How I Use Comment2 & Colour in Traktor
These are two Traktor exclusive data points that I use on every track in my library, here’s how I use them and why I use them to keep my library in check in conjunction with smart playlists.
Colour
Colour for the energy of a track is something I used as soon as I started with Traktor, after moving from Rekordbox, where I also used its colour tag function for track energy. I work my way through the rainbow of sorts;
- Magenta: Ambient tracks and tracks without percussion/drums
- Violet: Tracks with subtle percussion and/or drums, a step above ambient
- Blue: Early in the night, deep house tracks, usually slower, some techno and breaks too
- Green: A couple of hours later, the tracks will feature more vocals and hooks, still very deep house with breaks and some early techno too
- Yellow: Peak time tracks with stronger kicks and baselines, they’ll usually be slightly quicker too, with more techno and heavier afro house sounds appearing
- Orange: Banging house and techno, I don’t have too many tracks in here.
- Red: Unused and kept aside for the future.
Some tracks in my library do not have colour and they are samples; I keep a few playlists of field recordings, acapellas, and clips of spoken word passages. They’re deliberately kept away from my tracks with colour, and don’t need sorting into scenarios, which is what I use for Comment2.
Comment2
This is where I define where and/or in which scenario I might play the track.
- Intro: An intro track, something that will start my set, either ambient or something with a fade in introduction (no kicks or percussion)
- Outro: A last track of the night, it might have a long fade out or be a specific track that has the ideal feeling for the end of the night.
- Bridge: These are tracks that I’ll play on a third deck over the top of two tracks that are being mixed together, they’re often short and subtle, maybe tracks without percussion but enough rhythm to sit over kick drums.
- Fill: Usually an ambient track that adds layers to two tracks that are being mixed together via a beatless/ambient outro and intro.
- Mine: Tracks that are for me, they’re tracks that fit my ideal and perfect sound
- Pavilion: A bar that I DJ that has a specific music policy
Smart Playlists
Now I have Colour and scenario through Comment 2, I can build smart playlists. Simple ones are a folder for a location, so for example;
Where Comment2 contains ‘Pavilion’ and Colour equals ‘Blue’
This gives me a playlist of early sounds for me to play at Pavilion. Or how about;
Where Comment2 contains ‘Mine’ and ‘Bridge’ and Colour equals ‘Magenta’
This would give me a playlist of my tracks that are ideally suited to intros to a mix and they’re ambient - instead of showing me all the intros from all the different track energies (colours) available.
I also create Smart Playlists involving genre (all my breaks tracks for example) or date added (new tracks that are coloured Green).
This is how I use Colour and Comment2 in Traktor. If you’ve got any specific workflows or tips for Traktor, I’d love to hear them, email me.