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Topic: Archiving your music (Read 16650 times) previous topic - next topic
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Archiving your music

Something that's been bugging me for a long while is how I should go about organizing all my audio, be it mp3 mpc acc, any of it. Way early on I just did Artist - Album - Track - Title and threw them into my musik folder but this really isn't the best approachas I have found out later.

I've seen things like

Code: [Select]
Artist \ Album(s) \ Track - Title.*


and

Code: [Select]
Artist - Year - Album \ Track - Title.*


among many other things. The folder approach seems lots better obviosuly because you can store replay gain info, cue sheets, playlists, etc.

But which is the best? I hate chooisng one standard to follow, following it for months or years, and then discovering something else that needs to be changed later on after you've archived tons of media under the pervios standard(don't we all).

What do hydrogenaudio users prefer? Any tips or advice on the best way from your experience on how to organize your audio on your hard drive? Or any excellent applications that do it for you?

Thanks for any input.

Archiving your music

Reply #1 –
I am using:

Code: [Select]
Artist - Album\Tracknumber-Title.*

Archiving your music

Reply #2 –
Hi dux,

my directory structure looks like this:

Code: [Select]
Audio/X - X/Artist/Artist - Year - Album [Encoder Codec Bitrate]/Artist - Tracknumber - Title


Example:

Code: [Select]
Audio/M - N/Mono No Aware/Mono No Aware - 2002 - Kika No Sekai [Lame MP3 192]/Mono No Aware - 02 - Nemuru Bijin.mp3

Code: [Select]
Audio/G - H/Gathering, The/Gathering, The - 1999 - Superheat [MPC -q6]/The Gathering - 03 - Probably Built In The Fifties.mpc


Quite long paths but very well sturctured.




Cheers, 0x1ff

Archiving your music

Reply #3 –
Code: [Select]
Artist\[Year] Album\Track - Title

Archiving your music

Reply #4 –
Thanks for the input so far , and a very good idea 0x1ff, I think I may adapt something from that. Keep the examples coming so we can learn from the experience/ideas of others.

Archiving your music

Reply #5 –
Artist - Album (Date)\Tracknumber - Title

this is also the input scheme that I use with Foobar-Masstagger-Edit Tags-Guess Values From Filename.

BoneJazz

Archiving your music

Reply #6 –
Each artist has a folder and file names look like this - where # = track number:
Code: [Select]
ARTIST - ALBUM - # Title.*


Depending on the collection (eg compilations, bootlegs) the format changes:
Code: [Select]
COLLECTION NAME - # ARTIST - Title.*
ARTIST - Extra Info - # SYMPHONY - Title.*



I beleive that a single folder for each artist is good enough and simple as long as files has an album name. Capital letters are also good.

Archiving your music

Reply #7 –
For me, it is handy like this ...

Albums: First Letter\Artist - Album\Track - Title
Compilations: First Letter\Album\Track - Artist - Title

Release year, genre & encoder are fields I only use in tags ...
The name was Plex The Ripper, not Jack The Ripper

Archiving your music

Reply #8 –
Basic hierarchy goes like this :

First Letter\Artist\Artist [Year] AlbumTitle\Track [Performer] Title.

Example :

P\Prince\Prince [1993] The Hits (CD 1)\11 [Prince & Rosie Gaines] Nothing Compares 2 U.ape

Archiving your music

Reply #9 –
Mine is somewhat similar to calx's but without the brackets surrounding the year value and a longer file naming scheme.


Code: [Select]
Main Music Folder/Artist/Year - Album/Artist - Album - Track #(leading with a zero e.g. 01 to 09 and 10-infinity) - Title


I use the long naming scheme for my files because I'm paranoid.  If they ever get displased or whatnot, I'll be able to quickly know(just by looking at the file name) where they belong.

Archiving your music

Reply #10 –
No matter what naming scheme you choose (as your primary one), making extensive use of symlinks (in Linux/*BSD/etc.) can be a big help in organizing your collection.

