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Topic: How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.) (Read 5821 times) previous topic - next topic
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How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Hello,

I'd like to know what's the best way to organize its files. I know you will be tempted to answer me "as you want", but I'd like to know what is the more logical according to you.

For now, I'm using:
D > My Music > Genre > Artist - Album > 01 - title.flac and
D > My Music > Genre > Artist - Title.mp3

D > Covers > Artist > Artist.jpg, Artist2.jpg, etc.
D > Covers > Artist - Album > Album.jpg, Album2.jpg, etc.
D > Covers > Artist -- Title > Title.jpg, Title2.jpg, etc.

D > Lyrics > Artist - Title.lrc


Is it a good solution to split music files from other files ? I wish there were a norm...
When I see Album Art (UI Element from last beta) only check for cover.jpg, it should mean cover.jpg is "like a norm", isn't it ?

Thanks to guide me !

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #1 –
"as you want" is probably the best advice lol. Personally, I took a page out of how iTunes organizes music (ie. \Artist\Album\track# title.*). I guess it can be problematic for an album that is a compilation of various artists since the album tracks would be all over the place, but it doesn't bother me (more like I don't have albums of that sort).

As for album/artist images, I just pop them in their respective folders and use panelsui's coverpath and a modded artistpath. All neat and tidy.. for me at least. I've seen someone just dump it all into one gigantic mess of a folder and somehow make sense out of it all. To each his own, i guess XD

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #2 –
It depends. What tags are relevant to you, and help you better identify your files? Do you remember a song based on how it sounds when your playlist may exceed over 10,000? Or do you better recognize your files based on album?

For me, genre is a useless tag, so I never use that.

I sort all my files like this:
(between * and * is the actual file)

Songs:
C > My Documents > My Music > Artist > Album > *Artist - Title.mp3*
C > My Documents > My Music > Artist > *unreleased songs or ones without an album*

Covers:
C > My Album Covers > *Album.jpg*

Thats how I sort mine, but it may not be logical to you as it has no track numbers, or dates or anything like that. This is why "as you want" is still the best answer.
Song List: keikoniumboards.ke.funpic.org/files/songlist.html

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #3 –
Quote from: brien on
I guess it can be problematic for an album that is a compilation of various artists since the album tracks would be all over the place...


I created an Artist folder called "Various Artists" for these sorts of albums.  If I really need to see things organized by artist then I can always use the artist tag assigned to all the music files.

I also use the iTunes format of Artist/Album/track title, although coincidentally.

I put Album covers in with each individual album.  i.e. in the Artist/Album folder.

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #4 –
I would split this down into two main levels:

1. Secondary Metadata like "Genre", "Format", etc.

2. Primary Metadata like "Artist", "Album", etc.


For 1. the only meaningful answer would be "according to your usage". What i mean by that is which priorities matter to you when managing and selecting your music. I for example have GENRE at the toplevel - but someone else may put "Format" at the rootlevel. Entirely non-standard "tags" may apply as well.... i.e. someone may want to have two top folders called "Collection" and "Not-Yet-Listened-To".

With 2. it becomes a bit more easy. It seems logically, to make one folder for each artist. Then, complete albums would go into album folders. Singles or tracks of incomplete albums would either go into the artist folder, or into a seperate "incomplete" folder (this only works, if your filenames also contain the albumname).

The really uncertain aspect is year. Some people - like me - dont care about it at all. Some may just add it to the albumfolder name. Others may make it a seperate folder somewhere in the hierachy.

As for covers - imho, semantically they belong to the albums. Anything else would mean that you are basing your hierachy on filetypes, instead of on metadata.
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #5 –
I use
For normal artist albums:
f:\music\%genre%\%artist%\%date% - %album%\%tracknumber% - %title%

For compliations/various artists
f:\music\%genre%\VA - %date% - %album%\%tracknumber% - %artist% - %title%

For incomplete withi existing artist folder
f:\music\%genre%\%artist%\misc\%tracknumber% - %title%

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #6 –
I never got the point why i should sort my files in genre folders. If i want to find a certain file i would first have to know what genre i chose. Not every album of the same interpret must have the same genre...

My sorting:
[my music]\%album artist%\[%date%] %album%\%artist% - %track% - %title%.*

Why i used %album artist%:
Tribute CDs belong to the tributed artist and get stored in the artists folder.
Samplers with various artists are named, stored and tagged with "sampler" as album artist.
Soundtracks are handeled like samplers but with "OST" instead of "sampler".

Songs that don't belong to an album (e.g. single mp3s i got from friends) are stored in a "mixed" folder instead of being assigned to a certain (album) artist.

Albums with more than one CD get a folder for each CD.

Cover pics are stored in the album folder so foobar finds them easyer and if i copy an album for a friend he also gets the cover pic without further searching...

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #7 –
Albums have their own folder on my HDDs.  Top level is Genre, with most genres just containing each album folder, now with it's album art contained in it.  With all the electronic sub-genres, I started many years ago makign sure that each folder is named as such:

(%discogs_catalog%) %album artist% - %album (%discogs_label%) (%date%)

This is because when listening to most electronic music, it's handy to know what label it's released on, and knowing catalog numbers is something I'm particularly anally retentive about.  Now, I'm getting that way about other genres like soul and jazz.  All album art is now going into each folder which is nice eye candy for when I'm listening.

This suits my needs, it might not suit yours.

