01
Sort Your Shit
Files, storage, USB formatting, drive quality and the infrastructure layer behind your library.
Splittah cheatsheet
The DJ cheatsheet for booth prep and cleaner sets
A practical guide to booth craft, library prep, gear habits and the small systems that stop dumb mistakes from ruining good sets.
“So you wanna be a DJ? Sick, you're in the right place.”
A straight-up guide to the parts of DJing that save time, reduce mistakes and make sets easier to manage.
01 / Contents
The full section map
The whole cheatsheet, from file prep and USBs through to backups, troubleshooting and booth survival.
02
Prep It Like You Mean It
Analysis, beat grids, BPM sanity checks, tagging, and getting tracks ready before they ever touch a deck.
03
Playlist Alchemy
Organisation that actually helps under pressure instead of making your collection look neat at home.
04
Device Library vs OneLibrary
The Rekordbox architecture stuff most people only learn once it bites them.
05
Hardware Tips & Tricks
Quality-of-life tweaks, deck settings and small booth moves that pay off hard later.
06
Pro DJ Link
Why linked players matter and what to know before you assume the booth will “just work”.
07
Bags, Booth & Bunnies
Carry gear, etiquette, booth culture and surviving nightlife logistics without becoming a liability.
08
Break Ya Neck, Not Ya Ears
Hearing safety, volume discipline and not slowly ruining your own future.
09
Music Pools
Track sourcing and why cheap shortcuts sound worse the bigger the system gets.
10
Press Kit / EPK
Presenting yourself like an actual artist instead of a folder full of screenshots and hope.
11
Harmonic Mixing
Keys, compatibility and the theory that helps transitions feel cleaner and more intentional.
12
Moving Your Database
The ugly migration chapter. Necessary, annoying, and very easy to mess up.
13
Backup Your Shit
Redundancy, clones and not trusting one drive with all your work.
14
Troubleshooting
Answers to common failures and “why is it doing that?” booth moments.
A+
Appendix · My Settings
Settings references worth keeping close when the same headaches keep showing up.
02 / Deep dive
The strongest chapters
These are the sections that do the heavy lifting: file quality, library prep, organisation, gear habits and backups.
01 / Sort your shit
Start with files, not fantasy
- YouTube and SoundCloud rips are called out immediately because they fall apart on proper systems.
- 320kbps MP3 is treated as the floor, not the goal.
- External drives, exFAT collections and FAT32 USBs are framed as boring decisions that save your ass later.
- It starts at the foundation instead of pretending the boring setup work does not matter.
02 / Prep it like you mean it
Analysis is not “set and forget”
- Track analysis, BPM range choice and beat-grid accuracy are all treated as things you should actively inspect.
- Tagging matters because the search bar is only as useful as your metadata.
- Genre labels should be specific enough to be useful, not broad enough to be meaningless.
- The whole section is about reducing friction during actual performance.
03 / Playlist alchemy
Organisation under pressure
Not library organisation as a hobby. Library organisation as a survival tool once people are waiting for your next move.
05 / Hardware tips
Small habits, big payoff
Settings, workflows and habits that make the booth feel easier when the pressure is on.
13 / Backups
No single point of failure
If there is one recurring rule here, it is this: duplicate things before they hurt you.
03 / Keep in mind
Quick hits worth remembering
A few of the lines that sum the page up best: keep your files clean, label your gear and know your setup before you are standing in front of people.
Clear standards, zero fluff.
Funny because it’s true, memorable because it matters.
That’s the real thesis underneath the whole site.
04 / Use it
How to use the cheatsheet
Use it before a gig to tighten your prep, and come back to it after a rough night to patch whatever nearly caught you out.
Before a set
Check the boring stuff first
Files, USBs, tags, playlists and backups are easier to fix at home than five minutes before you plug into a booth.
After a set
Fix what annoyed you
If a track was mistagged, a USB was messy or a setting caught you out, clean it up now so it does not follow you into the next room.