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Holzhaus committed May 6, 2020
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title: New in 2.3: Importing tracks and cues from Serato
author: Holzhaus
date: 2020-XX-XX 20:00:00

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As all of you probably know, Mixxx is the best DJ software in the market.
However, we've recently been made aware that a minor competitor has emerged and tries to steal that title from us - [Serato DJ Pro](https://serato.com/dj/pro).
Since Serato is neither open-source nor as customizable, so switching to the most popular open-source DJ software in world seems like the obvious choice.

Unfortunately, migrating from Serato to Mixxx is a lot of work - apart from familiarizing yourself with a new tool, all the countless hours you spent to organize and prepare the tracks in your old library are lost, and your need to start from scratch.
At least until now - if you're a Serato user and cast and eye on Mixxx, we've got a nice surprise for you.

In addition to Rekordbox device libraries {# TODO: Add link to rekordbox blogpost #}, we added support for reading Serato's database files in Mixxx 2.3, too.
This means that the tracks from your [Serato library](https://support.serato.com/hc/en-us/articles/203015464-Sorting-and-browsing-your-library) will show up in in the library table and can be directly loaded onto decks without the need to add the music directory to in the preferences.
[Crates created in Serato](https://support.serato.com/hc/en-us/articles/227561407-Crates) are also supported, so your collection is still neatly organized.

If you have USB drives with a [portable Serato library](https://support.serato.com/hc/en-us/articles/202304844-Using-a-USB-external-hard-drive-for-your-portable-library) on it, we've got you covered as well:
Libraries and crates on external USB drives will work on all supported platforms - even on Linux!

{# TODO: Insert screenshot of Serato library feature once the skins are finalized. #}

Sorting tracks in your library is importing, but preparing [cue points](https://support.serato.com/hc/en-us/articles/226518228-Cue-Points) in tracks is probably the most time-consuming task.
Serato saves them in special file tags along with the other track metadata like title, artist and so on.

It took a lot of work, but we finally manage to reverse-engineer the binary format that is used by Serato to a degree that allows us to parse this information and use it in Mixxx.
This means you can import the positions, labels and colors of your hotcues into Mixxx automatically when you load the track for the first time.

{# TODO: Insert side-by-side screenshot of hotcues in Mixxx and Serato once the skins are finalized. #}

If your already added a track to your Mixxx library before support for reading Serato's hotcues was added, you can trigger a reimport of the metadata via the track context menu.
Note that this will clear your existing cuepoints in Mixxx if the track has any Serato hotcues.

{# TODO: Add screenshot of reimport metadata context menu entry. #}


{# TODO: Document BPM lock, track color and add caveats. #}

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