There are many ways to configure Rapid Evolution to meet your needs. Below is an explanation of the options menu items categorized by the tabs:

• CPU Utilization

This will control the percentage of CPU that is used for background tasks such as BPM/key detection, importing, autosaving, mix generating, etc. Lowering the value will provide better responsiveness in the application and less impact on other applications, but will require more time to complete the tasks.

• Key Format

This will affect the key notation format for how keys are displayed by the program. You can choose between flat notation, sharp notation, key codes, or a customized combination of these.

• Show Advanced Key Information

If enabled, advanced key information such as the mode and shift will be displayed. When displaying key codes, advanced key code letters will be used which denote the modes. See Advanced Theory for information on these modes. This is disabled by default because displaying this advanced information requires more screen space.

• Disable Key Lock

If you do not have the ability to key/pitch lock then you should check this box. It will save screen space by removing key lock related items, and key searching won't show songs where key/pitch locking is necessary.

• Prevent Repeat Song Play

When this is enabled, songs that already exist on the song trail will not show up in bpm and key searches, or in the mixout window. The intent is to prevent the same song from being used twice in a mix. This setting can cause unexpected behavior to those that are not aware of it.

• Use Selected Styles When Computing Style Similarity

When this is enabled, when computing the style similarity column, the selected styles in the main window will be used rather than the current song's styles. This is useful if you wish to be able to select a combination of styles, then find songs with a high style similarity to that.

• Disable Tooltips

If you know your way around the program and find the tooltips to be annoying, you can disable them here.

• Disable Autosaving

By default, the program will periodically save the program database (if there have been any changes). On some machines, particularly slower ones, this write to the hard drive can interfere with other applications. Disabling this improves performance but increases the risk of losing data (if the computer crashes).

• Portable Music Mode

This option is intended for users whose music resides on portable hard drives. If so, then you might be in a situation where you have taken your hard drive and plugged it into a different computer and the drive letter is different than it normally is. To prevent all of the file links in Rapid Evolution from failing, you can enable this mode and Rapid Evolution will automatically check alternate drive letters whenever it needs to access a file.

• Automatically Update File Locations

Normally when you add a song with duplicate information as an existing song in your database, Rapid Evolution will warn you and you are forced to change the song's values. If you enable this mode, then when duplicate information is detected Rapid Evolution will take no action, and simply update the file location to point to the new file.

• Disable Field Autocomplete

There are certain fields where Rapid Evolution will try to predict what you're typing as you type, such as artist, album and some of the custom fields. This feature can take up extra memory resources, and therefore can be disabled here.

• Enable Debug Logging

Enabling this will send extra information to Rapid Evolution's log file (re2.log). This can be used to capture error messages or troubleshoot problems.

• Current Skin

This section displays information about the current skin in use, such as the title, author, locale and description.

• Available Skins

This section displays the available skins (pulled from the skins subdirectory). If the skins on the file system have changed, you can click “refresh” to update the list. To switch to a skin, you must select it and click “load”.

• Look and Feel

This allows you to change the visual theme of the application, which affects the color scheme, buttons, fonts, etc. These are actually provided by Java and different options will be available to users of different Java versions.

• Full Styles Layout

Selecting this option will make the styles section on the main screen extend the entire vertical length. This is useful if you have a lot of styles.

• Display Styles to the Left

This is sometimes preferred when using filters and the styles are used as the first filter, to keep the drill down process from left to right.

• Hide Mixout Section

This can be used to hide the entire mixout section, which increases the space for the search table and filters.

• Hide Mixout Details

With this enabled, the mixout section displaying the details (such as the mixout comments, bpm % diff, rank, addon, etc) will be hidden. This provides more screenspace for listing other songs and mixouts. The details of a mixout can still be accessed by right/option clicking the mixout and selecting “edit→mixout”.

• Set Cursor Blink Rate to Current BPM

This option is fairly straightforward, and just a fun little perk. Disable it to improve performance.

• Display Columns

Control what column data is shown in the search table here. Hover the mouse over a field type for a brief description. You must click apply for the changes to take effect.

