Importing Tracks

Getting your music into Producer Dashboard is straightforward. The app runs as a desktop application, so importing happens locally on your machine — fast and private.

Ways to import

There are two ways to bring files in:

Drag and drop

The quickest method. Grab files or folders from your file manager (Finder on Mac, Explorer on Windows) and drop them directly into the Producer Dashboard window. The app will process everything you drop in.

You can drag:

Individual audio files
Entire folders (the app will scan for supported files inside)
A mix of files and folders at the same time

Import button

Click the Import button in the toolbar to open your system file browser. Navigate to the files or folders you want to bring in, select them, and confirm. This works the same way as drag and drop — it just gives you a file picker instead.

Supported audio formats

Producer Dashboard accepts the most common audio formats used in music production:

Format	Extension	Notes
WAV	`.wav`	Uncompressed, studio standard
MP3	`.mp3`	Compressed, great for previews and references
FLAC	`.flac`	Lossless compression
AIFF	`.aiff`	Uncompressed, common on Mac
M4A	`.m4a`	AAC compression, used by Apple
OGG	`.ogg`	Open-source compressed format

If you drop in a file type that is not supported, the app will skip it and continue with the rest of your import.

Supported project files

You can also import DAW project files. These do not create separate audio tracks. Instead, they link to an existing song (track group) by matching the file name to a song name.

DAW	Extension
Ableton Live	`.als`
Logic Pro	`.logicx`
FL Studio	`.flp`

When a project file is imported and matched to a track group, you will see a project file indicator on that song in the grid. This makes it easy to tell which songs have their session files attached.

What happens during import

Here is the step-by-step process when you import files:

File scanning — the app reads each file and identifies its type.
Name extraction — song names are extracted from file names using smart pattern matching. Common suffixes like “rough mix”, “v2”, “final”, or “master” are stripped away to find the core title.
Grouping — files with the same extracted song name are grouped together under one track group (song). If a track group with that name already exists, the file is added to it.
Track creation — each audio file becomes a track linked to its parent track group.
Project file linking — DAW project files are matched to existing track groups by name and attached.
Audio analysis queuing — imported tracks are queued for analysis to detect BPM, key, and generate waveform data.

Progress indicators

When you import a batch of files, a progress indicator shows you how things are going:

File count — how many files have been processed out of the total.
Current file — the name of the file being processed right now.
Status — whether each file was imported successfully, skipped, or encountered an issue.

For large imports (hundreds of files), the progress bar keeps you informed so you are never left wondering what is happening.

Smart grouping in action

The grouping logic is designed to handle the way producers actually name their files. Here are some examples:

Files you import	Track group created
`Late Night - Rough.wav`	Late Night
`Late Night - Mix 3.wav`	(added to Late Night)
`Late Night_stems_drums.wav`	(added to Late Night)
`Ocean Floor.mp3`	Ocean Floor
`Ocean Floor.als`	(linked to Ocean Floor as project file)

All three “Late Night” files end up in the same track group. “Ocean Floor” gets its own group, and the Ableton project file links to it automatically.

Importing folders

When you import an entire folder, the app scans it recursively. That means it looks inside subfolders too. This is handy when your project files are organised in nested directories — just drop the top-level folder and everything inside gets picked up.

Tips

Name your files consistently and the auto-grouping will be very accurate. If your files start with the song name, the app will almost always get it right.
Import early and often. There is no penalty for importing the same file twice — if it already exists, the app will handle it gracefully.
Check the grid after importing to make sure songs grouped the way you expected. If something ended up in the wrong group, you can rename the track group to fix it.
Large imports work fine. The app handles hundreds of files in a single batch. Just drop them in and let the progress indicator do its thing.

After importing

Once your tracks are in the app, they appear in the tracks grid ready for you to organise. You might want to:

Assign them to a bucket (project)
Set their stage in your workflow
Add tags for easy filtering later

Songs & Track Groups — how files get organised into songs
The Tracks Grid — where your imported tracks appear
Playing & Previewing — listen to what you just imported
Editing Track Details — start filling in metadata