends to play — the sequence rather than the collection. How long it needs to be is arithmetic: slot length divided by how long the records actually run.
Relinking missing files
Relinking points your library’s database back at audio it can no longer find, after the files were moved, renamed or unplugged. The track entry survives with its grids and cues; only the path to the audio is broken.
Explore: Hot cue · Crate to tracklist · Mixgraph Bridge · All DJ terms