QUOTE(2tec @ May 11 2008, 18:57) 
Ok, but how do you listen to tracks in an order different than the album's?Full Version: Your Music Directory Structure
Ok, but how do you listen to tracks in an order different than the album's?
Root\
- [Custom Genres] -
Artist [Year] Album\T# Artist - Title.codec
Artist [Year] Album [Original Year]\T# Artist - Title.codec
Artist - Performer [Year] Album\T# Artist - Title.codec
Various Album Artist [Year] Album\T# Artist - Title.codec
Various Publisher [Year] Album\T# Artist - Title.codec
Year tag depends on type or reissue, remaster etc.
the few main i can think of, there are several other rarely used methods
In most of the album folders there are:
00 Artist - Album.cue
00 Artist - Album.log
00 Artist - Album f.png
00 Artist - Album b.png ...
folder.jpg
- [Custom Genres] -
Artist [Year] Album\T# Artist - Title.codec
Artist [Year] Album [Original Year]\T# Artist - Title.codec
Artist - Performer [Year] Album\T# Artist - Title.codec
Various Album Artist [Year] Album\T# Artist - Title.codec
Various Publisher [Year] Album\T# Artist - Title.codec
Year tag depends on type or reissue, remaster etc.
the few main i can think of, there are several other rarely used methods
In most of the album folders there are:
00 Artist - Album.cue
00 Artist - Album.log
00 Artist - Album f.png
00 Artist - Album b.png ...
folder.jpg
QUOTE(Nick.C @ May 11 2008, 12:12)
I use foobar2000 - you can create custom playlists pulling individual tracks out of each album.
I hope it's no bother?QUOTE(2tec @ May 11 2008, 21:04)
What about random playback? How ever do you manage album art and lyrics? Does this preserve gaps? So many questions! I hope it's no bother?
Use the Playback > Order > Random in foobar2000 for random playback; I hope it's no bother?I don't (yet) but I think it would be possible with care;
If the image is ripped with the cuesheet then gaps should be preserved for burning back to CD (I think).
QUOTE(Roseval @ May 4 2008, 16:00)
My only comment is that I don’t understand why one is so concerned about file structure.
Any decent player uses tags to browse your collection.
Using WMP I can select a composer say Beethoven. I can sort all his works by title, genre and as I have given a couple of tags a very distinct use, by opus number and by year of composition.
Why do I need a complicated file naming convention when filtering and sorting by tags (not to mention the search box) do the job?
If I read these postings about directory/filename structures, I have the feeling that a lot of people simply don’t understand where tagging is about.
Exactly right!
And to put this another way, "file structure" is a device and OS-dependent concept so it limits your portability. Tags are universal. There is not a major, music-playing device in wide use today that doesn't utilize tags - iPods/iPhones, all other portable MP3 players, car stereos, PC-based music playing sw, Sonos, Roku, Logitech / Squeezebox, my Verizon cellphone, etc.
I'm a sw engineer so maybe I'm more used to thinking in object-oriented terms, but this fixation on what amounts to containers and external organizations (CD albums and file structures) seems like "old" thinking.
QUOTE(plnelson @ May 12 2008, 19:33)
I'm a sw engineer so maybe I'm more used to thinking in object-oriented terms, but this fixation on what amounts to containers and external organizations (CD albums and file structures) seems like "old" thinking.
but we still feel young inside
seriously, i'm just used to physically manipulate my music, cut paste copy here there usb backup etc etc
btw. how do you display artwork if all files are in one folder?
QUOTE(milesmonk @ May 4 2008, 18:01)
I'm concerned not so much with the file/folder structure, as with tagging. Who should be "Artist" for a a Classical performance? Sometimes it is the performer who is the highlight (e.g., Glenn Gould/Luciano Pavarotti), and sometimes it is the piece being performed that is the star (e.g., a second-rate philharmonic performing Beethovan). Sometimes, it is the conductor who is given top billing. How do you tag it, and how do you organise/display/sort it in your player of choice?
The ID3 tagging scheme was devised by geeks who didn't know or care anything about music. It's crippled in many ways, ONE of which is that it has no built-in universal support for subtags or multiple or'ed-together values of the same tag. I put ALL of the stuff you mentioned in the "Artist" tag - ensemble, conductor, soloist(s), etc. But that still doesn't make it easy to display on my iPod for, say, all the tracks featuring Alfred Brendel or all the works featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, if any are the same tracks, unless I do a manual search (and thank god for that feature on the iPod!).
