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How to · Engine DJ

Tag tracks by genre in Engine DJ.

Fix the Genre field on the tracks first, then let Engine DJ do the sorting: click a track's Genre cell to edit it, or Shift-select a batch and Shift-double-click the Genre field to change them all at once. Then switch on the filter boxes, click a genre to narrow the track list, and create a Smartlist with the rule Genre contains, so each genre list keeps filling itself as you add music.

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A track in Vibes carrying several colored vibe tags next to its BPM and key

One track, several tags at once, instead of one genre line to fight over.

Tag tracks by genre in Engine DJ, step by step.

Engine DJ keeps one Genre value per track in the file's ID3 tags, and three parts of the app read it: the Genre column, the Genre filter box, and the Genre rule in Smartlists. Here is how to organize Engine DJ by genre so all three stay useful as the collection grows.

01

Show the Genre column

Right-click any column header in the track list and tick Genre so the field is on screen. Click the column header to sort the list by it, and hold Shift while clicking a second column, BPM for example, to sort by both at once. Seeing the field is what makes the gaps and the typos obvious.

02

Edit the Genre field on a single track

Click a track to select it, then click inside its Genre cell and type. Press Enter to save. Engine DJ writes the value into the track's ID3 tags, so the genre stays with the file. If you changed the tag in another program after importing, right-click the track and choose Re-import track information to pull the new value in.

03

Bulk edit a whole batch at once

Hold Shift and click to select a range of tracks, then, still holding Shift, double-click the Genre field. Press Enter and a window appears to confirm you want to change the metadata on every selected track. This is how you collapse Tech-House, Tech House, and TechHouse into one spelling instead of retyping them one by one.

04

Filter the collection by genre

Click the Filters button in the upper-right corner of the Collection pane to show the five filter boxes: Genre, Artist, Album, BPM, and Key. Click a genre and the track list shows only those tracks. Hold Ctrl on Windows or Command on macOS to pick several genres at once, and combine the filter with the word search field.

05

Build a Smartlist per genre

Click the gear+ icon next to the Collection header, or right-click in the Collection pane and choose Create Smartlist. Name it, set the rule field to Genre, pick contains, and type the genre. Click Add Rule to narrow it further, a BPM range for instance, tick match all rules so both must be true, then click Create.

06

Send the genre lists to your drive

Open Sync Manager from the bottom-left corner of Engine DJ, or click Export in the toolbar. Choose the drive, check the boxes next to the genre playlists and Smartlists you want, watch the capacity bar at the bottom, and export. Smartlists pack to drives like normal playlists, so the genre structure is waiting on the player.

The catch

Engine DJ gives each track one Genre field, and it is free text. A record that is honestly both disco and house has to be squeezed onto that single line, and nothing stops two spellings of the same genre living side by side as two separate categories in the filter box. Genre is also the only tag axis: there is no track color field and no energy field to organize by feel.

AfterhoursMysteriousIntrospectiveEvolving

The faster way

Genre tags across the whole library, without typing them.

Vibes imports your Engine DJ collection and reads the Genre, Mood, and Grouping fields you already filled in, so nothing you typed is lost. Auto-Tagging listens to each track and suggests vibes from the sound itself, and Vibe Sort lets you confirm or change a tag with a hotkey. When the tagging is done, export the result back to Engine DJ as a playlist tree.

See how it works
Import Wizard pulls in the Engine DJ library and keeps the Genre, Mood, and Grouping values already on your tracks
Auto-Tagging proposes a vibe for every track from its own audio, so the untagged half of the library stops being untagged
One track can carry several vibes at once, and Combinations turn any overlap into a ready-made list
Export the tagged library back to Engine DJ as a playlist tree, with optional Camelot key or BPM sub-folders

Organize in Vibes, export to Engine DJ.

Your playlists, tags, ratings, and cue points travel back to the gear you play on, so nothing you do in Vibes is locked away.

Track 001 by Artist A

Track 001

Artist A

128
3A
Track 002 by Artist B

Track 002

Artist B

124
5B
Track 003 by Artist C

Track 003

Artist C

132
8A
Vibes App
Playlists
Vibes
Mood
Aggressive
Euphoric
Melancholic
Mysterious
Peaceful
Playful
Tense
Function
Arrangement
Sets
Club Night 12/28
NYE Closing Set
Rooftop 01/04

Frequently asked questions

The honest answers, including the trade-offs.

Start with the fields the software already reads, then add structure on top. Get genre, BPM, key, and rating right on every file, because filters and rule-based lists depend on them. Then group by how you actually play: a broad genre layer at the top, tempo or energy inside it, running order last. Use manual playlists for gigs and rule-based lists for anything that should maintain itself. See organizing your Engine DJ library.
Pick a set you can apply in a second, not a textbook taxonomy. Most DJs land on eight to fifteen buckets that match the rooms they play: house, tech house, disco, hip hop, R&B, and a catch-all for edits. Write the exact spelling down and use it everywhere, because Engine DJ matches genre text literally. Push anything finer, like sub styles or moods, into comments or a tagging tool. The same call applies in Rekordbox.
There is one Genre field per track, so there is no second slot. You can type several values into that one field and lean on the Smartlist Genre rule, which offers contains as a modifier, so a list built on contains disco still catches a track whose Genre field lists more than one style. It stays a workaround: the filter box treats the whole string as one category. For real multi-tagging, see Auto-Tagging in Vibes.
Because the file itself carries no genre in its ID3 tags. Engine DJ shows what the tag contains and never guesses a value. Click the track, click the Genre cell, type the genre and press Enter to write it. If you filled the tag in another program after the track was imported, right-click it and choose Re-import track information so Engine DJ picks up the change.
Usually the rule and the tag do not match exactly. Check the modifier first: is equal to needs the whole field to match, while contains matches part of it. Then check spelling, because Tech House and Tech-House are two different strings. If you added a second rule, the match all rules box decides whether every rule must be true or just one of them. Right-click the Smartlist and choose Edit Smartlist to change it.
Yes. Genre is an ID3 tag, which the Engine DJ user guide describes as information stored in the file itself, and Engine DJ updates those tags when you edit the field. That helps when the files move, since other software reads the same tag. It also means a bulk change is not trivial to undo, which is why Engine DJ shows a confirmation window before rewriting several tracks at once.
Yes, once they are on the drive. Open Sync Manager, check the playlists and Smartlists you want, and export to your USB drive or SD card. Smartlists pack to drives the same way ordinary playlists do, so a Genre contains house list arrives as a browsable list on the player. See exporting your library to USB for the full pass.
No, it sits in front of it. Vibes imports the Engine DJ collection, keeps the Genre, Mood, and Grouping values already on your tracks, and adds vibes that a single genre field cannot hold, with Auto-Tagging proposing one for every track. You then export the result back to Engine DJ as a playlist tree, so the gear you play on still reads a normal Engine library. Vibes has no decks and does not play out.

From a Vibes customer

The import worked perfectly. Have created several sets now and my life is so much easier
Danny

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Methodology

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Verified against the app

Every step is checked against the current version of Engine DJ.

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We make Vibes. We show the native way first and honestly, then where Vibes genuinely helps, and we say when it does not.

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Last reviewed June 2026.

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