How to Add Beatport Link & Soundcloud Streaming Tracks to Rekordbox Playlists
Rekordbox today officially released version 5.6.1 out of Beta. This new version includes streaming support for Beatport Link and Soundcloud.
YES!!
There is a limitation — in Rekordbox you can not add tracks from Beatport or Soundcloud to a playlist. There was a workaround in Beta but it stopped working! 😿
The Easy Workaround That STOPPED working
⚠️ THIS METHOD NO LONGER WORKS!
This worked in BETA but looks like Rekordbox have removed it on release.
Create your Beatport Link Playlist (tip: use BPPL tool to make this super easy), then rightclick that playlist in Rekordbox under the Beatport section and click “Create Playlist”. This creates a playlist with Beatport tracks in Rekordbox.
Then add tracks from your normal collection to this playlist.
The Downside of this method, when it worked, was that you could not easily sort the tracks to your liking. I used to use the Comment column to fix this by entering priority number in there and then sorting tracks by Comment.
The Rekordbox.XML workaround
Of course I had to find a solution. And there is!!
Its not as easy as the above method, and it requires messing around with the Rekordbox.XML export and then importing it back.
STEP 1: Add the Beatport tracks you like to your collection
STEP 2: Create or choose an existing playlist that you want to add Beatport tracks to. Note down the title of this playlist as you need to search for it later. Maker sure you have at least 1 normal track added before exporting.
STEP 3: Make sure the Filename column is visible and expanded so you can see the unique ID of the beatport tracks. You will use this later to find the ID of it in your collection.
STEP 4: Export the Rekordbox XML file — this can take a bit of time if you have a huge collection. I save it to my desktop and give it a different name. You might want to save a backup somewhere just in case.
STEP 5: Set rekordbox to import from that file. You do this in the preferences -> Advanced -> Database: Imported Library — click Browse and navigate to where you saved the file you will edit.
STEP 6: Open the Rekordbox XML file in a code editor (* I recommend Visual Studio Code from Microsoft) as you will need 2 “windows” to edit the file — one for search collection track IDs, and one for editing your playlist.
STEP 7: Locate your target playlist in the left panel by searching for the playlist title.
STEP 8: In the right panel, search for the Beatport tracks you want to add to the playlist. You can use the title, or the file ID shown in the Filename column as shown in Step 3. Then copy the TrackID value (e.g. 12457708 in this example)
STEP 9: Add the TrackID (e.g. 3528 in the example above) to the playlist in the left panel like this: <TRACK Key=”3528"/> and repeat step 7 & 8 for the other tracks you want to add.
STEP 10: Save the xml file & refresh the Rekorxbox XML section in your rekordbox sidebar and select the playlist you have been using to add the tracks to. As you can see the beatport track is now in the playlist.
STEP 11: Now just drag the playlist from under rekordbox.xml into your playlist section where the original was and it will be replaced.
Enjoy your Beatport Tracks
As you can see the main playlist now has beatport link and local tracks mixed.
Q&A
Does this work for Soundcloud tracks?
I think so but I have not tested it.
How do I sort the tracks in this playlist?
By adding the beatport tracks you can no longer manually sort this playlist. But there is a little workaround and I've posted a step by step runthrough here:
This is hard is there an easier way?
Not at the moment — someone has to build it as somehow I dont think Pioneer will. Maybe RekordCloud will :)