• Filter Setup
  The filters give you a powerful way to browse and drill down through your songs by the properties you select. For example, if you configure 2 filters, Artist as the first filter and Album as the second filter, then you will see a list of all artists in the first filter. When you select an artist, then the next filter Album is populated by all the albums of that artist. If you then select one of the albums, then the songs belonging to that artist, in that album, will be displayed in the search table. One of the filters is the album cover, which allows you to browse your music graphically, which is probably the closest to flipping through vinyl records as its going to get…
  • Enable Filtering
    The filters require extra memory and resources, so they are disabled by default. Select this to turn them on.
  • Automatically Search When Selection Changes
    This should be enabled, and will cause the search table to reflect changes to filter selections automatically. I think this option can be removed as I don't think there's any use for it disabled.
  • Use Styles as Primary Filter
    When enabled, then changes to the style selection will affect the primary filter, thus having the effect of making the styles themselves the first filter. This is useful and often necessary to avoid having duplicate style information on the screen when setting one of the filters to show styles explicitly.
  • Search Affects Filter
    Normally, the contents of the filters are not affected by any search terms. When this is enabled, however, then the contents of the filter lists will only show entries which match the search terms. Enabling this allows you to search through album covers with search terms.
  • Single Selection Mode
    When enabled, selecting a filter item automatically deselects any previously selected items, unless the control or shift keys is being held down. This is just a matter of preference.
  • Album Cover Thumbnail Width
    This detemines the size in pixels to display the album covers. Images will be scaled to fit this size. NB: This affects the size for both the filter section and the search window section.
• Enable Auto-scroll

If enabled, the search table will automatically scroll when changing the selection with the keyboard or mouse. When disabled, you must use the scrollbar or mouse wheel.

• Disable Multiple Selection

This disables the ability to select more than 1 song in the search table. This was mainly added to help slower performing machines where drag gestures were misinterpreted and caused in accidental highlighting behavior.

• Enable In-place Editing

If enabled, you will be able to double click certain cells in the search table and edit the values directly. This feature can interfere with double clicking songs, so it is disabled by default.

• Enforce Exclude Lists

When enabled, songs that are on the current song's exclude list will not show up in key or bpm searches.

• Find All: Do Not Display Repeat Songs

If “prevent repeat song play” is selected, then this controls whether “find all” will also exclude played songs.

• Find All: Only Within Selected Styles

A BPM and key search will always search within the selected styles (and search all songs if no styles are selected). However, you can choose whether “find all” does the same with this option.

• Find All: Songs Must Match All Selected Styles

Normally when searching, a song must only match 1 of the selected styles to qualify. However, enabling this makes the search more strict as the song must be a member of all selected styles.

• BPM Search: Include Even Multiple Tempos/Time Signatures

With this enabled, a 50 BPM song will be considered compatible with a 100 BPM song. Also, even multiple time signatures like 4/4 and 8/8 will be considered compatible. With this option disabled only exact matches will show.

• Key Search: Relative Majors/Minors are Equivalent

With this enabled, the program will consider minor and relative major keys to be the same. This will result in more “key search” results. It was created because some key detectors (such as Mixmeister) only detect minor keys, and it has also been said most dance music is in minor keys. Essentially with this option enabled all keys will be considered minor (i.e. E = C#m).

• Clear Search Field After Changing Songs

Depending on how you use the search table, you might prefer that the search field be automatically cleared when changing songs. Disable this if you wish for the search field text to remain until you clear it yourself.

• Automatically Search When Current Song is Changed

This option was created in effort to streamline the mixing process. If enabled, when changing current songs the program will automatically repeat the last search used (bpm or key search). This can prevent an extra mouse click when switching songs.

• Automatically Change Current Song When Adding Mixout

This option helps streamline mixing behavior. If enabled, after adding a mixout the current song will be changed automatically to the added song.

• Automatically Add Mixout When Double Clicking a Song

The default behavior for double clicking a song is to make it the current song. With this option enabled then double clicking a song adds it as a mixout. You can still set the current song under the right/option click menu.

• Automatically Search as Search Text Changes

When enabled, changing the search text will cause Rapid Evolution to automatically search and reflect the changes. This allows more hands free searching, but requires additional resources.

• Exclude Songs on the Same Record

When this is enabled, songs with a “analog only” flag will be excluded from BPM and key searches if they are on the same vinyl record as the current song. This is determined by the track code. If the current song's track is A1, for example, a song on the same album with the track B2 will not show up.

• Exclude Songs When Key/Pitch Must Be Disabled

If you have the ability to use key/pitch lock, you might prefer that songs which require this to be disabled not show up in key searches. Having key/pitch lock enabled has the advantage of always being exactly in key, not to mention, shifts in speed are less noticeable since the pitch isn't affected (theoretically).

• Hide Disabled Songs

If enabled, disabled songs will not show up in bpm and key searches. Disabling songs is useful when the song is damaged.

