One feature that most digital DJ software has, but that is surprisingly missing from Serato DJ Pro is the ability to “rate” tracks in your library. It’s a feature that many users of other DJ software depend on. And while it may be missing, there is a pretty easy workaround to add your own rating system within Serato DJ Pro, which I’ll share with you today.
So if you’re a DJ who’s recently moved over to Serato DJ Pro from another software and miss being able to rate your tracks, or if you’re a long-time Serato user and want to see what you’ve been missing, you’ll want to check this out.
Why use a rating system?
One of the biggest benefits of digital DJing is the ability to tag and organise your library any way you see fit. While many DJs may commonly organise their library by BPM or genre, another great way to organise your library is by energy level – and this is where a rating system comes in handy.
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Knowing the perceived “energy level” of your tracks (just guess! you can always change your mind later) helps you to control the ebb and flow of your DJ sets, and is an easy way to play smoother sets – and assigning a star rating to each track, 1 to 5, is a great way of doing this.
However, you may choose to use star ratings for other things, such as to rate how much you like tracks, or how well they tend to go down with your audiences, too. Whatever you feel works best for you, they’re a great thing to have.
Creating a rating system in Serato DJ Pro
Serato DJ Pro provides a wide variety of different tags columns that you can use to sort and organise your library. So many, in fact, that most DJs will not end up using all of the columns – and this is where we can add in our own rating system.
Pick a tag column that you do not actively use (personally I never use the “composer” column) and use this as your “rating” column. We’ll then use the star emoji to rate our tracks. This has two benefits; Visually it’s very easy to read, and also we will be able to sort by lowest to highest or vice versa.
Now you may be wondering exactly how to add the emojis in Serato DJ Pro, since there isn’t a way to easily access them within the program. If you are on Mac, hit ctrl + cmd + space bar and you’ll be able to choose any emoji. If you are on Windows, open a text editor then hold down the Windows key and press period, and this will open up the emoji panel where you can select the emoji you are looking for.
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Once you have your emoji panel open it is easy to click on the emoji you’d like to use – for me that would be the star – and add it to your selected column.
Bonus tip that I like to use: Once I’ve added one emoji, I highlight it and copy and paste it from that point on. This not only allows me to close the emoji panel but I also find it faster to use the paste keyboard shortcut than having to click over and over again.
Finally…
The more I use the rating system within Serato DJ Pro, the more puzzled I am that it’s not a built-in feature. While most digital DJ software does offer this, with this workaround you can add it in yourself easily. If you use Serato DJ Pro, give this tip a try and I’m sure you will be how useful being able to sort and organise your DJ library by energy level can be.
How do you use the star rating in your DJ software? Any questions about this? Ask below.
Marc Santaromana