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #8 –
With albums I use
artist - album/artist - nn - title

With compilations (various artists) I use
nn - artist- title

For single-files I prefer
artist - title

All albums are in the same folder, next to folders '00 Acoustic & Live','00 Francais' etc., folders I once made and I got used to.
With the growing of the collection and with the interest in mixing some may find that folders with genres etc. are essential - I hated music-organisation like that in the past, but things have changed and there are folders with this kind of sorting. Whatever, if you love your music, you will find nearly any track you want whereever it may be.

Cover-Art is named 'artist - album - Front/Back'.
 

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #9 –
I have this setup

D:\My Music\-ALBUMS & DJ SETS-\Album Artist\(Year Released) Album Title\Track Number-Track Artist-Track Title

D:\My Music\-AUDIO BOOKS & STAND UP-\Album Artist\(Year Released) Album Title\Track Number-Track Artist-Track Title

I keep album art as folder.jpg and artist art as artist.jpg all in the same folder where the audio is.
:Foobar 2000:
:MPC --standard:
:iRiver H320 Rockboxed:

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #10 –
I use this setup, which is nice to have when all I listen to is metal, and the sub genre definitions are vague and can vary from album to album for a single artist.

(Starting Letter of Artist Name) / Artist / Album / Tracknumber. Title.Format

Cover art I havn't used that much, but are just stored as either folder.jpg, cover.jpg or front.jpg in the album folder.

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #11 –
Quote from: pirlouy on
I'd like to know what's the best way to organize its files. I know you will be tempted to answer me "as you want", but I'd like to know what is the more logical according to you.


Organizing information hierarchically doesn't scale, seriously.

That's mainly because your organization criteria are likely to be different from anyone else's. Consider photos:
Code: [Select]
Travel > India > Fun stuff
Travel > Italy > Architecture
Travel > Fun stuff > Italy
Travel > Architecture > India


Is any of these better than the others? Yes, and no, depending who you ask.

The solution is to label information using tags, and this is the direction that pretty much everyone is heading toward. If GMail's labeling hasn't convinced you, check these two resources:

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #12 –
My library is arranged even though i use foobar's database and facets (and so ultimately rely more on tags than on directory structure). Even then, i like to have everything organized so i can find stuff easily.

I know arranging in genres seems like a stupid idea, at the beginning, i used to organize alphabetically like so:

Quote
A\Audioslave\[2001] Audioslave\tracknumber- title


This was excellent when the library was quite small (~30 GB). But as the number of artists grew, it became only "superficially organized"... it was organized but it was uselessly organized in that Led Zeppelin was dumped in the same directory with L Shankar and Larry Coryell. So i decided to group by genres...  i don't adhere to any standard, but use "labels" which serve me well: Led Zeppelin is "Classic Rock", Rancid is "Punk", L Shankar is "World", Larry Coryell is "Jazz", Audioslave is "Alternative Rock", Beatles is "Pop", Norah Jones is "Alternative Pop" (you get the picture). The main reason for this is that if i go into a directory, i expect to see artists that are atleast somewhat similar.

So i changed my organization standard to:
Quote
Genre\Artist\[Date] Album\Tracknumber- Title


In addition to this, i use a couple of "special" folders just for convenience's sake:

"Compilations": for generic compilation albums
"OST": for soundtrack albums
"Tribute" : for tribute albums

Again, i'm not splitting hairs here (e.g. even scores go to the OST folder); the main philosophy behind my organization style is:

* I should easily be able to find bands similar to the one i'm listening to now (this explains the "genre" based system)
* I should easily be able to access albums by the artist i'm listening to (album based system)
* Special albums should be easily found (Compilations, Tributes and OST).


Oh and all the covers are stored as folder.jpg (i only have front covers.. hunting down/scanning back covers would be a monumental task). No lyrics either.

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #13 –
Quote from: kanak on
My library is arranged even though i use foobar's database and facets (and so ultimately rely more on tags than on directory structure). Even then, i like to have everything organized so i can find stuff easily.


I did something even more "meta", and more customized. Here were my requirements:
  • when doing repetitive work, I want to listen to "active" stuff - songs that get your energy up
  • when I need to focus, I want to listen to songs without lyrics, or generally to "undisturbing" stuff
  • on special occasions, "romatic" music works best
  • finally, I subjectively rate songs from 0% to 100%. What I rated low might be liked by my friends who have musical tastes contrary to mine.
You can expand that to any number of criteria. I don't really care if something "romantic" is blues or slow rock or Norah Jones' alternative pop.

Next step was to tag each MP3 with ID3v2 tags for "ACTIVE", "UNDISTURBING", "ROMANTIC" and "MYRATING", and rate each from 0% to 100%. Then, in foobar2000's Album List, I added
Code: [Select]
ACTIVE - %active%|%<artist>%|%album%|[[%discnumber%.]%tracknumber%. ][%track artist% - ]%title%
and so on for the other tags.

Now I can listen to all stuff that's "more than 70% active" by right-clicking on each node 70% or higher and sending them to a playlist. Is there a way to do that in one step rather than by clicking on each node?

How to organize files ? (music, covers, lyrics, etc.)

Reply #14 –
Quote from: dndv on
Now I can listen to all stuff that's "more than 70% active" by right-clicking on each node 70% or higher and sending them to a playlist. Is there a way to do that in one step rather than by clicking on each node?

Yes. Filter the library by typing active GREATER 70 into the "Filter" field, and right-click on the "All music" node to send all tracks to a playlist.

The most recent version (0.9.5 beta 4) has a help button that explains this query syntax.