iTunes & Traktor Collection
I’m using BeaTunes and love it.
I’ve been searching for a long time for a way to manipulate the metadata that Traktor creates and stores in iTunes.
For example - I’d love to create an iTunes smart playlist that is based on the number of times a track has been played in Traktor.
It would mean comparing the Traktor Collection .xml with the iTunes Library .xml, and updating the iTunes .nml with the Traktor playcount from the Collection .xml.
Could BeaTunes be the bridge that sits between Traktor and iTunes, to allow us to manipulate the Traktor metadata in iTunes???
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1 Posted by Patch on 11 Jan, 2018 06:27 PM
Also - I don’t store my music in any kind of folder structure.
All my music (7k’ish files) is in a single folder in windows.
All sorting & grouping is done on iTunes based on file tags and in smart playlists...
Support Staff 2 Posted by hendrik on 11 Jan, 2018 07:28 PM
beaTunes supports multiple kinds of libraries: folder-based and iTunes-based.
When a library is folder based, beaTunes tries to stay in sync with the metadata that are actually in your files.
When a library is iTunes-based, beaTunes tries to stay in sync with whatever iTunes is showing to you.
I assume (and I may be wrong) that Traktor updates the play count field in your audio files. iTunes may not be aware of that. And if you are using an iTunes-based library, beaTunes will never read your files, but rely on what iTunes says (except for stuff that iTunes does not support, like keys).
But, have you ever played a file in iTunes after the play count was updated by Traktor? Typically, iTunes re-reads metadata when it plays a file. So your play counts may show up then. Have you tried this?
3 Posted by Patch on 11 Jan, 2018 08:58 PM
Traktor doesn’t alter the playcount in the audio files. It updates its own Collection.xml file (that holds all of the information relating to each file).
So Traktor records it’s own playcount in the Collection.xml, and iTunes records it’s own playcount in the library.xml.
No playcount record is held in the audio file.
Support Staff 4 Posted by hendrik on 11 Jan, 2018 09:13 PM
Then what you really need is some tool that reads the Traktor's
Collection.xmlfile and periodically writes those play counts to iTunes.I am afraid, beaTunes is not that tool, as it has zero understanding of the
Collection.xmlfile. IMHO, Traktor should just update the files.5 Posted by Patch on 13 Jan, 2018 11:02 AM
I did wonder if BeaTunes could access the Traktor Collection file, the same way that it does access the iTunes Library file...
Support Staff 6 Posted by hendrik on 15 Jan, 2018 05:04 PM
I did some digging and one could write a simple plugin that parses the NI
collection.nmlfile, extracts filenames and play counts and writes those to beaTunes (and thus iTunes). The hardest part is probably converting the ancient mac paths to POSIX paths...Support Staff 7 Posted by hendrik on 15 Jan, 2018 05:47 PM
Are you on Windows or macOS?
8 Posted by Sky Makai on 15 Jan, 2018 08:24 PM
I'm interested in the same thing. MacOS user here.
Support Staff 9 Posted by hendrik on 17 Jan, 2018 09:01 AM
Anything else besides the play count you'd like to import from
collection.nml?10 Posted by Sky Makai on 17 Jan, 2018 06:46 PM
Play Count as well as Last Played would be helpful. Thank you.
11 Posted by Patch on 17 Jan, 2018 08:01 PM
I’m on Windows.
That’s REALLY exciting. Honestly, I don’t play ANY of my DJ library in iTunes, I literally only use iTunes for library management, and navigation/loading from the iTunes node in Traktor.
Re: other Traktor info to add to iTunes - yeah - last played would be useful. I suppose any playcount or date info where the tag type is available in both iTunes and Traktor would be usable in creating Smartplaylists.
I’m super excited about this. Really glad that it could potentially make it into BeaTunes featureset!!!
Support Staff 12 Posted by hendrik on 18 Jan, 2018 06:05 PM
So...
I hacked a little and created a beaTlet that should do what you want. It's in the GitHub repo at https://github.com/beatunes/beaTlet-samples/blob/master/groovy/Impo...
