TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- DJ Booth
-- How To Use Beatport (Properly)
Pages (2): [1] 2 »

How To Use Beatport (Properly)

Almost every single week on TA, I see someone expressing their frustration with Beatport, someone who clearly does not understand how to use Beatport. In fact, I would say this is the single biggest problem in the digital era, not just for DJs but for listeners in general: how to pick the good music from what increasingly seems like an unscalable virtual cliff-face of digital shit. I think the root of this frustration is that people have still to adapt to the relatively new idea of The Long Tail. Summarised briefly, this is the theory of Internet sales models that posits that unlimited choice means extremely low sales numbers of an extremely large variety of products. The consequence is that things such as music will no longer appeal generally to large numbers of people but appeal very specifically to extremely small numbers of people.

In other words: someone out there is making exactly the music you want to hear, but that music will only sell about 100 copies to the people with exactly the same tastes as you. Beatport sell millions of MP3s but the sales of each individual track are really, really low. Interesting music is no longer going to be easy to find. The best song in the world for you is somewhere on Beatport, but it's only sold the same number of copies as every one of the other 50,000,000+ tracks on there.

But you don't care about all that. You just want to know how to find that one song. Well before you can do that, you've got to accept it involves a fundamental change of approach. It's going to take a lot longer to find tracks. A lot of people get burned out because the hour of searching that would have yielded a lot of good music in a ye olde vinyl record store has revealed maybe three or five decent tracks at most. That's because you're listening to a hell of a lot more music. It's going to take longer. You can also throw away those old-fashioned aids such as DJ charts or store recommendations. Beatport is not your local small-business vinyl store. The guys behind the counter do not give a fuck about helping you out, because they have a billion other customers. This is a different paradigm of music shopping to the good old days, and here are some tips to get you started:

• Tip 1: Do not listen to Beatport. Your mindset should be: if Beatport are pushing it, it's shit. So stop reading their emails. It makes me laugh when Beatport mail me saying "Use these secret weapons for your set!" You mean the same secret weapons you've just recommended to hundreds of thousands of other DJs? Stop reading their charts. Their charts are a generalised summary of what thousands of people are playing. They are not going to appeal to your tastes. Anyone who has wasted an hour of their time listening to an entire Beatport Top 100 in any genre or section and has then gone on a forum to complain about said Top 100 is doing it wrong. Stop clicking on their front page. Nothing on the front page that I didn't directly put there has ever been of any help to me, ever.
  
  
• Tip 2: Use the features. What people don't seem to realise is that Beatport is actually a fantastic search engine, especially now they've rebuilt it. I do 90% of my trawling on Beatport, but only buy about 50% of the tracks I find from Beatport itself. Use the My Artists and My Labels feature. Build up a roster. If you find artists or labels you do like, get Beatport to deliver their tracks to you. It saves so much time, and once you've built up a good roster you can easily have 100 relevant tracks by musicians you are interested in, every single week, without even having to trawl.
  
  
• Tip 3: The Hold Bin is your best friend. Seriously, put everything in your Hold Bin. I know people who have filled their Hold Bin, made a second account just for more storage, and then filled that Hold Bin as well. If you happen across a great track amidst an hour of absolute shit, save it straight away into the Hold Bin. Do this with every good track you find, regardless of whether it fits what you're currently looking for. Don't just buy stuff because it sounds good after an hour of shit. Queue up half your bin and listen to these good tracks next to each other. This is a much more effective way of deciding if a track is genuinely good.
  
  
• Tip 4: Cross-reference everything. Found a good track? In a couple of clicks, Beatport can show you everything that artist has made and everything that label has released. Play all of it. No artist has a 100% win rate and some really are one-hit wonders, but usually an artist will have a few more interesting tracks. Likewise with labels - if a label has released one track that's up your street, they'll probably have some more. Listen to everything on that label, and then when you find some more interesting artists, listen to their entire discography and everything on every label they've ever released as well. Then do that with everyone who they've remixed and who has remixed them.
  
  
• Tip 5: Get better at spotting the signs. If you're really good at buying you music, you can pick up a record you've never heard of before and buy it completely blind (or deaf) based entirely on the information found on the cover, safe in the knowledge you've made a good purchase. Buying music online is exactly the same. From the cover art, the artist names and the track titles it's possible to discern an awful lot about how the music will sound. The better you get at reading the signs - about finding the little trends in the music you like - the easier it is to stare at a wall of new releases and click on the one you know will be relevant to you.
  
  
• Tip 6: Run random searches. Every now and again, I will type a random word into the search and see what the results are. I cannot tell you how much great music I've found as a result. Think of suggestive words like "space" or "ethereal". Whatever the relevant semantic field for the music you like. This is a great way of finding stuff completely outside your usual search patterns.
  