• Lock Pitch Shift (BPM Slider)

By default, the bpm slider will automatically adjust when changing songs to reflect the position for the current song. You can prevent this by enabling this option. This is useful for DJs who mix within a narrow bpm range and try not to mix songs shifted far from their normal speed.

• Automatically Highlight Styles of Selected Song

If enabled, when selecting a song in the search table, its styles will be highlighted for quick reference. The highlight color can be configured under the colors tab.

• Smooth Update for BPM Slider

When changing the bpm slider position, column values and song colors will change. For performance reasons, the column values and colors will only update when you release the mouse button on the bpm slider. However, if you enable this the column values and song colors will update continually. This can be nice when finding the best speed to play the current song, but can be slow if you have a lot of songs.

• BPM Slider Tick Marks

This controls the spacing that the tick marks are drawn on the BPM slider bar. The default mode will attempt to pick the correct spacing based on the BPM range selected.

• Style Require Shortcut

Here you can choose a keyboard shortcut that, when held down while selecting a style, will require search results to be a member of that style. This allows for more flexible searching with the styles, as the default behavior is that a song belonging to any selected style will show up.

• Style Exclude Shortcut

Here you can choose a keyboard shortcut that, when held down while selecting a style, will exclude songs belonging to the style from showing up in search results.

• Display Columns

Control what column data is shown in the mixout table here. Hover the mouse over a field type for a brief description. You must click apply for the changes to take effect.

• Enable Auto-scroll

If enabled, the mixout table will automatically scroll when changing the selection with the keyboard or mouse. When disabled, you must use the scrollbar or mouse wheel.

• Enable In-place Editing

If enabled, you will be able to double click certain cells in the mixout table and edit the values directly. This feature can interfere with double clicking songs, so it is disabled by default.

• Key Detection Accuracy

This setting only affects detection from files, not from live audio. With a faster setting, the detection process will periodically skip audio samples. The extent to which the accuracy is affected has not been thoroughly tested, but the detector seems to give the same results on the faster settings. Since key detection is slow, it is recommended to leave this on the fastest setting.

• BPM Detection Accuracy

Increasing the quality of bpm detection will increase the number of decimal places the bpm is computed to, but also increases the amount of time needed exponentially. For most purposes, the fastest setting will suffice. However, if for any reason you need very accurate bpms you can increase this setting.

• Time/Pitch Shift Quality

This controls the overall sound quality when using the time/pitch shift feature to convert a song's bpm and/or key. The lower the quality, the faster the conversion will take place.

• CPU Utilization

This controls the percentage of the CPU Rapid Evolution will use to perform audio operations such as detecting keys and BPMs. The highest setting will perform operations in the least amount of time, but make Rapid Evolution less responsive to the user. This provides the user with throttle control to balance performance with user responsiveness.

• MIDI Output Device

This determines what MIDI device the build in keyboard controls. Java has a built in MIDI synthesizer (Java Sound Synthesizer) that can be used if no MIDI device is available, but you can use the built-in keyboard to control any MIDI device. Note that some devices have more latency (the time between you press a key and hear the note) than others.

• Keyboard Row 1 Chord Type

This controls what chords the keyboard row controls between the caps lock and enter keys. The default is major.

• Keyboard Row 2 Chord Type

This controls what chords the keyboard row controls between the left and right shift keys. The default is minor.

• Use OS Media Player

If enabled, when playing songs Rapid Evolution will call the operating system's media player instead of using the built in one (which is very minimal). You can browse to select a specific application to play your songs as well.

• BPM Detection Range

For performance reasons, by default Rapid Evolution only searches for BPMs within the range 80 → 160. A BPM of 170 would actually be detected as 85. In practice this is not a problem, because it doesn't affect the BPM % difference value and BPM/key searches. However, if you wish for Rapid Evolution to detect higher/lower BPM values, you can specify a new range here (such as 50-200).

• Detect Start and End Keys Differently

By default, Rapid Evolution will only detect a single key (start key). With this enabled, it will detect attempt to detect the end key if different from the start key.

• Detect Advanced Keys

If enabled, Rapid Evolution will attempt to detect the exact mode of the keys, such as: dorian, phrygian, lydian and mixolydian. See the Advanced Theory section for information on musical modes.

• Song ID Display Format

This controls which fields are included in the standard song id display format, which is used in the current song field, certain table columns and song trail lists. The general format, which changes depending on which fields are available, is: artist - album [track] title (remix) (bpm, key, time signature) [user1, user2, user3, user4]

• Custom Field 1-4 Labels

In each song's properties there are 4 custom fields provided. Here you can choose their names.

