The DJs you follow do not build sets from store charts, and you do not have to either. Four sources, used together, show what they really play: tracklist sites that log every set, play counts that show which tracks keep coming back, identification apps for what nobody has logged yet, and the charts the DJs publish themselves. Here is how each works in 2026, what it costs, and how to turn it all into a crate.
Tracklist sites: the set, track by track
A tracklist is the list of tracks a DJ played in one set, in order. 1001Tracklists is the biggest database of them: club and festival sets, radio shows and livestreams, submitted and corrected by users. When a track is not identified yet the line reads "ID" (an unreleased or unknown track), and the community fills it in over the following weeks; you can watch an ID to be told when it gets a name. The site is free, with ads, and each tracklist links to the stores and streaming services that carry the track.
set79 uses software instead of a crowd. Paste the link of a set and about ten minutes later you get a tracklist with timestamps and links to Spotify, YouTube and Beatport; anything it cannot recognize is marked "Unknown", never guessed. The tracklists already in its library (over 70,000 when we checked) are free to read. A new set costs a credit: $8 for three sets, or the Pro plan at $10.90 a month for unlimited analyses after a 7-day trial. The artist page is the digger's favorite: it lists the tracks an artist produced with a "Played in" count ("127 sets" means 127 different sets), which shows which of a producer's records DJs pick up.
Prices checked October 2026.
Identify tracks yourself
Shazam names a track playing in front of you. On iPhone, add the Recognize Music control to Control Center and tap it: it listens to the room, or to audio playing in another app. On Android, Shazam can sit in Quick Settings or as a "Tap to Shazam" notification. On both, Auto Shazam (touch and hold the Shazam button) keeps listening when you switch apps or lock the phone. So play a recorded set on your phone, turn Auto Shazam on, and let it tag what it can. SoundHound does the same job.
The limits: these apps match audio against a database of released recordings, so an unreleased track, a private edit or a bootleg comes back empty, which is the music you most want to name. Two tracks blended together, a loop, a heavy EQ cut or a pitched record also break the fingerprint. Use the apps for the clean moments and the tracklist sites for the rest.
Recorded sets, streams and radio
Watching sets is the best way to hear how a track works on a floor. The big archives: Boiler Room (a searchable archive of filmed sets), Cercle (sets on unusual stages, on YouTube), HÖR (Berlin, DJ sets six days a week, with a library of past shows), Mixmag (The Lab, its streamed party) and Defected, which streams around the clock on its app and Twitch and runs the Defected Radio Show. Radio too: Radio 1's dance shows on the BBC list every track under "Music Played" on each episode page, IDs included; NTS shows a tracklist in its player and on its episode pages; Rinse FM in London covers the UK side.
Then read the comments. Under a Boiler Room or Cercle video someone asks "ID at 34:10?", someone answers, and a link to the 1001Tracklists page follows. It is a free, slow tracklist site, sometimes ahead of the real one.
The charts DJs publish themselves
Big DJs also tell you what they play. On Beatport, artists publish DJ Charts of 10 to 20 tracks. Traxsource has the same system, and every track page lists the DJ charts the track appeared in, so you can walk from a track to the DJs who charted it. Labels keep playlists of their releases on the streaming services, often the closest thing to the boss's record bag.
At the end of the year the lists arrive. Beatportal, Beatport's magazine, publishes the top-selling tracks, artists and labels per genre, plus an editors' pick of the year's best tracks. Mixmag and DJ Mag each publish a best tracks of the year feature. And 1001Tracklists publishes the Top 101 Producers: producers ranked by how many different DJs supported their tracks (one DJ playing one track counts once, however often they play it). The 2025 edition came out on October 20, 2025 and counted support from the previous October 1 to September 30.
A digging calendar
July is festival season: Awakenings (July 10 to 12 this year) and Tomorrowland (July 17 to 19 and 24 to 26) produce hundreds of recorded sets. October is Amsterdam Dance Event (October 21 to 25, 2026), five days of club nights and day parties, and the month the Top 101 came out last year. December brings the year lists. So go through the festival sets in August, the ADE sets and the Top 101 in November, and the year lists in January.
Do not chase every ID
An ID is a track nobody outside the booth can name yet, and hunting them is fun, but keep it in proportion: most IDs come out within months, some never do, and a set built around three tracks you cannot buy is a set you cannot play. Watch the IDs you care about on 1001Tracklists and spend your real digging time on tracks that are out and keep turning up. More in What is an ID?.
Turn what you find into a crate
Finding a track is half the job; remembering why is the other half. Keep one note per track: who played it, where, when, and what it sat between. "Played by X, Boiler Room Lisbon, July 2026, after Y" is enough. After a month the notes tell you what a store chart never will: this track was played by four DJs you respect, in different cities, at peak time. That is a buy. One name, one play, in a warm-up set, is a maybe. Buy the buys, preview the maybes, and build the set from tracks you have heard working.
How Digger Digger does it
Digger Digger does this work for you. We go through recorded DJ sets, tracklists, Beatport charts and the editorial year lists, and every track shows how many recorded DJ sets it was found in: "88 sets" means 88 different sets. It is a count, not a verdict: it only covers the sets we have data for, and a track found in 2 sets can still be the best thing you hear all year. The crate button saves a track to your crate and "Send to my DJ app" exports the list for your software. It is free and no music is hosted. Details on how it works.
Start with the DJs you follow, add a tracklist site and an identification app, and keep the notes. Then pick your style and see which tracks keep coming back.