Getting Started & Help

Overview

TangoDJ is a DJing program for Argentine tango events.

TangoDJ is composed of the following panels:

• Tracks: Import and manage your track files. This panel is intended to hold your entire track collection.
• Favorites: Collect your favorite tracks for your DJing. Usually, this panel holds your favorite tracks. You can copy and paste or drag and drop tracks from the Tracks panel to this panel.
• Tandas: Collect your tandas here. Select tracks in the Tracks or Favorites panel and choose "Make a tanda" from the context menu, or press Cmd/Ctrl-T.
• Playlists: Organize and create your playlists. You can copy and paste or drag and drop tracks and tandas from all the other panels to this panel.
• File Explorer: A folder browser to explore your music collection. Use the Open Folder button to explore different locations.
• Master: Audio master panel with volume, gain, filters, and equalizers.

Usually, the flow is Tracks > Favorites > Tandas > Playlists to build your music collection and perform live DJing.

Each panel has three areas: header, navigation tree, and list.

• Header: Contains controls for searching, filtering, and operations.
• Navigation Tree: Contains folders to organize tracks or tandas.
• List: Displays tracks or tandas in the selected folder from the Navigation Tree.

Controls

Mouse

• Click a track or tanda to select it.
• Clicking a folder in the Navigation Tree shows its contents in the list area.
• Drag and drop to move or copy items between folders and lists.
• Double-clicking a track or tanda in the list area will play it immediately.
• Right-clicking tracks or tandas in the list area will show a context menu with operations such as copy and paste.
• Shift-click to select a range of tracks or tandas.
• Cmd/Ctrl-click to toggle selection of individual tracks or tandas.

Keyboard

• Esc generally cancels the current action.
• Select a track or tanda and press Enter to play it.
• Open or close panels with Shift+F (Files), Shift+S (Tracks), Shift+C (Favorites), Shift+T (Tandas), Shift+P (Playlists), and Shift+M (Master).
• See the Shortcuts menu for a comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts.

Managing Music Libraries

• Select File > Import > Tracks... or Playlists..., then choose whether to import files or a folder recursively. Check "Organize by genre and orchestra" to automatically create folders by genre and orchestra from the imported tracks. For import tracks, choose which panel the imported tracks should go to (the active folder will receive them).
• Tracks and tandas can be copied, pasted, deleted, and dragged and dropped.

Managing Tandas

A tanda is a bundle of tracks played together, separated by a non-tango/vals/milonga track called cortina. Tandas are fundamental building blocks of a milonga playlist. The Tandas panel helps you create and organize tandas. Select tracks in any panel, and use one of the following methods to create a tanda:

• Right-click and select "Make a tanda." A tanda from the selected tracks will be created in the currently selected folder in the Tandas panel.
• Drag and drop the selected tracks to a folder in the Tandas panel's Navigation Tree. This will create a new tanda at the end of the list of the folder.
• Drag and drop the selected tracks to the tanda list of the Tandas panel. This will create a new tanda at the drop point in the tanda list.

Live DJing

Use the Playlists panel to plan, organize, and perform your live DJing. The Playlists panel is similar to the Tracks or Favorites panel in that it shows tracks, but it has special controls for live DJing, including:

• Time input: Set this HH:MM time input to the milonga start time for the playlist. All tracks and cortinas in the playlist will show when they will start playing. Clear this input and you'll see the timing from the current time.
• Cortina length dial: Click and drag this dial vertically to set the length of the cortinas. Right-click the dial to directly enter the length in seconds. Double-click the dial to reset it to the default length of 60 seconds.
• Between-tracks gap dial: Click and drag this dial vertically to set the length of the gap between tracks. Right-click the dial to directly enter the length in seconds. Double-click the dial to reset it to the default length of 2 seconds.

Audio Players

There are two music players in this main window: the Playlist Player and the Preview Player. The Playlist Player plays tracks from the Playlists panel. The Preview Player plays tracks from all the other panels.

• Audio output device selector: In the header section of each player, there is a dropdown to select the audio output device for the player. Use this dropdown to select different audio devices for main output and preview output. Audio devices can be changed realtime while tracks are being played.
• Silence skipping: In the header section of the Playlist Player, there is a button to skip silence. When this button is enabled, the player will skip silence at the beginning and end of the track.
• Lock: In the header section of the Playlist Player, there is a lock button. When the lock is enabled, the player will not be affected by operations that alter playback, except clicking the lock button again.

Master

The Master panel allows you to control the Playlist Player audio output. You can adjust volume and gain, and apply filters and equalization. Use the small dots above the memory buttons to enable or disable each preset.

• Dials in general: High/low-pass filters and equalizers are controlled by dials. Click and drag the dials vertically to adjust their values. Right-click the dials to directly enter the value. Double-click the dials to reset them to their default values.
• Memories: At the top of the Master panel there are three memory buttons with one dot above each button. Click a memory button to view and edit that preset. Click a dot to activate that preset; only one preset can be active at a time. Click the active red dot again to disable the preset.
• High/Low-Pass Filters: Just below the memory buttons, the HP and LP dials let you set high-pass and low-pass filters.
  • HP: Removes low frequencies below the set frequency.
  • LP: Removes high frequencies above the set frequency.
• Equalizers: Below the high/low-pass filters, there are five equalizers. Each equalizer has three dials: Frequency, Gain, and Q.
  • Frequency: Dial sets the center frequency of the equalizer.
  • Gain: Dial sets how much to boost or cut the frequency.
  • Q: Dial sets the width of the frequency band to be affected.

  The five equalizers are:

  • LS: Low shelf. It controls the low frequencies below the set frequency.
  • L: Low frequency equalizer.
  • M: Mid frequency equalizer.
  • H: High frequency equalizer.
  • HS: High shelf. It controls the high frequencies above the set frequency.
• Playlist Player Gain and Volume: Below the equalizers, there are two dials in the MASTER section for controlling the Playlist Player's gain and volume.

Save

With the File > Save menu, you can save the current state of the main window, including all panel data and settings. When the application starts, the saved state is loaded automatically.