  
• Tip 7: Combine Beatport with other methods. Spotify, Youtube, Last.fm, Discogs, forums... The important part of Beatport is you have somewhere to start. Other places can give you information on music you like that can get you started running searches, cross-referencing and listening. It's also well worth typing in music you already know about to see what leads it throws up. The trouble with Beatport is that starting on a shit track will only give you connections to more shit tracks. You need to find that starting point.
  
  
• Tip 8: You always have the time. So many people complain that they just don't have the time to search for music. Think of how many hours a week you spend listening to music, or practising your DJing, or just sat at your computer doing any amount of random shit. All of that time can be reassigned to queueing up and playing samples in the background while you read your emails, post on TA, cook your dinner, play online poker. If you have ever bitched on a forum about not having time to find music while not simultaneously playing Beatport samples in the background, you have no right to complain.
  
  
• Tip 9: DO NOT SEARCH BY GENRE. It's a complete waste of time and you will just end up depressed. Trust me.
  
  EDIT 05/03/2014: It's now come to my attention that you can search by sub-genre on Beatport, a function I thought had been lost in the redesign. Use the Genre tab and click on the relevant genre, then you will see an option to search by sub-genre. This method is still far from perfect as:
  
  A) Stuff is still prone to rampant mis-labelling.
  B) A lot of labels don't bother using this feature.
  
  ...but it can relieve some of the genre search woe. It's mainly useful for extremely unambiguous sub-genres. "Acid techno" lets you isolate anything with an acid line in. That's helpful. "Progressive trance" means anything below 135bpm. That's not helpful.
  

Nice!

pathetic

Nice work Jack, especially tip 1 and 2. The features are the way to avoid that sea of dross that so many of us complain about.

I think all of us who are even regular beatporters sometimes forget one or a few of these points.

Nice indeed. I try to set aside a couple hours a week just to search Beatport. I pick a genre usually Trance, House and just search. I myself find it more useful because you can find a lot a good stuff that way.

theres gems out there and if i have to go the long way than fuk it, i will. Searching labels and past artists helps too. But if you only do that your missing out.

Good shit J

It's exactly the same as when we used to buy from a store. You stay away from the top 10 stuffs... You actually take time and browse.

The best tunes in my box come from hours and hours of browsing.

Also a good tip: For every 10 tunes in your basket, choose only one and delete the other 9. It makes your collection a better one at the end of the day.

Good words. It is all about the trawling - and yes, it takes time.

The most useful bit is probably the Hold Bin part... there's no point in starting a fresh every time you decide you want to buy some tunes, there's so much music around that no one's going to pull you up on playing a tune which is a couple of months old, if it's the right tune to play.

I actually have my own 'hold bin' I keep separate from Beatport, which takes the form of a folder full of clips of tracks. Anything I like, I find a clip of on Beatport, Juno, SoundCloud, etc then throw it in that folder. Doing it like this simply means I'm not reliant on the track being on Beatport... it might not even be out yet, but I've still got a note of it. When I want to buy some tunes, I start there and look for things which fit what I'm after, then hunt around for a copy.

If you have a Mac there is also Beatport Pro (former Beatler app) that has just been launched to help you manage multiple bins and go beyond the limitations of the standard account. If you want to take part to the beta testing: http://pro.beatport.com/. Wish a Windows version will be available soon, although I guess for laptop djing I will have to make the jump to a Mac sooner or later.
By the way I have no clue why in the new beatport interface they removed all infos about release date, genres and so on from the crate and the bin. Very annoying.

Tip 6: Run random searches. Every now and again, I will type a random word into the search and see what the results are. I cannot tell you how much great music I've found as a result. Think of suggestive words like "space" or "ethereal". Whatever the relevant semantic field for the music you like. This is a great way of finding stuff completely outside your usual search patterns.

Tip 7: Combine Beatport with other methods. Spotify, Youtube, Last.fm, Discogs, forums... The important part of Beatport is you have somewhere to start. Other places can give you information on music you like that can get you started running searches, cross-referencing and listening. It's also well worth typing in music you already know about to see what leads it throws up. The trouble with Beatport is that starting on a shit track will only give you connections to more shit tracks. You need to find that starting point.

This specially, starting point might be the top 100 of the genre, when you see a new name or a new label search their stuff they usually lead you to similar minor labels that have good music. I use youtube a lot some people upload sick stuff like a guy who uploaded his entire vinyl collection and i discovered old music i didn't know

Re: How To Use Beatport (Properly)

Excellent post, pretty much exactly how I work as well apart from this...