Archiving your music

Reply #11 –
That's what I figured out to work best for me:

Genre\Artist\Year - Album\[Track] Title

(Track with leading zero ->  01-09)
Advantages are a clear structure, short but organized filenames.
-> short filenames and a not too bloated structure are important if you want to burn CDs :    ISO9660 / ISO Level1 Mode1 supports only 11 characters, Level2 max. 31 characters

For music with various artists, I'm using either another HD, or:

! Various Artists\Genre\Year - Album\[Track] Title - Artist

(The "!" brings the folder on top)

Archiving your music

Reply #12 –
album artist\[date – ]album\[track – ][title artist – ]title.extension

date:
1990 = 1990
199010 = October 1990

track:
01 = track 1
101 = cd 1 track 1
102 = cd 1 track 2


Examples:

Moby\199708 - I like to score (compilation)\01 - Novio.flac
Kruder & Dorfmeister\1996 – Conversions\01 - DJ Unknown face - Dat's cool.mpc

Archiving your music

Reply #13 –
Quote
Mine is somewhat similar to calx's but without the brackets surrounding the year value and a longer file naming scheme.


Code: [Select]
Main Music Folder/Artist/Year - Album/Artist - Album - Track #(leading with a zero e.g. 01 to 09 and 10-infinity) - Title


I use the long naming scheme for my files because I'm paranoid.  If they ever get displased or whatnot, I'll be able to quickly know(just by looking at the file name) where they belong.

I see your concern, but as long as you've got all your stuff tagged, you can use small filenames (e.g. just title or just track and title) and easily refill the info if needed.

It's for that reason I'm ALWAYS sure to have the tags sufficently supplied (and because I'm anal retentive like most of the people here), you never know when it could get renamed or lost.

Archiving your music

Reply #14 –
Quote
But which is the best? I hate chooisng one standard to follow, following it for months or years, and then discovering something else that needs to be changed later on after you've archived tons of media under the pervios standard(don't we all).

If you have everything properly tagged or kept the principle of your naming scheme with discipline and did not mix it over the time it is no big problem to convert to another structure.
You can do that easily  with an advanced tagging program like "Tagger", "mp3tag", .....

If you have not everything tagged and mixed structures this might be helpful: "Lupas Rename"

Archiving your music

Reply #15 –
Quote
I see your concern, but as long as you've got all your stuff tagged, you can use small filenames (e.g. just title or just track and title) and easily refill the info if needed.

It's for that reason I'm ALWAYS sure to have the tags sufficently supplied (and because I'm anal retentive like most of the people here), you never know when it could get renamed or lost.

Being an anal-retentive myself (  ), I'm more concerned about my tags loss than for my files to be renamed. That's why I put everything but the kitchen sink in the filenames, in addition to tags. I've never seen a program that messed the  filenames, except maybe iTunes's first release. While there's a lot of programs that do mess the tags. Even Foobar has that thing with DATE/YEAR, which can be tricky.

Archiving your music

Reply #16 –
..I agree to even not using the tags at all. I don't really miss them in the music I rip.

Archiving your music

Reply #17 –
My hierarchy is very simple:

2 main directories:
Modern music (which contains jazz / pop / rock / compilations / O.s.t.)
Classical music (orchestral / chamber / instrumental)

Modern music is Artist / Album [year] / tracks in alphabetical order (no numbers: the folder contains also textfile playlist + m3u playlist + cuesheet + logfile)
Example:
Code: [Select]
Bjørnstad, Ketil / Water Stories (1993) / ...


Classical music is Composer (birth year - death year) / Single opus [performer/s]
Example 1:
Code: [Select]
Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770-1827) / Sonata für Klavier und Violine Nr. 2 A-dur op. 12 Nr. 2 [Kremer - Argerich]
Example 2:
Code: [Select]
Jarrett, Keith (1945 - ) / The Celestial Hawk for piano and orchestra [Jarrett - Syracuse SO - Keene]

Archiving your music

Reply #18 –
Quote
I see your concern, but as long as you've got all your stuff tagged, you can use small filenames (e.g. just title or just track and title) and easily refill the info if needed.

It's for that reason I'm ALWAYS sure to have the tags sufficently supplied (and because I'm anal retentive like most of the people here), you never know when it could get renamed or lost.


Quote
If they ever get displased or whatnot, I'll be able to quickly know(just by looking at the file name) where they belong.


