How to Load Club Ready Music Tracks Into VirtualDJ With Cue Points

VirtualDJ loads Club Ready Music tracks straight from the tags: drag the MP3 into the library and VirtualDJ picks up title, artist, album, cover art, the BPM from TBPM and the key from the tag, then you open the POI editor and add cue points from cue points.txt or the comment tag. VirtualDJ does not read the Serato hot cues embedded in studio tracks, so the POI editor is where Club Ready Music's cue times become hot cues. The job is quick because every Club Ready Music cue falls on a bar boundary of a fixed grid.

Steps

1. Get the files and the cue list

Download the DJ pack for a studio track and unzip it to get the MP3, the cover, cue points.txt and the rest. For a DJ edit press MP3 320. Open cue points.txt in a text editor and keep it visible; it lists BPM, key in three notations, Intro bars and Outro bars, and each cue as m:ss.mmm with a name. For a DJ edit the equivalent list is the end of the comment tag, which you can read in the VirtualDJ tag editor or any tag tool.

2. Drag the MP3 into the library

Drag the file into the VirtualDJ browser, or add its folder. VirtualDJ shows title, artist, album Club Ready Music, genre, BPM and key from the tags, and the embedded cover appears as the artwork. Studio tracks have the (Extended Mix) suffix in the title when you ticked it; DJ edits have genre DJ Edit. Both carry the key as a musical key in the standard key tag, with Camelot and Open Key in the comment.

3. Confirm BPM and first beat

VirtualDJ can take BPM from the tag or from its own analysis. Club Ready Music renders at one fixed tempo, so both should read the same number. Check that the first beat marker sits at 0: a studio track with the default Hard start on bar 1 begins on a downbeat, and a DJ edit opens with a drum loop that starts on a bar. If the beat phase is offset, move the first beat to the start of the file and the rest of the grid follows.

4. Open the POI editor

Load the track to a deck and open the POI editor, the place in VirtualDJ where cue points, called points of interest, are added, named and typed. Choose the hot cue type for the points you will trigger with the pads. Work from the cue list on screen and add one point per line.

5. Add the studio cue points

For each line in cue points.txt, move the playhead to the m:ss.mmm time, snap to the beat, and add a hot cue named like the line: intro end, first drop, outro start and vocal in when the sheet has it. Five points cover a studio track including start. Put intro end and outro start on the first two pads, because those are the ones you mix with; first drop and vocal in are for performance.

6. Add the DJ edit cue points

The comment tag ends with three cues, for example start 0:00.000, intro end 0:30.476, outro start 3:12.000. Add hot cues at 0, at the intro end and at the outro start. If you would rather not type times, count bars: intro end is Intro bars from the start and outro start is Outro bars before the end, both exact. Snap each to the grid so the pad triggers on the downbeat.

7. Save and check

Close the POI editor; VirtualDJ saves the points in its database. Play from the intro end pad and make sure the first downbeat of the song proper arrives at once, then jump to the outro start pad and confirm the vocals and melody begin to fade over two bars while the drums continue. If both land, the cues are right and the track is set-ready.

Tips

• Keep cue points.txt next to the MP3 so you can read the times while the POI editor is open.
• Name your points the same way on every track. Searching for intro end across the library then finds the mix-in point on any file.
• The comment on studio tracks reads like 8A, 1m, A minor, 126 BPM, intro 16, outro 32, Club Ready Music, so a search for 8A returns every track in that Camelot key.
• Loading the WAV instead of the MP3 gives the same timing; the cue times in the sheet apply to both.
• For a batch of DJ edits made for one set, do all the POI editing in one sitting; each edit takes under a minute.

Common problems

• No cue points after importing. Expected. VirtualDJ ignores the embedded Serato cues. Add them in the POI editor from cue points.txt or the comment.
• The key field is empty or odd. The key came from the tag in musical notation such as F#. Check the tag read setting for key and reload the tag; the comment has the same key in Camelot and Open Key.
• A hot cue triggers slightly before the downbeat. The point was placed by time without snapping. Edit it in the POI editor and snap it to the beat.
• BPM shows a different value after analysis. Analysis found a half or double tempo on a sparse intro. Use the TBPM from the tag; it is the render tempo.