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J [*]Tip 6: Run random searches. Every now and again, I will type a random word into the search and see what the results are. I cannot tell you how much great music I've found as a result. Think of suggestive words like "space" or "ethereal". Whatever the relevant semantic field for the music you like. This is a great way of finding stuff completely outside your usual search patterns.

what a fucking good idea, why havent I thought of this before

I always save to my bin and come back a few days or weeks later and listen to them again. Sometimes the mood I'm in can influence what I buy. If I'm digging like at 3am, I'm gonna buy something completely different than if I was digging at 5pm. Different moods influence my taste. I'm weird like that.

Great post, Jack. Should be stickied, imo.

Add me to the "this is pretty much what I do but never thought to do random searches" list. I'll have to give that a whack.

nice - here are some other tips:

- use the mybeatport function to build a list of your favourite producers. i often find producers i like by listening to live sets of my fav djs. when i've id'd the cool tracks in the set, i'll add the producers who made the track into my beatport. that way when this producer makes a new track, i'll know about it. over the last couple of years my list has expanded so that with a couple of hours of searching i can improve my 'hit ratio' because i'm only listening to producers who are putting out good stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by david.michael Add me to the "this is pretty much what I do but never thought to do random searches" list. I'll have to give that a whack.

Me too.

Great advice. Affirmation that I'm doing something right. You especially nailed it on the point of using "My Beatport" to build a repertoire of artists and labels. This afternoon was spent clearing out artists I don't care for anymore.

Beatport Pro allows for grouping of artists and labels. I'm going to start trying that as well.

Lately, I've found Soundcloud to be a great tool. Following the artists you like, and having them deliver their music to your dashboard has yielded some great tracks.

Thanks for putting this together, I appreciated it, and I'm sure many others will too.

quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox Good words. It is all about the trawling - and yes, it takes time. The most useful bit is probably the Hold Bin part... there's no point in starting a fresh every time you decide you want to buy some tunes, there's so much music around that no one's going to pull you up on playing a tune which is a couple of months old, if it's the right tune to play. I actually have my own 'hold bin' I keep separate from Beatport, which takes the form of a folder full of clips of tracks. Anything I like, I find a clip of on Beatport, Juno, SoundCloud, etc then throw it in that folder. Doing it like this simply means I'm not reliant on the track being on Beatport... it might not even be out yet, but I've still got a note of it. When I want to buy some tunes, I start there and look for things which fit what I'm after, then hunt around for a copy.

Which sort of bin is that? A Program?

Nice one System-J. Although i've been buying tracks or vinyls online since ten years those tips are still very helpful nonetheless.

quote:

Originally posted by Euforix The tips look very nice and handy. The only problem is that I mainly support physical releases.

You are limiting yourself to a small minority of the music being released. If you can do that and still be satisfied with the music available to you, that's fine, but please don't complain if you can't find music and you're deliberately restricting your own selection.

quote:

Originally posted by dj christian Which sort of bin is that? A Program?

The hold bin is a place where you can store tracks until you decide to buy them or don't buy them. Scroll over My Account and Hold Bin will show up on the pull down.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J You are limiting yourself to a small minority of the music being released. If you can do that and still be satisfied with the music available to you, that's fine, but please don't complain if you can't find music and you're deliberately restricting your own selection.

When did he complain? He simply stated that he plays physical releases. Nothing wrong or right about that.

I didn't say he was complaining, as such, but he did say it was a "problem", and this thread is intended to help people who are struggling to find music in the current market.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I didn't say he was complaining, as such, but he did say it was a "problem", and this thread is intended to help people who are struggling to find music in the current market.

Agreed I think the comment in general (his) was irrelevant apart from the fact that he acknowledged it was a good informative post about Beatport..

Debating whether to sticky this or I might add it to one of the already stickied threads above but worry it won't get enough air time.

love browsing the iphone beatport app during my morning shit.

ps long time lurker first post hi all

Nicely put together, Jack.

I had already been practicing a number of these suggestions for some time now, though my core approach to navigating through Beatport continues to prove as effective as it is maddeningly time consuming: to browse each and every track from my genres of interest on a day by day basis.

There is just so much quality material that I'm positive I would have overlooked had I relied solely upon refined searching methods and cross-referencing. It's disheartening spending hours upon hours only to walk away with almost nothing (which happens quite often), but running into that incredible gem always makes it all worth it.

And I've maxed out the hold bins and crates of about three accounts, by now. Sadly, I won't get around to buying a great number of these tracks, but I'm just happy being aware of their existence, and having a reliable source by which to reference them whenever I please.

EDIT:

To further add to 'Combine Beatport with other resources,' I would suggest that you research a particular artist you're interested in beyond what Beatport has to offer. Beatport doesn't always contain a complete discography of the artist in question, especially if they have unreleased material or a far-reaching back catalog- and it's a great way to get into the histories of the people you're into.

Also, be sure to search by title if you run into a track you like that's region exclusive, or available only as an album download, as there are often multiple releases of a track on Beatport.

Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.