All my files are tagged correctly.  Tags can get messed up more easily than filenames.  I'd be able to tag from filename quite easily if many of my tags got messed up.

Archiving your music

Reply #19 –
Since I prefer to keep my directories structured chronologically, but since many of the artists I focus on were recording in an era when it was perfectly acceptable - and expected! - for them to release more than one album in a year, and due to the fact that I also collect monophonic & stereophonic variations of those albums, when available, I settled on a slightly different approach.

  For example, the first Beatles album Parlophone released in the UK was Please Please Me, so I stored it as follows:
Code: [Select]
Beatles
  UKa) Please Please Me (mono) PMC 1202
         M01 I Saw Her Standing There.flac
         M02 Misery.flac
         M03 Anna (Go to Him).flac
         M04 Chains.flac
         M05 Boys.flac
         M06 Ask Me Why.flac
         M07 Please Please Me.flac
         M08 Love Me Do.flac
         M09 P.S. I Love You.flac
         M10 Baby It's You.flac
         M11 Do You Want to Know a Secret.flac
         M12 A Taste of Honey.flac
         M13 There's a Place.flac
         M14 Twist and Shout.flac
  UKa) Please Please Me (stereo) MFSL 1-101
         S01 I Saw Her Standing There.flac
         S02 Misery.flac
         S03 Anna (Go to Him).flac
         S04 Chains.flac
         S05 Boys.flac
         S06 Ask Me Why.flac
         S07 Please Please Me.flac
         S08 Love Me Do.flac
         S09 P.S. I Love You.flac
         S10 Baby It's You.flac
         S11 Do You Want to Know a Secret.flac
         S12 A Taste of Honey.flac
         S13 There's a Place.flac
         S14 Twist and Shout.flac

  ... but their first Capitol album in the US was Meet the Beatles, so it is stored thus:
Code: [Select]
Beatles
  USa) Meet the Beatles (mono) T 2047
         M01 I Want to Hold Your Hand.flac
         M02 I Saw Her Standing There.flac
         M03 This Boy.flac
         M04 It Won't Be Long.flac
         M05 All I've Got to Do.flac
         M06 All My Loving.flac
         M07 Don't Bother Me.flac
         M08 Little Child.flac
         M09 Till There Was You.flac
         M10 Hold Me Tight.flac
         M11 I Wanna Be Your Man.flac
         M12 Not a Second Time.flac
  USa) Meet the Beatles (stereo) ST 2047
         S01 I Want to Hold Your Hand.flac
         S02 I Saw Her Standing There.flac
         S03 This Boy.flac
         S04 It Won't Be Long.flac
         S05 All I've Got to Do.flac
         S06 All My Loving.flac
         S07 Don't Bother Me.flac
         S08 Little Child.flac
         S09 Till There Was You.flac
         S10 Hold Me Tight.flac
         S11 I Wanna Be Your Man.flac
         S12 Not a Second Time.flac

  Subsequent albums are stored as UK/USb), UK/USc), UK/USd).... The advantage of this method is that as I acquire other variations of an album, they may be integrated into the overall structure and still remain sorted to my preference. Within each individual file, I also add tags for the following metadata:

TITLE
TRACK NUMBER
ALBUM
ARTIST
DATE
GENRE
COMPOSER
GROUPING

  For artwork, I then store 300dpi scans of all relative covers in the appropriate album directory.

    - M.

Edit: Clarification.

Archiving your music

Reply #21 –
Here's the tree structure I use:

Audio format / Artist - Year - Album / Tracknumber - Title

Archiving your music

Reply #22 –
Quote
Here's the tree structure I use:

Audio format / Artist - Year - Album / Tracknumber - Title

ditto
WARNING:  Changing of advanced parameters might degrade sound quality.  Modify them only if you are expirienced in audio compression!

Archiving your music

Reply #23 –
Here's my file scheme:

Year - Artist - Album - Track - Title

directory structure is not decided yet...
I'm reading your posts with interest. 

Archiving your music

Reply #24 –
I'm more of a

Format / Artist / (Year) Album / ## - Title
Format / VA / (Year) Album / ## - Artist - Title

person meself.