Moving

This article is about moving your Music (and optionally your Library Settings files) from your startup (usually internal) drive to a different (usually external) drive, but still have it be used by the same kJams on the same computer.

If you're trying to move your entire kJams installation, including your license, to another computer, see the article on Transferring.

Preliminary

Also keep in mind that the below only applies to music files inside your "kJams Music" folder (a sub-folder inside your "kJams" folder). This includes:

• songs you have ripped from your CD collection
• songs you purchased through the built-in stores
• songs that you added to your library using the "Copy" option.

It does not work for files you added to your library using the "Reference" option. In that case, use the "The Symbolic Link Trick" below

How to do it

Just The Music

• Advantage: All your actual music files are on an external volume, saving space on your internal drive. You can run kJams even if the volume is offline: creating playlists, setting pitches, creating / editing singers, edit meta info, or any other editing or management.
• Disadvantage: If your external drive is offline, kJams will be only partially functional: you can NOT rip, play or burn (normally you DO have the drive connected, so it's fully functional). Secondly, your settings (songs & meta info, playists, singers etc) won't transfer automatically if you plug the external drive into another comptuter, since that information still remains on your internal / startup drive.

1. Determine the “new location” of your music files. In that location (network or external drive, etc.) create a new folder called “kJams”
2. On your internal drive, go to <User Folder>/Music/kJams/. Then, inside the "kJams" folder, you'll find the "kJams Music" sub-folder
3. Drag that "kJams Music" sub-folder into the newly created "kJams" folder from step 1.
4. If this is on an external volume, it will be copied (wait for it!), then be sure to delete the original "kJams Music" folder after you make the copy.
5. Run kJams
6. Go to the Menu bar and pick "kJams->Preferences->Advanced"
7. next to "kJams Music Folder location", click the "Change..." button
8. navigate to the "kJams Music" from the kJams folder created in step 1, and pick it, then click OK.

Music Plus All Library Settings

• Advantage: You can take your drive to a different computer and plug it in, and the installed copy of kJams on THAT machine will now be up to date with all your playlists, singers, venues, rotation, songs and related meta info. (This approach is probably better for professional hosts who have a backup computer for running shows.)
• Disadvantage: If your external drive is offline, kJams will not function at all (normally you DO have the drive connected, so it's fully functional)

1. Run kJams at least once, then quit
2. In the Finder, go to <User Folder>/Music/, and inside there, you'll find the "kJams" sub-folder
3. Drag the "kJams" folder to your external volume, wait till it's done
4. now delete the original the "kJams" folder from the internal drive (the one from step 2), and EMPTY THE TRASH (this is important!)
5. On the external volume, select the newly copied "kJams" folder
6. in the File menu, pick "Make Alias" (Mac) or "Create Shortcut" (Windows)
7. Drag (copy, not move) that alias/shortcut back into your <User Folder>/Music/ folder, where the original "kJams" folder used to be
8. Rename the alias/shortcut so it just says "kJams" (removing the rest, be sure to remove the SPACE after the word "kJams")
9. Now, on all the machines you plan to use this library with, plug in the drive, then do steps 6 and 7
10. you can now delete the alias from the other volume, you don't need it any more

Here is a Tutorial Video for Rebuilding while Moving to the external drive

Preferences

If you want to keep your preferences also on the external drive (which includes your serial number license file), do this:

1. if your external drive does NOT have a kJams folder already on it (ie: you did NOT do the above procedure, then create a "kJams" folder now on the external drive and leave it open
2. run kjams
3. click "help->reveal preferences"
4. quit kJams
5. in the Preferences folder that was revealed, you will see the name of that revealed folder is called "kJams"
6. drag that "kJams" preferences folder INSIDE the "kJams" folder on your external drive
7. delete the "kJams" folder from the Preferences folder you just drug it from
8. The original Preferences folder should now NOT have a "kJams" folder in it, and the external drive should now have the folder "kJams" with another folder called "kJams" inside it. I know that's a little weird, we'll fix that in a second
9. select the "kJams" folder that is inside the "kJams" folder on the external drive
10. rename it to be "kJams Preferences" (so it's obvious what it is)
11. go to the File menu and pick "Make Alias" (Mac) or "Create Shortcut" (Windows)
12. drag that alias / shortcut back to the "Preferences" folder
13. in the preferences folder, rename the alias to just "kJams", so that it does NOT have the word "alias" or "shortcut" at the end. BE VERY CAREFUL that you remove the extra space at the end. eg: when you start it will be "kJams_Preferences_alias", note i made the spaces look like an underbars to make them clear. you must NOT rename it to "kJams_", that will not work. Be sure to get rid of the space too!
14. on all the machines you plan to use these preferences on, do the previous 2 steps
15. delete the alias shortcut from the kJams folder

all set! when you run, kJams will now use the preferences on the external drive. If when you run it seems your preferences have been reset to default, and kJams is in tryout mode, then you probably named the alias wrong, so check that again.

Cloning a setup

WARNING: this process does not work cross-platform. Must pick one platform (mac or windows)

• Advantage: You maintain a fully working ready-to-run backup of your entire setup
• Disadvantage: You must manually maintain sync between the two systems.

To see the instructions see Cloning.

Serving Music Remotely

You can serve your music from one computer to another. Using either of the above methods, you can mount your music volume from your network before you launch kJams. If you store your music on a FAT32 or DOS volume (which is reasonable if you share your karaoke library with a Windows computer), you will need to share your music with SharePoints using SMB, and mount the volume using smb:// in the connect dialog in the finder.

The Symbolic Link Trick

This now works on both Mac and Windows! Use this trick if you need to tell kJams where you have moved your files. You basically create a link from where they were (where kJams thinks they are) to where they actually are now (where you want kJams to find them).

1. Quit kJams
2. if you haven't moved your folder yet:
   1. drag and drop the folder from the source location to the destination location
   2. delete the folder from the source location (if you wish to keep the original folder/files, e.g. if you are transferring from an external to an internal, and want to keep the external for a backup, move all source files/folders to another location, such as hiding them in another folder)
   3. on Mac: empty the trash. <-- critical step! if you don't do this, you'll be in for another headache
3. select the folder at the destination (new) location
4. go to the File menu and pick: on Mac: "Make Alias"; on Windows: "Create Shortcut". This creates a symbolic link (symlink) next to the original folder.
5. drag the symlink to the source (original) location
6. rename it to remove the " alias" or " - Shortcut", so that is has the EXACT same name as before. That way it *seems* that the files appear to be in the source location, at the same path. Be CAREFUL to remove the trailing SPACE!!! <-- critical step
7. if the symlink is still at destination location (ie: it copied rather than moved), you can delete it
8. run kJams, open your "Activity" window, wait for any tasks to finish
9. do a Forced Save (Mac: ⌘⇧⌥-S, Windows: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S) -- this will update all the paths in the Library database to point to the new location
10. you may now delete the new symlink from the source location