While the big companies certainly don’t prevent you from unlocking your music collection between the various apps, they could certainly go a lot further to making it easier. Software like Rekord Buddy 2 and the DJ Conversion Utility from And The Groove Remains go a long way towards making the process painless.
Now, there’s a new arrow in the ATGR quiver: the Traktor Cue and Key tool, which lets you sync metadata from Mixed in Key and iTunes to Traktor that’s otherwise inaccessible, such as iTunes ratings, and MiK cue points.
The And The Groove Remains Production Team is proud to release a new app that aids in the integration of Traktor, Mixed in Key and iTunes:
the Traktor Cue and Key Tool (TCK).
TCK is like a swiss army knife when it comes to synchronizing metadata that previously was not sync-able between these three apps.
TCK and cues:
- Tracks without a beatmarker are collected to a dedicated playlist in Traktor, the more accurate the beatmarker is set the more usable the Mixed in Key cues are.
- TCK can merge Mixed in Key cues with existing cues and loops, replace all existing cues or not use MiK cues at all if the track already contains user set cues.
- To avoid setting duplicate cues, TCK checks if there is a user cue (give or take a pre-defined margin) before setting a Mixed in Key cue.
- Sort cues, loops and beatmarkers chronologically
- Reassing cues and loops to the most logical pad (load cue a the front of the pads, catch loop near the end)
- Remove Mixed in Key cues without removing user set cues, loops and beatmarkers
TCK and Camelot keys:
- Collects all tracks without a valid Camelot key to a dedicated playlist in Traktor for easy batch delivery to Mixed In Key
- supports all audio format both MiK and Traktor support including FLAC and WAV.
TCK and reformatting key and comment tags:
- Adds a ‘0’ in front of Camelot keys with a value lower than 10
- Generate sortable comment tags (key-bpm) using the bpm value from Traktor instead of the MiK analyzed value
TCK and iTunes with Traktor syncing or vice versa.
- Sync non-standard tags such as star ratings and play count between Traktor and iTunes or vice versa
- Syncing from iTunes to Traktor also sync’s the date added tag in Traktor.
- Gives iTunes the missing option to refresh tags of selected tracks from the track’s ID3 tags
TCK is lead up by the Traktor collection as opposed to playlists/folders. If a TCK processed track is part of playlists the results will be shown in those playlists as well. It is possible to limit the scope of TCK to only a part of the Traktor collection. This will reduce the processing time dramatically and for instance enable the processing of only tracks that were recently added to the collection.
TCK can be bought at https://sellfy.com/p/aosq/ and costs US$ 9.35
The complete video tutorial is at:
https://youtu.be/y5dTSxws4a4 fast forward to time index 05:00 to skip the dull, but necessary theory and you’ll see what TCK can do
You can download the manual at:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/23js8te6s7pgxk6/Traktor%20Cue%20and%20Key%20Tool%20Manual.pdf?dl=1
A bit of background
The Traktor Tag Sync Utility was the first dj related app I released to the public. It originated from my own workflow which was reflected in both the user interface and overall operation. Both left a lot to be desired because for in house apps those are never a high priority. Nevertheless TTSU gets it’s job done and has a group of enthusiast users who bit the user interface bullet. The introduction of the Rekordbox Cue and Key Tool last January gave me the idea for the overhaul. In essence both TCK and ReCK offer the same functionality for respectively Traktor and Rekordbox. With the release of TCK TTSU has been discontinued, the loyal users of TTSU are rewarded with a free upgrade to TCK.
IMPORTANT:
- all our apps, including TCK are MacOS only
- for Mixed in Key integration the minimum Mixed in Key requirement is 8.1.2
- fully compatible with MacOS from version 10.9 upto to MacOS 10.13 (High Sierra)
If you are going to publish about TCK, I would very much appreciate it if you provide me with a link or hardcopy of the publication. If you run into any problems, have questions or feature requests/suggestions, please let me know.
Kind regards,
And The Groove Remains Production Team
MixMasterG
My take
The most frustrating thing about how difficult it is to transfer your collections is that while I’m sure the logic is to keep users from moving away from your software, it works both ways. Portable collections also makes it more likely that you’ll come back to multiple DJ apps. That’s why tools like these are important to the community.
The whole suite of tools from ATGR go a long way towards solving all the issues of porting your music between Traktor, rekordbox, Engine Prime, djay Pro, and now iTunes and Mixed in Key. Outside of core functionality, the inelegant and complicated looking (though it isn’t actually complicated) user interface could do with a rework. After all… branding is everything!
Your take
Have you used any of the ATGR apps? What are your experiences?
Traktor Cue and Key tool is available now from the store, for $9.35, on macOS.