What does ID mean in DJ sets, and how do IDs get found

In a DJ set, an ID is a track nobody has identified yet. When a tracklist reads “ID - ID”, the first ID stands for the unknown artist and the second for the unknown title. When it reads “Bicep - ID”, the artist is known and the title is not, which usually means the track is unreleased and the DJ has been playing it from a private file.

That is the whole definition. The interesting part is what happens next.

Why so many tracks are IDs

Electronic music is released long after it is first played. A producer finishes a track, sends it to a handful of DJs, and it gets road-tested for months before a label picks it up. A big DJ might play a track for a year before it comes out. During that time, every recording of every set it appears in lists it as an ID.

The other reason is edits. DJs make their own versions of tracks for their own sets, and those versions often never come out at all. A tracklist full of IDs at a big festival set is not a failure of the crowd to identify things. It is a sign the DJ is playing music that does not exist in any shop yet.

The vocabulary around it

• ID - ID: artist and title both unknown.
• Artist - ID: the artist is known, usually because they played it themselves or confirmed it, but the title is not.
• Dub: an unreleased version passed to DJs directly. Often the only version that exists.
• VIP: a producer’s own rework of their own track, usually for their own sets.
• Edit: someone else’s rework of a released track. Sometimes released, often not.
• Forthcoming: signed to a label and coming out. The best word you can see next to an ID, because it means it will be buyable.
• Unreleased: no release planned or known. It might come out, it might not.

How an ID gets found

Most IDs are cracked by one of four routes.

The DJ or producer says. The poster answers the comments, or the producer posts the track themselves. This is why the caption and comments on the original clip are always the first place to look.

The crowd works it out. Somebody recognises the vocal, the sample or the producer’s style, and the suggestion gets confirmed by others. Tracklist sites and forums run on this. It works best for big sets that many people heard.

Audio fingerprinting catches it on release. Once the track comes out, Shazam and its equivalents can match a clip of it. So an ID that was unidentifiable in March can be identified in September from the same clip, because the database now knows it. The people who find IDs this way are the ones who kept the clip and tried again.

Somebody reads the screen. A recording that shows the deck screen gives the name away, and a vision model reads a Rekordbox display more reliably than a person squinting at a phone.

How to hunt one yourself

Save the clip and note the context: who played it, where, when, and the timestamp. Try Shazam and the caption. Look for a deck screen. Then, if it is still an ID, do the thing most people forget: keep checking. Set a monitor on the artist or the label if you know either, and try the fingerprint again every few weeks.

ID Crate is built around exactly that loop. Paste the clip and five detection signals run at once. If it is genuinely unreleased, add it to your crate as an ID and it is checked against Spotify, Apple Music, Beatport, Bandcamp and SoundCloud every day until it surfaces. Share it to the community and other diggers can suggest a name, vote on suggestions, and you are emailed the moment it is confirmed. Unidentified clips are also fingerprinted and compared with each other, so you find out when the same unknown track has been heard in other people’s recordings, which is usually the sign it is about to come out.

The track you want most is the one that is not out yet. The trick is not to lose it in the meantime.