How to Find the Tracklist for a Festival Set

Festival sets are easy to confuse. The same DJ may play two weekends, two stages, a back-to-back and an afterparty in one season, and each is a different set with a different list. Write down the artist, the stage, the festival edition and the date before you search.

Tracklist sites name sets in exactly that pattern. The Tomorrowland overview on 1001Tracklists lists entries such as "Martin Garrix @ Mainstage, Tomorrowland Weekend 2, Belgium", each with its date. Search with those words and you land on the right page instead of last year's set.

If tracklist notation is new to you, read DJ set tracklists first; it explains timestamps, "w/" rows and IDs.

Open the festival's or the DJ's own upload and expand the description. Some uploaders paste the full list there, and on YouTube a list of timestamps can become clickable chapters. YouTube's Help page on video chapters says chapters come from timestamps and titles in the description: the first must be 00:00, there must be at least three in ascending order, and each chapter must be at least 10 seconds long. YouTube can also add chapters automatically on some videos.

A chaptered video is a tracklist with the timestamps already done. Check the pinned comment and the top comments too, where viewers often post partial lists. Treat comments as leads, not as facts, and confirm by ear.

Search 1001Tracklists for the set name from step 1. Big festival sets are where it is strongest, because many members work on the same page. Its FAQ says members can submit tracklists after correctly identifying five tracks and that new tracks are validated manually. A page for last weekend's set is a draft that keeps changing, so look again after a few days.

Then try MixesDB, which has archived DJ mixes, radio shows and podcasts with their tracklists since December 2006 and asks readers to correct mistakes. It is most useful when the festival set was also broadcast as a radio show.

Neither site has every set. Small stages, local festivals and sets that were never officially recorded are often missing.

Many DJs and festivals post the audio of a filmed set to SoundCloud as well. Search SoundCloud for the artist plus the festival and year, and check the DJ's own profile first. Read the description and the timed comments on the waveform, where listeners ask for and answer track IDs at the exact moment a track plays.

Make sure it is the same performance: the length and the opening track should match the video. A studio mix with the festival's name in the title is not the live set.

Search the library for the DJ, the festival or the stage. Reading any tracklist already in the library is free and needs no account. Every row has a timestamp, and each track has its own page showing the other sets it was played in, which helps when the same unreleased tune is doing the rounds that summer.

If step 4 found a SoundCloud upload and nobody has listed it, paste the link at /scan. Only SoundCloud links are accepted today; YouTube, Mixcloud and file uploads are not supported, so a set that exists only as a YouTube video cannot be scanned.

Sets from 15 minutes to 5 hours work. One credit ($3.49) covers a set up to 2 hours, and /pricing has the bundles. A typical 90-minute set takes about five to eight minutes, and an email arrives when it is done. Each row gets a timestamp, store and streaming links when found, and a confidence score from 0 to 100 on a colored badge: lime is high (75 and up), amber is in between, and gray is low and worth checking by ear. A "Double match" label means two independent matches agreed. If the run fails or nothing is recognized, the credit is refunded automatically.

Festival sets carry more unknown rows than almost any other kind of mix. A festival slot is where producers play their own unfinished tracks, edits made for that show, and promos from friends. Mixmag wrote on March 29, 2017 that playing a tune nobody else has is a special feeling for a DJ and one that attracts avid listeners, and gave examples of tracks that circulated for years before any release.

No list can name these yet. Community pages write them as "ID - ID" or "Artist - ID", and MixTracklist cannot identify music that has never been released or cataloged anywhere, so those rows stay unidentified. Save the timestamp and check back, or follow how to find an unreleased track ID.

If the set is on no database and has no SoundCloud upload, people are the remaining route. Post the link and the exact timestamp in the comments of the upload, or in one of Reddit's track ID communities; how to ask for a track ID shows what to include so you get an answer. For a single track in a video, a phone app such as Shazam can work during a stretch where one track plays alone, and it tends to fail during blends and on unreleased music. In our view a festival set with three honest IDs beats a complete-looking list with three guesses.