Welcome to the beta

Thanks for testing acervus. This guide explains what you have in your hands, how to get set up in about ten minutes, and what's still being built.

What is acervus?

acervus is the complete home for your music collection. It unifies vinyl, digital, and cloud libraries into one place: import from Discogs, iTunes, Rekordbox, Serato, or any CSV/XML; listen from local files, cloud storage, Bandcamp, and YouTube in a single player; enrich every track with BPM and key; tag everything your way; and build playlists ready for DJ sets, radio shows, or personal listening.

Think of acervus as a clean, DJ-aware upgrade to a Discogs collection page — with unified tags, a proper player, and the specific tools collectors and performers actually need.

What you can do today

These features are active in the beta:

• Import your collection — Discogs sync, iTunes XML, Rekordbox XML, Serato exports, Excel, CSV, generic XML. The import wizard maps columns and previews results before committing.
• Unified tagging — Discogs genres and styles, iTunes genres, and your own custom tags all merge into one tag system you fully control. Filter, merge, colour-code, curate.
• Multi-source player — connect local folders, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Bandcamp links, or YouTube. Play from all of them in the same queue.
• BPM & Key enrichment — automatic lookup from multiple sources, manual override, Camelot wheel support.
• Playlists — unlimited, named, reorderable, filterable by BPM/key/tag. Shareable (link-only for now).
• Collection dashboard — albums, tracks, artists, labels, year distribution, format breakdown, and top artists. Filter by source.
• Inline editing — correct track titles, BPMs, keys, tags directly from the Musics page. Every edit is tracked per-field.

What's coming next

See the Roadmap on the home page for the full list. Short version:

• In development: Auto-tagging & enrichment; CDJ Direct Export (early access for admin testers); External Sync for Airtable/Sheets/Notion.
• Coming soon: Wantlist, Dig tool, Shelf & Labeling (physical organisation + printed labels), Radio (personal playback).
• Planned: Smart Previews (YouTube/Bandcamp auto-match), native Mac & Windows app, iOS & Android app, Community Fund.

Getting started — 10 minutes

1. Connect Discogs (recommended first step)

1. Go to Settings.
2. In the Integrations section, click Discogs and paste your Discogs username and personal access token. Get a token from Discogs → Settings → Developers → "Generate new token".
3. Click Save, then go back to the Dashboard and click Sync from Discogs. Depending on collection size, this takes a few seconds to a few minutes.

2. Import other sources (optional)

1. Go to Import / Export.
2. Drop an iTunes XML (Library.xml), Rekordbox XML, Serato export, Excel/CSV, or generic XML file.
3. The import wizard shows columns detected in your file. Map them to acervus fields (title, artist, BPM, year, etc.). Preview the first 5 rows, then confirm.
4. Imports can be labelled with a short source name (e.g. "iTunes" or "Serato") so you can filter by source later.

3. Enrich and tag

1. Open the Musics page. Any track without BPM or key is marked.
2. Select one or more tracks and click Enrich to auto-fetch BPM/key from multiple providers.
3. Click a tag to filter; click + Tag on a track to add one. Custom tags are created on the fly — no need to predefine them.

4. Build a playlist

1. Open Playlists.
2. Click New, name your playlist, then drag tracks in from Musics or Album pages.
3. Reorder with drag & drop. Export to CSV, or — for admin testers — to a Pioneer USB drive.

Things to know

Data safety

• Your data lives on our server; keep an independent backup of source files (we can't recover your original iTunes XML if it's gone).
• You can export your full acervus data as a ZIP any time from Settings → Privacy.
• You can delete your account and all associated data from Settings → Privacy. This is irreversible.

Known limitations

• CDJ Direct Export is investigating a hardware freeze with very large playlists on some Pioneer units. Hidden by default; available to admin testers.
• Artist filter on CDJ USB may show “Empty” on some Pioneer firmware versions. This is a known issue — filter on acervus works correctly.
• iOS & Android apps do not exist yet. The web app is mobile-friendly though.

Giving feedback

We read everything:

• Bugs, unexpected behaviour, crash reports: beta@acervus.app. Include screenshots and the version badge (bottom-right of any page, or visible on the CDJ Export card).
• Feature ideas or questions: same email.
• Security issues, vulnerabilities: security@acervus.app.

High-signal bug reports include what you were trying to do, what you expected, what actually happened, and exact values (track title, source, filename, browser, operating system). We work fast when we have clear reproduction steps.

What we ask of you

• Don't share your invite link or login credentials.
• Don't re-distribute acervus itself or copy the UI.
• Don't use acervus for public streaming or broadcasting without the necessary music licences — see our Terms.
• Tell us when something breaks. We can't fix what we can't see.

Thank you

You're testing an unfinished product. Everything you report makes the next version better. We appreciate it.