What a DJ mix tracklist looks like

The default shape, and the one a description box wants, is time first: a timestamp, one space, then the track. Written out, that is 0:00 Halo Vector - Nightbus, then 4:18 Mara Sol - Low Tide, then 9:02 Reverse Cadence - Drift Signal, one per line, with nothing before the time and nothing bracketing it.

It reads well for the same reason a table does, though the left edge is less straight than it looks. Minutes are not padded, so the time column widens by one character the moment a mix passes ten minutes and 9:02 is followed by 10:14. That is worth knowing before you try to align anything by hand.

Numbering turns it into the shape used for a posted or printed tracklist: 1. 0:00 Halo Vector - Nightbus, then 2. 4:18 Mara Sol - Low Tide. Numbers earn their place when people talk about the mix afterwards, because “track seven” is easier to say than a timestamp. They get in the way when the list is meant to become chapters, since the number then sits where the platform expects the time.

The third shape reverses it and puts the time in brackets at the end — Mara Sol - Low Tide [4:18] — which is the convention on forums and in Reddit threads. It suits places where the track name is what a reader is hunting for and the time only matters once they have found it.

Include the artist. A list of titles alone is hard to search and useless to anyone trying to buy the record. The convention is the artist, a hyphen with a space either side, then the title, so an entry reads Halo Vector - Nightbus.

Remixes and versions go in parentheses after the title, as in Mara Sol - Low Tide (Reverse Cadence Remix). That is how labels write it themselves, so it matches what a listener finds when they search. Keep the whole credit on one line even when it runs long.

The choice between artist first and title first only appears when the file kept the two apart, which is why it is absent for a mix built in Ableton Live or FL Studio. A marker there holds one string, so the order you typed during the session is the order you publish. The same thing happens to any row you retype on the results page: editing the name collapses the two fields into one, and that line stops following the switch while the rest of the list still moves.

Most sets contain something that cannot be listed: an unreleased promo, a dubplate a friend sent over, a track you have agreed not to name yet. The convention for those is to write “ID - ID” — unknown artist, unknown title, in the same shape as every other line, so the entry still holds its place and its timestamp. When you know one half, write the half you know: Halo Vector - ID for an unreleased track, or ID - Nightbus when you have the title and not the name behind it.

Nothing here fills that in for you, and it should not — an ID is a decision about what you are willing to publish. A marker with no name arrives with its time intact and an empty name field to type into. If the names are written down somewhere else already, paste the lot into the track names box and they fill the rows in order, with any leading numbers or timestamps stripped off as they go.

Write ID - ID on those rows rather than leaving the line blank. Blank lines are skipped when a pasted list is applied, so an empty row does not hold a place — it pulls every name below it up by one, and a shift like that is only visible once you read the finished list back against the mix.

A mashup is two credits joined, usually with “vs” between them, and an edit of your own is the original credit with your name in parentheses — Mara Sol - Low Tide (Halo Vector Edit). Both run long and both belong on one line anyway, because a list that wraps in some browsers and not others stops lining up.

Pick the shape from where the list is going rather than from what looks best in the box. Anywhere a platform builds navigation out of the list, the time has to be the first thing on the line, which rules out numbering and rules out the bracketed form. Anywhere the list is only read by people, all three work and the choice is taste. Three presets set a whole shape in one click, so you are not matching four settings by hand.

The separator is a choice of three: a plain space, a dash with spaces either side, or a vertical bar. It does double duty, which is easy to miss. In the time-first shapes it sits between the time and the name; in the title-first shape it sits between the name and the bracketed time. Changing it changes both.

Numbering can be padded to a fixed width — 01., 02., 03. — which holds the numbers in a straight column once a list runs past nine entries. The width comes from how many entries there are rather than from where you are in the list, so twelve tracks are padded and nine are not.

A credit line for this site is added under the list by default. It sits below a blank line rather than inside the tracklist, it is visible in the output box before you copy anything, and one click removes it.