Download
Before downloading and installing Trainspotter please make whatever backups of your Traktor collection that you would when using a beta version of Traktor from Native Instruments. The use of this software is at your own risk. Read the testing guide for the recommended backup/testing steps.
Current version is 1.70 (changelog)
- Trainspotter Windows 32 bit installer - download
- Trainspotter Windows 64 bit installer - download
- Trainspotter OS X cocoa 64 bit installer - download
- Trainspotter OS X cocoa 32 bit installer - download
- Trainspotter OS X carbon installer - download
- Download the latest user guide here (pdf) or view here (html)
Note if downloading with IE, right click the download link, click “Save Target As …”, and change the extension to .jar before saving.
Which OS X installer do I need?
The correct version depends on the processor and version of OS X you are running. For non-Intel machines download the carbon installer. If you’re running 64 bit Leopard or later then go for the cocoa 64 bit installer, otherwise use the cocoa 32 bit installer.
Recommended third party tools
- FLAC - Windows, OS X
- Nero
- LAME
- cdparanoia
Installation Instructions
- Make sure you have Java 1.5 or above installed. Preferably install Java 1.6. If you’re on a Mac change your Java Preferences to favour Java SE 6, if you have it installed:
- Double-click the .jar file
- Follow the installation instructions in the installer.

Upgrade instructions
To upgrade from an older version, just run the installer and overwrite your existing installation, your preferences will be maintained.
Testing Trainspotter
If worried that Trainspotter may mess up your collection, but still want to give it a try, the recommended appraoch is the following:
- Backup the contents of your <documents directory>/Native Instruments/Traktor/ directory, to say, <documents directory>/Native Instruments/Backup of Traktor/
- Backup any precious audio files to a location that won’t be picked up by Traktor, i.e. not one of you music folders
- Run Trainspotter using the default locations for the collection.nml and backup directory – Trainspotter expects to find various directories under Native Instruments/Traktor and expects to be able to have write permissions to the folders and files contained in it.
- Perform some operations in Trainspotter, save the collection.nml
- Run Traktor and check that the collection.nml is still valid, in the rare case where Traktor cannot parse the collection, you can restore your collection.nml from your <documents directory>/Native Instruments/Backup of Traktor/ or from <documents directory>/Native Instruments/Traktor/backup
- Check that any audio files that you have encoded or updated the artwork in play in Traktor and also play any other audio software that you use
- Post any problems to the forum
Changelog
Version 1.70
Bug fixes
Fixed bug where the MP3 encoder preference was not being read correctly
Fixed bug in genre preference page that prevented you from adding new genres and sub-genres
Version 1.69
New features
Added import date and release date playlist sets
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug in non English Windows installations where Trainspotter was failing to find the “My Documents” directory.
Fixed a bug where Trainspotter would crash if trying to update an entry in the collection which did not have the COVERARTID set
Fixed bug where Trainspotter would crash if the iTunes integration was enabled and no track had been played in itunes, and a track was updated.
Other changes
Changed the dynamic playlist rule evaluation of the “is between” expression so that the upper and lower bounds are included in the results
Version 1.66
New features
Added search from clipboard button - Trainspotter will search discogs for the catalog number using whatever is in the clipboard
Added ability to read embedded tags when importing tracks via drag and drop. This can be enabled in the “Track Import” preference page.
Added ability to write Comments2 to Grouping tag. This can be enabled from the “File” preference page.
Bug fixes
Fixed bug where creating a static playlist under a new folder would cause Trainspotter to crash
Version 1.65
Bug fixes
Fixed bug where not all files and directories were being added when dragging and dropping files on to Trainspotter
Version 1.64
Bug fixes
Fixed bug where recording a track from discogs would crash Trainspotter if the release didn’t have images and the release had more than one label
Fixed bug where flac files with more than one embedded image were showing up in Traktor with the last image as the cover art instead of the first image
Version 1.63
Bug fixes
Fixed bug where key detection was not being performed before encoding to flac/mp3, ignoring the preference setting
Fixed bug where downloaded images applied to tracks were not being displayed when the collection was opened in Traktor
Version 1.62
Bug fixes
Fixed bug where downloading artwork for tracks whose release contained a double quote or <> cause Trainspotter to crash
Fixed bug where artwork applyied to a previous track was being applied to the current track if Trainspotter had not finished updating the artwork before changing tracks
Fixed bug where Trainspotter was assuming all downloaded images were JPEGs, which would cause crashes.
Fixed bug where playlists sets based on a dynamic playlist defined on an XQuery were being defined incorrectly. Previously each playlist in the set was just a copy, now they are defined correctly
Fixed bug in dynamic playlists where they were not being calculated correctly until the collection was saved
Fixed bug where ts would keep asking you if all albums lived in the same dir
Fixed bug where unchecking the iTunes preference did not stop Trainspotter from using iTunes
Other improvements
Changed the timeout and retry settings for HTTP requests. Trainspotter will now timeout a request after 5 seconds and won’t retry. These settings were changed as they were causing the UI to become unresponsive.
