Whenever a DJ is searching for a specific record and knows the artist name, using the keyboard is usually a lot faster than everything else. Our method for goal-oriented search will not be as fast, but still a lot faster than using for example a touchpad. The idea is to use the tone arm for positioning within an index. Experienced DJs have learned to reset the tone arm quickly and precisely, for example when they are skipping through a record. With timbap, you are skipping through your record collection. A projected visual cue is guiding you.

There are several visual cue types available. They are always combined with a sorting method. In the first picture you see the standard type which is an alphabetic index of artist names. The display size of the initial characters is proportional to the number of contained mp3s. When the projected size of the whole cue has been calibrated to go from the first groove to the last groove of the record, the index will be surprisingly precise. This way, you will only need a few needle resets to find the track you are looking for within hundreds of mp3s.

The power of the method becomes apparent when we have a look at the second picture. Here we do not use textual information, but compute the predominant color hue in the attached artwork and sort the collection respectively. Sorting colors to a one-dimensional order is not as trivial as sorting alphabetically. We chose to use the hue (which is related to the electromagnetic wave frequency) and to sort all the artworks which are lacking colorfulness to the end. In the example shown we took a collection containing all releases of the netlabel Thinner.

Whenever a DJ cannot recall the artist or any other name, but knows the artwork was mainly orange for example, he might find the record. Of course, there's a need for a good switching mechanism between all those visual cues, so you have all of them at your fingertips. Later this week, I will continue with how we realized that requirement.