• Custom Field 1-4 Persistent

Normally you will add more than one song a time. Depending on how you have defined your custom fields, you might want certain fields to be cleared between songs and others to persist. Enabling any field to be persistent will cause its value to remain between adding songs until changed by you.

• Custom Field 1-4 Sort Type

Rapid Evolution will automatically attempt to determine the correct sort type for custom columns, but you can explicitly tell it how to sort them with these options, should that go wrong.

• Custom Field 1-4 id3 Tag

Here is how you can associate the custom fields to ID3 tags. For example, you could assign custom field 1 to the “Year” tag so that when adding songs, that tag's information will get put into the custom field.

• Optimize Add Song(s) Process for Albums at a Time

Enabling this option will making adding albums at a time more efficient. Basically, the artist and album fields will not be cleared, and the track will increment between adding songs. This reduces the amount of typing as you should only need to enter song titles after entering the initial information.

• Use Filename as Song Title if No Tag Information is Available

If enabled, the filename (stripped of the extension) will be used as the song title if no tag information is found.

• Automatically Parse Info From Title When Empty

If enabled, the title will be parsed for artist/album/remix information when those fields are empty. The general format expected is: Artist - Album - Track (Remix)

• Tag Reading/Writing
  Here you can control the ID3 tag behavior:
  • id3 Tag Library
    This allows you to choose which Java ID3 tag library is used to read/write tags.
    • JAudiotagger - This is the recommended tag library.
    • Java ID3
    • JID3
    • mp3info (legacy)
  • Disable Automatic Tag Reading
    By default, when you click browse from the add song(s) dialog and select an audio file, the program will automatically read the tag information. Sometimes reading tags can take a while. You can disable this behavior here.
  • Automatically Create Styles From Genre Tag
    If enabled, when a song is added whose genre does not currently exist as a style, then that style will be created automatically.
  • Use Key Codes Instead of Keys
    If you wish for key codes to be written to the tag instead of the standard key names, you can enable this. You should be aware that key codes might not be supported by other applications, as it is not standardized.
  • Write Remixer Field with Title
    Some applications do not support the remixer field in the ID3 tag. If this option is enabled, then the remixer information in Rapid Evolution will be written to the title in parenthesis.
  • Write Key Info with Title
    If enabled, the key of the song will be inserted into the title, in the form: Key - Title. This was added by request and can be used to get the key information to show up in certain applications such as CD burning.
  • Write Key Info to Comments
    If enabled, the key information will be written to the comments tag (this includes the key and key code). This is useful if you are using applications with Rapid Evolution that do not support the ID3 key field.
  • Write Empty Fields to Tags
    By default, Rapid Evolution will not write the contents of empty fields to the tags. However, with this enabled then an empty field will be written to the tag and clear its contents.
  • Write to Tag Fields
    You can control which fields get written to the tags here. The “group (key code)” option was added for Serato users; it will write the key information into the group tag so that it can be displayed in Serato.

• Login Information

You must have a unique username to access the mixshare server. This is also the name that will be identified with your song and mix information. You can only change your password if you are connected to the server. The email address and website are optional and will be displayed on the mixshare site, so if don't want others finding out this information don't put anything in these fields.

• Disable Use of the Mixshare Server

This can be enabled if you do not wish to share song and mix metadata with the Mixshare server. If you do this, you will not be able to utilize functions which query the Mixshare server, such as retrieving song BPM and key information and mixouts. For the benefit of the community and yourself, it is recommended not to enable this.

• Automatically Query Server When Adding Songs

With this enabled, the server will automatically be queried when applicable for any available song information. You can also click “query server” to manually query the server.

• When Querying Server, Overwrite Existing Fields

If you leave this disabled, when querying the server only empty fields will be populated with information from the server. Otherwise all fields can be overwritten.

• Do Not Query Song Comments

If you do not wish for other people's song comments to be queried from the server enable this. Use this if you only want to use your own song comments.

• Do Not Query Song Styles

If you do not wish for other people's song styles to be queried from the server enable this. Use this if you want to completely define your own styles.

• Perform Strict Searching for Server Queries

If you notice too many random results when querying the server, you should enable this option. It will look for a more exact match and will result in less, but more accurate, results.

• Do Not Share Mixout Comments

Mixout comments can be quite personal, and some people would rather not share this information. If you don't want other DJs to see your mixout comments, enable this option.

The song colors are discussed in the DJing with Rapid Evolution section, but are visual indicators of certain properties. The properties take precedence in the order you see them. For example, if a song is disabled that color will show even if it has one of the properties listed below it.

You can configure the style list colors here too.