The following is a transcript of a video I recorded that clearly details the difference between category and sort in Rekordbox when it comes to syncing with a USB flash drive.
So, I’ve often wondered about the ‘Category’ and ‘Sort’ options in Rekordbox in relation to CDJs. Understanding ‘Category’ was easy for me because you can pick different categories of tracks and put them into ‘Active’ or ‘Inactive’ categories. This allows you to filter what you want to see when selecting music on your CDJs. I’ll show you where ‘Category’ is on CDJs—it’s pretty easy to understand.
However, ‘Sort’ always puzzled me. I couldn’t figure out how it applied to a CDJ because none of my tracks would sort by key, BPM, rating, or genre in the way I thought they would. It took some time, but I finally understood what it means. Hopefully, this video can help you understand the difference between ‘Category’ and ‘Sort’ when it comes to CDJs.
Right, so ‘Category’ is typically the music organization you see when you first turn on your CDJ. I’ll show you exactly what I mean. You see playlists, genre, BPM, key, and so forth. When I approach my CDJ and insert my USB, these are your categories. They match exactly what you set in Rekordbox by player, genre, key, BPM, rating, and so on. That’s the main menu when you load up a USB, exactly what you have in your categories.
But where does ‘Sort’ apply? What does ‘Sort’ mean? I never figured that out until today. You’ll notice I have key, BPM, rating because maybe I want to sort my tracks by key, BPM, or the rating I assigned them, or by genre. Until today, I didn’t understand where these showed up on the CDJ.
So let me show you where ‘Sort’ shows up and how you can arrange and sort your tracks on a CDJ. After you export your music and sync your USB drive to Rekordbox with your sort setup, this is how you find it on your CDJ. Remember, ‘Sort’ has to do with sorting tracks you’re going to select. ‘Sort’ has nothing to do with your category level. You have to find a track list or a playlist you’ve set up because the sort affects your playlist, not anything else.
Let’s say I’ve got a playlist, right? So here’s my playlist. Now, if I hit the menu button on my CDJ, there’s the ‘Sort’ option. If you hit your encoder button, there is the exact sort list that you set up in Rekordbox when you exported everything to your USB—key, BPM, rating, genre, comments, alphabetized, artist, and default.
And of course, I can see the same sort list on Rekordbox that I exported onto my USB—key, BPM, rating, genre, comment, alphabetize, artist, and default. That’s where ‘Sort’ in Rekordbox comes into play because you can sort tracks in a playlist based on what you have set up in Rekordbox.
To get back to that, of course, come up and hit ‘Menu’ when you’re in a playlist. You can’t be in a main menu above a playlist. You have to be in a playlist that you’ve set up. Come up, hit ‘Menu,’ there’s ‘Sort.’ Push your encoder button, and there’s your sort list that you set up on your USB.
Hopefully, that helps you out because I was confused for years about this, and I just figured it out. So, hopefully, that helps you out too. Thanks.
Related article: How To Find Bulk Music On Beatport