Likewise "Genre" needs to accept multiple values. The same piece of music could reasonably be more than one genre - rock and Latin, Latin and jazz, jazz and classical, pop and soundtrack, etc.
And classical fans widely use "Album" for the opus because it's a tag that practically every music-playing device supports.
I advocate using tags instead of file structure for searching/cataloging/organizing because tags are self-contained, portable, and universal, and not dependent on any particular OS or platform, NOT because I think tags are very well-designed.
And FWIW I almost never use the tags from any of the online databases - I hand edit all my own tags for accuracy, completeness, and consistency. It's more work but you only have to do it once.
QUOTE(thinkum dinkum @ May 12 2008, 13:47)
QUOTE(plnelson @ May 12 2008, 19:33)
I'm a sw engineer so maybe I'm more used to thinking in object-oriented terms, but this fixation on what amounts to containers and external organizations (CD albums and file structures) seems like "old" thinking.
but we still feel young inside
seriously, i'm just used to physically manipulate my music, cut paste copy here there usb backup etc etc
btw. how do you display artwork if all files are in one folder?
You embed it in the file itself. Some people think this wastes too much space, but really, if your music file is 6 MB (a 3 minute pop song at 256kbps) then what's a 300x300 album art JPEG? 40kB, maybe? Even a much higher-rez image would be such a small potion of the music file that it would only increase the file size by a trivial percent.
ok, that's cool
but these days of cheap drive space, i rip my cds to flac, and scan to 300dpi png, with cue&log
maybe cues are not necessary, cause i rarely burn anything, doing it out of habit i guess
sort of a backup and music database at the same time
but these days of cheap drive space, i rip my cds to flac, and scan to 300dpi png, with cue&log
maybe cues are not necessary, cause i rarely burn anything, doing it out of habit i guess
sort of a backup and music database at the same time
I used to have the 3 Level: Music\Artist\Album\T# - Title.codec schema, and for some times I tried a different 3 Level approach: Music\Genre\Album\T# - Title.codec but hell it is not worth the effort for me.
Hence I switched to 2 Level: Music\Artist - Album\T# - Title.codec and it works fine for me.
Hence I switched to 2 Level: Music\Artist - Album\T# - Title.codec and it works fine for me.
Most of the time I use structure as:
2 Level: Music\Artist - Year - Album\T# - Title.ext
SomeTimes also:
3 Level: Music\Artist\Year - Album\T# - Title.ext
2 Level: Music\Artist - Year - Album\T# - Title.ext
SomeTimes also:
3 Level: Music\Artist\Year - Album\T# - Title.ext
QUOTE(thinkum dinkum @ May 12 2008, 15:32)
ok, that's cool
but these days of cheap drive space, i rip my cds to flac, and scan to 300dpi png, with cue&log
maybe cues are not necessary, cause i rarely burn anything, doing it out of habit i guess
sort of a backup and music database at the same time
OK, but how big is a 3 minute pop song in FLAC? Bigger, I assume, than a 256 kbps MP3 or AAC. And how big is a 300 DPI scan of CD album art? In a high-quality JPEG it will only be a few hundred K, (I haven't tried PNG but I assume it would also be pretty small) so as a percentage of the music the cover art is still small. (I don't use FLAC but I assume it will take embedded images). And, of course a 3 minute pop song is the worst-case scenario. If your music tracks are longer then embedding the image in the file extracts an even smaller penalty.
I'm still particular about file names and folder structure — but a bit less particular about folder structure now. The reason for this shift is the discovery that one can transfer files by dragging and dropping straight from foobar2000 (my music player of choice). The idea to try this out struck me when I saw a friend doing so using iTunes media player. Tracking down the location of a file, and transferring whole albums is now easier.
Parenthetically, I'm still particular because things like album art, artist art, etc., are stored in the album/artist folder alongside the music files. Thus, a neat organisation along those lines is a must for me. If a way to delink those is possible without too much hassle, I would jump on board.
