Application icon

Beatport Importer

Beatport is an online music store specializing in electronic music.

Yate allows you to search the Beatport database in order to extract metadata and artwork for individual tracks. The functionality can be accessed via an action statement named Access Beatport and interactively via the Beatport Importer. Note that you must authenticate Yate to search Beatport. A Beatport account is required. The authentication process is described here.

Note that if all your tracks have an associated Beatport Track ID, the action statement is far more efficient than the importer.

The Beatport Importer is opened by the Actions menu's or main window context menu's Beatport Importer item.

The first time you run the importer, the options panel will automatically be displayed. The options panel allows you to configure how you are going to search and what metadata you wish to import. On the panel you can elect to continue showing the the panel when the importer is started or to hide it unless manually opened. More information on the options panel can be found here. If the option panel is not displayed when the importer opens, searching for metadata will start immediately.

The importer window presents a tree view of the files selected in Yate's main window. Note that changing the file selection in the main window will update the contents of the importer window. The window displays the following columns of which all may be sorted with the exception of the Score column:

Filename or File Path
This column displays a filename (or full path) on track lines.
Title
This column displays the contents of the Title field in a track or the title metadata in a potential match.
Artist
This column displays the contents of the Artist field in a track or the artist metadata in a potential match.
Status
As the name suggests, this column displays status information.
Track ID
The column displays a Beatport Track ID which is associated with the item.
Release ID
The column displays a Beatport Release ID which is associated with the item.
Import
This column contains a check mark if the item has been marked for import.
Score
The score is a number assigned by Yate's weight algorithm which is used to determine which match is best. Larger implies that according to Yate's criteria, the match is better than one with a smaller number. Matches are sorted by descending scores. If only a single match has been found, the score is not calculated or displayed.

A disclosure triangle may appear to the left of a filename. This allows you to expand the view to include all potential matches which have been found for a track.

Items in the display are colour coded. File/track items display blue when a match associated with them has been marked for import. They display red when no match information is yet loaded or can be found. They are displayed black when potential matches have been downloaded but no match has been marked for import.

Matched tracks in the database are displayed black unless they have been marked as an import source in which case they are displayed blue.

After downloading the list of potential matches for a track, Yate will optionally mark the track with the highest score for import. This depends on your options. There is no guarantee that this is the correct match. You should always examine the choices automatically made for accuracy. The Release ID column can be used to determine inclusion in a common album.

The font size can be adjusted via the Font menu. You can autosize columns or all columns from a column header's context menu. Often columns which become too large are difficult to manage. From the same context menu, you can downsize a column or all columns.

The window's context menu can contain the following functions:

Mark for Import
You can use this function to override Yate's choice. Note that marking a match for import will unmark any previous choices.
Unmark for Import
Manually remove the import status from an item.
Show Track on Beatport
Open the Beatport web page displaying information about the track associated with the currently highlighted item.
Show Release on Beatport
Open the Beatport web page displaying information about the release associated with the currently highlighted item.
Show Files (Paths) / Title
Select to display full paths or filenames in the first column.
Expand / Collapse All
Expand or collapse all items which display a disclosure triangle.

The options can be displayed at any time by the Options... button. If you change the search criteria on the options panel, downloading will be attempted again for tracks with no matches.

When you have made your track-match selections you can hit the Import button to finalize the import process. Note that the Import button can be hit at any time, even while metadata is still being downloaded. Only tracks already marked for import will be processed.

When import is selected, Yate will attempt to download catalog metadata and artwork, if the items have been marked for import on the options panel.