Reduced the maximum thread pool size to two, this should reduce the load on your machine and make Trainspotter more responsive, though it may take longer to update embedded images. This does not affect the tools threads setting, this will be updated if you change the threads setting on the any of the tools pages.
Version 1.61
New features
Added a preference setting in the “Searching” section - “Attempt to match tracks in the same directory to tracks in a release”. This affects when Trainspotter prompts you “is … the directory where all tracks in this album live?”. The default is checked which means that it will ask you, turning it off will assume that your tracks aren’t in “album” directories.
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug where Trainspotter would repeatedly ask “is … the directory where all tracks in this album live?” for tracks in the same directory. Trainspotter now only asks once for each directory.
Version 1.60
New features
Added the ability to create sets of dynamic playlists based on keys, custom tag values and genres
Bug fixes
Fixed bug where the collection was not being loaded properly
Version 1.59
Bug fixes
Fixed bug where values from the key detection process were not being updated in the tags.
Version 1.58
New features
Added support for using iTunes as a browser
Recording and ripping tracks are added to the iTunes library
Renaming file is in Trainspotter updates iTunes with the new filename
Tracks dropped on to Trainspotter are added to iTunes
Updates from tag page and browser cell edits are reflected iTunes
Added artist, release, label and genre content assist on custom tag page
Added genre and style selector and preferences
Added drag and drop support for moving playlists around (dynamic playlist sources are updated where applicable)
Added support for cover art in MP4 files
Added ${playlist.name} as a property that can be used in scripts
Added ${output.images} as a property that you can set in an ant script - this should be in the same format as the images paths saved in the comments/lyrics fields, and should reference an image under your collection’s home directory
Bug fixes
Fixed menu initialisation bug where menu shortcuts would not work until after the menu had been clicked
Fixed bug where playlists were not being copied and evaluated correctly
Fixed bug where tags would not be written to files during script processing
Fixed bug on windows versions where tracks were not being found in the collection under certain circumstances
Removed second “do you want to save” popup dialog which was appearing
Fixed bug when renaming playlists
Changing a dynamic playlist name via the dialog now updates other dynamic playlists that depend on it
Delete key now works in the playlist editor
Fixed bug where recorded files were not showing up in the collection
Fixed bug in the ant script functionality where a filename change from the ant script was not being properly applied to the collection
Fixed bug where writing a tag to a file would fail if there was no tag present in the file
Improvements
Added a warning if no tracks were accepted as part of a drag and drop
Added confirmation message box when deleting playlists/folders
Updates to playlists are now propagated to the tools pages
Hitting return on mac no longer edits a dynamic playlist but renames it
Sorting by column in the browser is now case insensitive
Fields in dynamic playlist dialog are now sorted alphabetically
Preferences field selection is now sorted alphabetically
Version 1.57
New Features
Added the “Reload collection” function. If the collection.nml is changed by Traktor when Trainspotter is running, Trainspotter will ask you if you want to reload the collection.
Added play button to custom tagging page
Added matching releases row size preference
Added native OS X preference menu, COMMAND+, now gets you to the preferences
Bug Fixes
Fixed relocation bug where playlist keys were not being updated on mac versions
Fixed bug where clicking on a track in the browser when in search mode did not always search discogs
Fixed bug where playlists were being cached even though the collection was reloaded
Fixed bug where recorded tracks were not showing up in the collection straight away
Fixed bug where Trainspotter would crash when you hit record and the update embedded tags preference was set
Fixed bug on mac versions where right clicking the collection browser and clicking “Edit” did not edit the target column, only the first column
Fixed bug where adding a track to a playlist would deselect the selected playlist
Fixed bug where tracks with keys already defined we being reanalyzed during the encoding batch processing event when “override key value” was turned off
Fixed bug where the batch processing pages would indicate that processing was taking place when there was actually no tracks to process
Fixed bug where Trainspotter would crash after a combination of encoding and relocating tracks
Other Improvements
Changed field names to be those in Traktor
Trainspotter now stores all the found images for flac files, previously it only stored the first
Changed field names in dynamic playlist dialog to match those in Traktor. Some attributes are only stored in the nml file and not displayed in Traktor, these are shown in capitals
Changed “ranking” to read “Star Rating”. Ranking is the attribute used in the NML file
Change default preference so that the window is maximized on startup
Changed various font sizes
Removed default file open preference, File->Open now uses the collection.nml directory as the default
If you try to run a batch process and there is no files to process (either the playlist is empty or no applicable files were found), then Trainspotter pops up a dialog box
Added tooltip to date dialog on the dynamic playlist dialog
Added message warning that you can’t run trainspotter without specifying an nml file
Updated the “Mode” tooltips
Added more shortcuts and icons to menus
Hitting “return” after editing a cell in the collection browser no longer results in the track being selected and the user being taken to the discogs or tagging pages
Added command + right arrow to add to playlist on mac
Added command+s to save on mac
Decrease the frequency of the UI updates in the batch processing output window
Duplicate files can no longer be added to the collection via drag and drop