Feel free to install it, restart beaTunes and give it a shot. To use, select the
Toolsmenu and thenImport Traktor Dates & Counts. A "File Open" dialog will pop up and you will have to select the correctcollection.nmlfile. Once that is selected, beaTunes will try to parse it and adjust dates and play counts in its own library accordingly (... and if that's tied to iTunes, iTunes will be told about these changes). There is little visual feedback, but a wait cursor and a done message.I have not properly tested this. It should work on macOS, but on Windows I haven't had a chance to really try it out. So your mileage may vary ;-) If you are able to program, feel free to improve the script and send a pull request.
Hope this works for you,
-hendrik
13 Posted by Sky Makai on 18 Jan, 2018 06:12 PM
Thanks, Hendrik.
I'll give it a try on MacOS.
Support Staff 14 Posted by hendrik on 18 Jan, 2018 06:57 PM
Cool. Please let me know how it goes!
15 Posted by Patch on 18 Jan, 2018 10:45 PM
I’ll make backups of my Traktor & iTunes library’s and give it a go on Windows this weekend!!!
Cheers!
16 Posted by Patch on 21 Jan, 2018 12:31 PM
Looks like I won’t get round to trying this this weekend - but it is now at the top of my to-do list!
Support Staff 17 Posted by hendrik on 27 Jan, 2018 10:24 AM
Hey guys,
just wanted to check in with you — have you tried the beaTlet? Did it do what you expected? Any issues?
Thanks,
-hendrik
18 Posted by Sky Makai on 28 Jan, 2018 04:37 AM
Hi, Hendrik.
Tried it w/ the current versions of BeaTunes (5.1) and Traktor (2.11.2), on MacOS 10.12.6.
It did not work; I chose the current Collection.nml file, and got a notice that the process had completed, but neither the Last Played or Play Count tags were updated.
Thanks,
Sky Makai
Support Staff 19 Posted by hendrik on 28 Jan, 2018 09:05 AM
Thanks for trying. Can you please try again and then upload your logs (via
Help,Upload Logs)? Hope fully that will shed some light on why it didn't work.20 Posted by Sky Makai on 28 Jan, 2018 07:30 PM
Hi, Hendrik.
I just did so a moment ago.
Thanks,
Sky
Support Staff 21 Posted by hendrik on 28 Jan, 2018 07:50 PM
Hey Sky,
for some reason, the beaTlet has trouble interpreting the location element in your
collection.nmlcorrectly. Any chance you can send me that file, so that I can reproduce the issue? If you don't want to post it here, feel free to email it to support @ tagtraum.com (you might want to zip it before you attach it).Thanks!
-hendrik
22 Posted by Sky Makai on 28 Jan, 2018 07:58 PM
Sure thing.
Support Staff 23 Posted by hendrik on 28 Jan, 2018 08:20 PM
Thank you. Does the attached version work better?
And if not, can you please send another set of logs?
Cheers!
24 Posted by Sky Makai on 29 Jan, 2018 03:00 AM
Looks like that worked!
Support Staff 25 Posted by hendrik on 29 Jan, 2018 07:17 AM
Great! :-)
26 Posted by kdejaeger on 13 Feb, 2018 06:25 AM
Nice, I find this useful as well.
27 Posted by Patch on 21 Jan, 2019 02:42 PM
Right - I know I'm over a year late, but I finally got round to giving this a try on Win10, and it works GREAT!!!
Support Staff 28 Posted by hendrik on 21 Jan, 2019 02:48 PM
Ha! 😃👍
29 Posted by Patch on 22 Jan, 2019 12:21 PM
Hey Hendrik - could we add something to this beaTlet?
I often update teh "Comments" tag in-line in Traktor as I'm playing, and, obviously, those comments don't show up in iTunes until I "Get Info" in iTunes, or re-import the tracks with updated comments.
So, could we add the "Comments" tag into this beaTlet?
Cheers!
30 Posted by Patch on 25 Jan, 2019 05:59 PM
Could this even be done?