DATABASE
Building your music library can be an intensely rewarding experience. Dedicated DJ media players use a robust Microsoft Access database (dj.mdb) that can easily catalog and quickly retrieve music from collections of 10,000 titles or more. Music is stored on your computer or network in a standard manner. The database simply contains information on the songs location as well as containing numerous description fields and various tables to describe how the music will be played.
Dancing DJ Suite comes with a sample database containing 4 short songs. Adding more music from your collection can be done from the Music Organizer , by scanning your computer or network drives using the Crawler or by using iTunes2ddj to import iTunes playlists.
Four main tables
| Table | Contents |
| Music | Master table, music titles, descriptions, path.etc. |
| Genre | genre name and allowed tempo range |
| GenreOrder | A simple ordered list of play preferences such as Waltz, Rumba, Tango and Jive... useful for assembling Playlists |
| Playlist | Specific title selection, ordering and settings |
The Music table is the master table. It contains a complete description of all available titles including such information as, artist, genre, tempo, as well as the storage location of the actual music or video file.
The Genre table describes your music categories (dance categories). This table stores information on the appropriate tempo ranges for each genre category so your music will meet the dance standard.
The GenreOrder table(s) is a simple single field list which contains a only a genre name. In our example the category is a dance name but it could as well be categories of Blues, Rock and Roll, Classical, etc, or Trains, Jackhammers and Howling dogs if that is your listening pleasure. The GenreOrder table is useful when constructing and organizing playlists and can be used to automatically generate a random playlist.
Playlist tables are subsets of the Music table. They contains most of the Music table description fields and some or all of the music records. In addition, they have a numeric play order field. Playlists also contain fields that override the music default such as volume or rate and others as well as other such as start and stop position.
There is no limit to the number or length of PlayList_{Description} or GenreOrder_{Description} tables. Construct as many of these tables, as desired. Note, however, the naming convention for both Playlists and GenreOrders that require "_" in your custom list names.
Dedicated DJ media players & dj.mdb