Tag what a track is and when to play it.
Open Crate Codes is a free, shared system for tagging genre and energy. It lives in the Album field, so every DJ app can read, sort and search it, and your tags still make sense on someone else's laptop.
Build a tag
Built to stay readable
A tag you write today has to mean the same thing in five years, and in another DJ's library.
Codes never change
DNB means Drum & Bass in every version. Retired codes still read, and they're never reused for something else.
Names are for people
Apps identify a tag by its family number and code, and ignore the name. Renaming a genre doesn't break anyone's tags.
Energy is relative
E5 is the biggest track in its own genre. A Deep House E5 and a Hard Techno E1 can both be right.
Private codes are yours
Codes starting with X and families 90–99 are for your own additions. The standard will never use them.
Every genre by tempo
Each bar is a genre's usual BPM range, coloured by family. Families 01–09 run from the slowest typical tempo to the fastest. Ambient, open format and utility genres have no set tempo, so they're not on the map.
Select a genre to read about it.
Genres
Every genre has a three-letter code. Broad genres have optional styles: a track is DNB, or DNB.LIQ when you know it's Liquid. Leave the style off when you're not sure.
Loading the genre list…
Energy is relative to the genre
Energy says when to play a track. Rate it against other tracks in its own genre, not against your whole library: the biggest Deep House record you own is E5, even though it's calmer than any Hard Techno.
Deep House
Tech House
Hard Techno
Most libraries end up with most tracks at E3 and only a few at E5. That's a result, not a rule. Leave a track unrated and no energy is written.
Mixed In Key's energy (1–10) measures intensity across all music, so it's a different scale. Keep both if you use both, and don't convert one into the other.
Labels
Labels are yes-or-no facts about a track, written into the Comment field as hashtags. Pick at most one from each group. Apps keep any other text in the comment as it is.
Comment: #vocal #edit #clean #1990s
Finding tracks
Build smart playlists on the Album field. Always include the family number: on its own, a code like MIN also finds untagged tracks from albums called Mind or Domino.
| To find | Album contains |
|---|---|
| Every Drum & Bass track, with or without a style | 09 DNB |
| Only Liquid Drum & Bass | 09 DNB.LIQ |
| Drum & Bass peak weapons | 09 DNB and E5, as two conditions that must both match |
| Psy-Techno, a style of Peak Time Techno | 07 TPK.PST |
| App | Where | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| Rekordbox | Intelligent playlist, Album contains | Not yet |
| Serato DJ | Smart crate, Album contains | Not yet |
| Engine DJ, Traktor, VirtualDJ, djay | Library search on the Album text | Not yet |
Works with your other tools
Open Crate Codes only uses Album, Genre and hashtags in Comment, so it sits alongside the tools you already use. A few settings keep them from stepping on each other.
Mixed In Key
Keep it for key and its 1–10 energy, which measures intensity across all music. Write its results to Grouping or in front of the comment, never "Overwrite the comment", or your labels are gone.
Auto-taggers
OneTagger, MusicBrainz Picard and similar tools can overwrite Album with the release title. Turn that off for tagged tracks. The crosswalk lets them suggest a code from the genre they find.
Rekordbox
Build the searches above as intelligent playlists. My Tag stays in Rekordbox's own library; these tags travel with the file to any app.
Library managers
Lexicon and similar tools carry Album between DJ apps, so your tags move with your library. Make sure metadata clean-up leaves Album alone.
The details are in the spec.
Use it
The draft is open for comments. Codes in it won't change; genres may still be added before 1.0.