[slinkelist] CDJ questions/problems, plus CDSaver/PartyGUI

[Ron Chrisley]

It's probably not a good idea to mention these problems/questions all at
once, but if I don't, they won't get posted.

First, my setup:  I just bought my second CX350, which I have slaved to my
first CX350, which then sends audio out to my amp.  I am using CDJ version
1.30 Build 2016 (01/19/00) (I'm didn't want to get the new version until it
was clear how to get PartyGUI to work with it).  I also use CD saver (not
sure which version; it says modified 2 August 1999) and Party GUI (I think
it's the latest version -- I downloaded it just after Keith announced the
new version a few weeks back). (By the way, thanks for the programs

I think all these programs are great.  But here are some problems/questions.


Problems with the "date added" field:

Is there a Y2K bug when sorting by date added in the library?  It looks like
2000 dates are being sorted as earlier than 1999 dates.

I would like to be able to search by date added, to play all recently
acquired CDs, for example.

Buts most importantly:  why is the date added field not always filled in
when a new CD is added?


It seems that whenever CDJ encounters a CDDB title containing a slash, it
treats one side of the slash as the artist and the other as the title.  This
should be easy to fix?

When searching albums for number of times played, CDJ actually returns
answers based on track, not album properties.  So if the album option is
selected, and one searches for nt<1, the result is a list of all albums that
have a track that has not been played.  Perhaps this is intentional, but if
so, it should be added to the documentation.

Incidentally, in the help file, where comparisons are explained, "greater
than" and "less than" have been reversed.

Is there any way to save a *search* (parameterised playlists)?  For example,
I often start up CDJ, search for "kw = classical & nt<1", then press random.
This gives me all the classical tracks that I have not listened to.  But it
changes from session to session, so I have to type the search in every time.
Not too big a hassle, but it would be good if we could save "intensional"
playlists as well as "extensional" ones, if that means anything to anybody.

Is there a button that takes you to the library entry for the selection now
playing?  If there is, I can't find it.  It would be very handy!

One BIG hassle is the mess that is made it I happen to be editing a library
field when the track or disc changes:  the line I was editing is put into
the new track's entry!

I've been trying to search for empty fields (for example, to find library
entries that lack a keyword classification so that I can give them one).
But when I search for, say "kw == """, I get everything.  Am I missing
something very simple?

Could provision for rest-of-the-world dating systems (e.g., DD/MM/YY) be
made an option?

A trivial matter is that there is not popup help for the "option" and "tip
of the day" icons.  Big deal.

I would also like to be able to search by "has image", so that I can create
random playlists of only CDs that have images.  Is this possible?

I never had any "disc look up" problems when I had only one player, but now
with two CDJ just seems to skip a lookup every now and then.  E.g., if I ask
CDJ to look up every disc between 200 and 300 (on either player), about 10
CDs will not be looked up.

Now for the problems with two players.  One of the main reasons why I got a
second player is that I wanted to eliminate the gap between CDs, and looked
forward to using CDJ's mix/overlap feature.  But I soon found out that on
normal settings, two linked CX350s will not overlap.  As soon as one starts
playing, the other stops.  But then I discovered the "x-fade" feature.  The
problem is that it is not customisable using the CDJ dialogue.  But even
worse is that it does not work with CDSaver or PartyGUI.  If you x-fade
while using either of these programs, everything looks OK when the new track
starts, but when the old (faded out) track stops, it wipes most of the
CDSaver/Party GUI display, and never recovers.  Can this be fixed?  I'm
getting the suspicion that most of you who have two changers don't enslave
one, but hook both up to slink-e independently?  I want to avoid the extra
wiring if I can.  I just downloaded Marty's Slinkysaver (thanks Marty), and
it doesn't have the problem (but the text is too small for my low-res TV,
and it doesn't have the functionality of PartyGUI).

About x-fade in general:  it seems that the last 10-15 seconds of each song
is not heard -- is there any way to fix this?  That is, is there any way to
have the fade start the same distance from the end of the track as it takes
to fade out?

While I'm at it, could the authors of the CD covers programs (thanks James &
Brooks!)find a way of restricting lookups?  A large proportion of my CDs are
not in the covers databases, so there is a lot of wasted phone time (which =
$$ over here) looking up hundreds of CDs known not to have covers on file
when I add a few new CDs.  Yes, I know that I could give them dummy covers,
so that the covers program won't look for them, but I don't want to do that
because then there will be no easy way to find the CDs that need cover
scans!

Thanks for any help,

Ron Chrisley