How to organize a DJ music library in Apple Music with star ratings

How do DJs organize their music? The tools they use sort by what is written on each track: the rekordbox track filter narrows a list by BPM, key, rating, color and My Tag (rekordbox manual), and Mixed In Key adds an Energy Level from 1 to 10 (Mixed In Key). Music has one of those fields too, the star rating, and it stays on the song

Give the stars one meaning

Pick one question the stars answer and keep it for the whole library. Here is a scheme you can copy, it is ours and not a standard:

• 5 stars. Play it first, in any set
• 4 stars. Solid, fits a set
• 3 stars. Fine in the right place
• 2 stars. Maybe later
• 1 star. Candidate to delete
• No stars. Not listened to yet

Keep the stars about how good the song is for you. BPM, key and energy belong to the tools built for them, see Mixed In Key energy level and star ratings

Turn ratings on

In Music, open Songs, choose View, then Show View Options, and select Rating. Then click or drag in the Rating column to add or remove stars. Apple describes the steps in its guide to rating songs

Pull the best ones back out

A smart playlist collects songs by rule and updates itself. Choose File, then New, then Smart Playlist, and add a rule (Apple's steps). Apple's own example is a playlist of your most highly rated rock songs, so a rule on the rating, combined with a genre rule, gives you a shortlist for a set

Rate while you listen

The slow part is the rating itself: you listen through a folder of new songs and go back to the Music window after each one. Likeit puts it on a shortcut. Press your Rate shortcut and a digit from 0 to 5, from any app, and the stars land on the song that is playing. For a song that is already in your library the rating is set at once

Use it in rekordbox

rekordbox can read your Music library from an exported file. The steps, and what the manual does not say about ratings, are in how to use your Apple Music library in rekordbox

Likeit rates, likes and marks songs Suggest Less from the menu bar and leaves the Music window alone