Most DJs build crates by hand. Drag a track in, drag another, repeat until the crate is out of date again.
Smart Crates flip that around. You tell Serato what belongs in the crate, and it fills it for you, including every new track you add later. Done properly, a library of Smart Crates mostly maintains itself.
Done badly, they fill up with the wrong tracks and get deleted. Here is how to do it properly.
What a Smart Crate actually is
A normal crate is a list you build by hand. A Smart Crate is a set of rules. Serato looks through your whole library, finds every track that matches the rules, and shows them as a crate.
Like any crate, it is a list, not a copy. A track can sit in as many Smart Crates as it matches without using any extra space.
How to make one
- Click Add Smart Crate on the left-hand side of the main Serato screen.
- Give it a name.
- Click Add Rule, pick a field, a condition and a value.
- Add more rules if you need them.
- Decide whether the track has to match all of the rules, or just one of them.
- Tick Live Update, then save.
The rules you can use
Each rule is a field, a condition and a value. The fields are the columns in your library: Artist, Song, Album, Genre, Grouping, Composer, Comment, Label, Remixer, Filename, Key, BPM, Year, Added and a few more.
The conditions depend on the field:
- Text fields (Genre, Artist, Comment, Grouping and so on): is, is not, contains, does not contain.
- Number fields (BPM): greater than or equal to, and less than or equal to.
- Dates (Added): before or after a date.
Two things trip people up:
- A BPM range is two rules. BPM at least 100 and BPM at most 110. One rule cannot do both.
- Match all or match any. With “Match all of the following rules” ticked, a track needs to pass every rule. Without it, it only needs to pass one, which is how a “100 to 110 BPM” crate ends up with your entire library in it.
The Live Update box
At the bottom left of the Smart Crate window is a Live Update tick box. With it on, the crate re-checks itself whenever your library changes, so new tracks file themselves.
With it off, the crate is frozen at whatever it matched when you made it, until you press the refresh button next to it. If a Smart Crate isn’t picking up new music, check this first.
Why most Smart Crates don’t work: the tags
A Smart Crate is only as good as the tags it reads. If a track has:
- a blank genre, it can’t match a genre rule,
- “Hip Hop” when the rule says “Hip-Hop”, an is rule misses it,
- no BPM, because it was never analysed, it can’t match a BPM rule,
then it never appears in the crate, and nothing tells you it is missing. That is why fixing your tags comes before building crates in the organising order.
Two ways round it:
- Use contains for genres you know are messy. “Genre contains Hip” catches Hip-Hop, Hip Hop and HipHop. It also catches anything else with “Hip” in it, so it is a stopgap, not a fix.
- Fix the genres once. Our guide to fixing messy genres and tags in Serato covers doing it by hand, and Tags & Cues does a whole library in one pass: blank genres filled, one spelling per genre, sub-genres into Grouping or Composer. It is free to try on up to 25 tracks.
Once the tags are right, every Smart Crate built on them is right too.
Eight Smart Crates to copy
All of these use rules Serato actually has. Tick Live Update on each one.
1. Genre by tempo. Genre is Afrobeats, BPM at least 100, BPM at most 110, Match all. Repeat for each genre and tempo band you play in.
2. Warm-up. Genre is R&B, BPM at most 95, Match all. Swap in whatever your openers are.
3. New music. Added is after the first of this month. Move the date forward when the crate gets too long. It is not a rolling “last 30 days” window, but it is still a new-music crate you never have to drag into.
4. Intro edits. Song contains Intro, or Filename contains Intro, Match all off. Record pool intro edits almost always say so in the title or filename.
5. Clean versions for weddings. Song contains Clean. Add a genre rule with Match all if you want it per genre. If you have the clean, the dirty and three edits of everything, the free Versions tool helps you decide which to keep.
6. Your own vibe tags. Put a word in the Comment column - Peak, Opener, Heavy Hitter - and make a Smart Crate for Comment contains that word. Tagging a track becomes the same thing as filing it.
7. Sub-genres. If you keep sub-genres in Grouping, Grouping is Amapiano gives you an Amapiano crate that stays inside your Afrobeats genre without cluttering the Genre column.
8. Everything except. Genre is Hip-Hop, Song does not contain Acapella, Match all. Does not contain is the quickest way to keep acapellas, instrumentals or radio edits out of a crate.
Smart Crates and Rekordbox
Rekordbox can’t read Serato’s crates, smart or otherwise. If you play on both, Sync converts Serato Smart Crates into Rekordbox smart playlists that keep filling themselves, for the rules both programs share. Moving your music from Serato to Rekordbox covers what carries across.
Watch: Smart Crate ideas
The short version
Smart Crates are rules, not lists. Use Match all for ranges, tick Live Update, and fix your tags first, because a Smart Crate can only find what is tagged properly.
Download Music Library Tools for Mac or Windows. Tags & Cues is free on up to 25 tracks, and Backup, Missing Tracks, Versions and Add New Music are free to use.