Changed default file preferences for Windows versions so that the defaults are now …\Documents\… rather than \My Documents\ on Windows 7/Vista if “My Documents” doesn’t exist
Changed default “automatically play track when tagging” to off
Tasks now get added to the batch processing list at the top so you don’t have to keep scrolling down
Changed the max number of threads in the thread pool so there is always 2 threads free
Improved UI updates during batch processing
Changed tool output notification to UI
Improved concurrency in batch processing
Known issues
Sometimes Trainspotter will ask you twice if you want to save your collection when you exit the program
The fields in the dynamic playlist dialog and preferences aren’t sorted
Version 1.56
Bug Fixes
Fixed bug where cover art was not being updated properly in the custom tagging page
Fixed bug where the VOLUME field was not being set after encoding a file to MP3/FLAC
Version 1.55
Bug Fixes
Fixed bug where updating tags on wav files would cause Trainspotter to crash
Fixed where “invalid thread access” error messages would appear during key detection
Version 1.54
New Features
Added antialiasing to tooltip images and tag page images
Added button to find next track without cover art
Added Google images search parameters preference
Added “Apply album art to all tracks in release” preference
Added “Download” button on tagging page to allow you to search google images for cover art
Bug fixes
Fixed bug where click on a playlist after relocating tracks would cause an exception
Fixed bug where null images in audio files would cause errors
Fixed bug where “Apply to album” was not working
Fixed bug where null album names would cause a crash
Fixed bug when trying to create a dynamic playlist that already existed
Fixed bug in “Apply to album” button where cover art was not getting written to all tracks in the release
Fixed bug where embedded images would always be written to MP3/FLAC files
Change discogs client so that release urls now end in a slash, this was causing error pages to be returned from discogs
Other improvements
Checks for missing files/permissions etc when starting up
Changed the encoder selection in the preferences to use the file dialog rather than a text field
Changed cursor to “app starting” when processing lengthy tasks
Changed tool page processing to be multithreaded
Changed key detection preference page so that all the necessary preference setting are all on one page
Changed appearance of buttons on the toolbar
Version 1.53
1.53 now uses the more standard way of separating program files and configuration files. Previously the Trainspotter.properties and trainspotter.log files were contained in the install directory, now they are located in the My DocumentsTrainspotter (Windows) or Documents/Trainspotter (Mac) directories. If you’re upgrading, Trainspotter will take care of copying your existing settings in to this new location.
The Windows installers now run with administrator privileges which should allow you to install to “Program Files” if this wasn’t possible previously.
New Features
Added Windows 64 bit Installer
Added “perform key detection after ripping tracks from CD” preference
Added “perform key detection before encoding to FLAC/MP3″ preference
Added support for ripping releases containing more than one CD
Added right click to arrow buttons to select previous/next in selected playlist
Bug fixes
Fixed bug in mac version where it was impossible to search for/tag tracks in Traktor 3 collections
Fixed bug in batch processing window where click start without selecting a playlist would cause a crash
Other improvements
App now converts old style layout to new layout with properties and log in the Documents/Trainspotter directory
Added “close” button on batch processing pages
The Key tag is now included in MP3s encoded with lame
Version 1.52
Bug Fixes
Changed file path generation so that empty fields are replaced with “unknown ”
Fixed bug in encoding mp3s where blank tags would cause lame to hang
Fixed bug “invalid thread access” errors in mac versions
Fixed bug where artwork was being set in MP3 files without the mime type. This would case the artwork not
to be displayed in iTunes. The mime type is now correctly set.
Fixed bug where updating tracks from discogs didn’t update all the tags
Added checks for null columns
New Features
Added key detection
Added updating of embedded tags
Added comments field to tag page
Added key colour scheme
Added “Write tags to audio files” preference
Other Improvements
Updates to the collection viewer are now done using a separate thread to improve performance
Updating tags in audio files now preserves the file modification timestamp
Improved UI responsiveness when saving collection
Improved responsiveness of UI when encoding and decoding files
Added command+q shortcut to quit Trainspotter
Added additional line separators to preference pages
Added performance improvements for loading collection (Java 1.6 only)
Playlist viewer now has the same column order as the collection browser
Added icons to “Tools” pages
Changed total progress bar to give feedback on number of items completed and estimated time of completion (tooltip)
Improved responsiveness of the UI when encoding and decoding files
Underscores are now removed from the “Search highlighted text” to make it easier to search discogs from filenames
Changed log4j settings so that log files roll over and don’t get too large
Release date is now set as in xs-date format, rather than Trakor date format when updating from discogs
Reduced the timeout when calling discogs
Changed font italics for major and minor keyed songs
Added CONTROL + , shortcut to preferences menu
Changed the wording on some of the preferences
Added the startTraktor and startTraktor.bat scripts to the distribution
Version 1.51
Bug Fixes
Fixed bug where releases were not being added to the discogs collection
Fixed bug in playlist contents list where the rows were not being correctly coloured
Fixed bug in testing output filename format in preferences
Added recovery from discogs failures and track number mismatches
New Features
Sample scripts included to allow you to run Trainspotter to regenerate dynamic playlists before opening Traktor (this functionality requires a license)
Added batch processing based on playlists rather than the entire collection.
Added “rip command outputs to standard error” preference. Depending on the executable that you use for ripping CDs, it may output to standard out or standard error. Trainspotter reads this output and displays it in the status bar text. Nero uses standard out, cdparanoia can be configured to use standard error with the -e switch.
Added collection browser row height preference
Added check for updates on startup preference setting
Other Improvements
Changed cover fade speed
Changed fonts to be all system default fonts
Added default ripping command (cdparanoia) and parameters to mac versions
Added more feedback during ripping CDs
Version 1.50
Bug Fixes
Fixed bug where updating images on MP3s would fail on non JPEG images
Fixed bugs when using a Traktor 3 collection, searching and saving had previously been broken.
Fixed bug when updating fields in a track where the album title was “unknown”, now Trainspotter does not assume tracks on an “unknown” titled album are from the same album
New Features
Added “Copy Playlist” function
Added “Continue encoding on error” preference. By default Trainspotter will stop batch encoding if it encounters an error, this allows you to override this.
Version 1.49
Bug Fixes
Fixed bug where embedding cover art in MP3s would cause some of them to be unplayable in iTunes
Fixed bug where MP3 cover art was not being replaced when updating it
Fixed bug where cover art was not being updated in flac files
Fixed bug where unselected fields were being displayed twice in the some of list box preferences
Fixed bug where a crash would occur when trying to select the next track when already at the end of the collection
Fixed Null Pointer Exception when ripping CDs
Fixed bug where Trainspotter would crash if you hit return on the collection browser before selecting a track
Fixed bug where next track to update in collection browser was not being selected
Fixed bug where if you tagged tracks on an album and one could not be matched, the UI showed that no updates to the collection had been made, when in fact they had
Fixed bug where Trainspotter would crash when recording a track when “update folder album art” was turned on
Encoding to MP3/FLAC now clears the playlist cache. This was causing invalid nml files to be generated
New Features
Added ability to read embedded cover art in flac and MP3s to display in the browser
Added support for embedding multiple images in MP3 files
Added image cache size preference and image field preference
Paths to cover art can now be stored in either the comments, lyrics or remixers fields
Added the comments field as a field that can be edited in the collection browser
Other Improvements
Changed some of the wording/layout in the preference pages
When searching discogs the “none” catalog number is now ignored as searching for “none” gives very poor results
Suppressed console logging from JAudiotagger library
Changed calls to discogs to cope with cached requests from proxies
Changed cover art popup so that nothing is displayed if there is no cover art, previously a small window with nothing in it was displayed
Version 1.47
Bug Fixes
Double quotes are no longer added around tag values when encoding to MP3
If images are greater than 128kb in size a –idv3v2-only parameter is added to the LAME arguments
When using a filename format which included directories, LAME would fail to write the output file if the directory didn’t exist, Trainspotter now creates the directories
Version 1.46
New Features
Batch encoding of WAV files in your collection to MP3s (requires LAME encoder)
Embedding and updating cover art in MP3s
New “Search selected text” button - highlight text from the current audio filename, click the button and Trainspotter will query discogs with the highlighted text
New filename regular expression matching features allow you to extract tag information from your audio filename to use to search discogs and match track names.
Added “Update embedded album art” preference, you can now choose not to update the album art if you don’t want to
Added 44.1kHz 24 bit as a recording format
Suggest ideas for new features here or join the user forum
Usability Improvements
When searching your collection, the next track to search is selected based on whether it is missing a catalog number or an image in the browser, previously this was based solely on whether the catalog number was present or not.
Bug Fixes
Fixed bug where folder.jpg was not being written if the preference was set.
Trainspotter now automatically sets the file preferences correctly for Traktor Pro on Windows versions
Fixed bug where save would crash if file permissions weren’t correct on certain directories
“Mixed with” data is now only calculated when the preference is set, previously it was always calculated, which slowed down saving and saving backups.
Version 1.45
Fixed bug where custom tag values were not being saved in all cases. Previously they were only saved if you click next/previous track, now the values are saved whenever the track being tagged changes.