Note: while my preferred option for album art used to be embedded art, I've come around to merely placing the art in the music (album) folder these days. If there is an easy way to resize the album art to less than 100KB, and then embed the files properly as front cover, back cover, etc., could someone please inform me? Currently I use foobar2000 and mp3tag. (Handling of multiple covers is not yet perfect in mp3tag... Though it apparently works in Tag/Rename and MediaMonkey.) Thanks in advance for the help, if any is forthcoming.
My only comment is that I don’t understand why one is so concerned about file structure.
Any decent player uses tags to browse your collection.
Using WMP I can select a composer say Beethoven. I can sort all his works by title, genre and as I have given a couple of tags a very distinct use, by opus number and by year of composition.
Why do I need a complicated file naming convention when filtering and sorting by tags (not to mention the search box) do the job?
If I read these postings about directory/filename structures, I have the feeling that a lot of people simply don’t understand where tagging is about.
I agree completely. The behaviour that I (and some others in this thread) exhibit is most definitely anal-retentive. But it's not only about file-structure. The way I see it, file-structure is only a reflection of metadata. (After all, renaming files in accordance with the scheme I've outlined above is only a click away in foobar2000/mp3tag/[your mp3 renamer of choice].) Changing file-structure isn't all that difficult. But coming up with a consistent and intelligent metadata system is.
So, you see, at the root of things, I'm concerned not so much with the file/folder structure, as with tagging. Who should be "Artist" for a a Classical performance? Sometimes it is the performer who is the highlight (e.g., Glenn Gould/Luciano Pavarotti), and sometimes it is the piece being performed that is the star (e.g., a second-rate philharmonic performing Beethovan). Sometimes, it is the conductor who is given top billing. How do you tag it, and how do you organise/display/sort it in your player of choice?
The questions I had raised for the file structure also apply directly to tagging. Do you tag it uniformly as "OST: [Movie Name]" or "[Movie Name]" or "[Full title as provided on the CD]"? AMG has a habit of using "Soundtrack" as the Album Artist for all multi-artist soundtracks. Do you follow that, or use "Various Artists"? These are questions about tagging as well.
Sure, most people never think twice about such questions. But then, those people aren't following this discussion, are they?
Parenthetically, I'm still particular because things like album art, artist art, etc., are stored in the album/artist folder alongside the music files. Thus, a neat organisation along those lines is a must for me. If a way to delink those is possible without too much hassle, I would jump on board.
Note: while my preferred option for album art used to be embedded art, I've come around to merely placing the art in the music (album) folder these days. If there is an easy way to resize the album art to less than 100KB, and then embed the files properly as front cover, back cover, etc., could someone please inform me? Currently I use foobar2000 and mp3tag. (Handling of multiple covers is not yet perfect in mp3tag... Though it apparently works in Tag/Rename and MediaMonkey.) Thanks in advance for the help, if any is forthcoming.
QUOTE(milesmonk @ May 5 2008, 03:31)
QUOTE(Roseval @ May 5 2008, 01:30)
My only comment is that I don’t understand why one is so concerned about file structure.
Any decent player uses tags to browse your collection.
Using WMP I can select a composer say Beethoven. I can sort all his works by title, genre and as I have given a couple of tags a very distinct use, by opus number and by year of composition.
Why do I need a complicated file naming convention when filtering and sorting by tags (not to mention the search box) do the job?
If I read these postings about directory/filename structures, I have the feeling that a lot of people simply don’t understand where tagging is about.
I agree completely. The behaviour that I (and some others in this thread) exhibit is most definitely anal-retentive. But it's not only about file-structure. The way I see it, file-structure is only a reflection of metadata. (After all, renaming files in accordance with the scheme I've outlined above is only a click away in foobar2000/mp3tag/[your mp3 renamer of choice].) Changing file-structure isn't all that difficult. But coming up with a consistent and intelligent metadata system is.
So, you see, at the root of things, I'm concerned not so much with the file/folder structure, as with tagging. Who should be "Artist" for a a Classical performance? Sometimes it is the performer who is the highlight (e.g., Glenn Gould/Luciano Pavarotti), and sometimes it is the piece being performed that is the star (e.g., a second-rate philharmonic performing Beethovan). Sometimes, it is the conductor who is given top billing. How do you tag it, and how do you organise/display/sort it in your player of choice?
The questions I had raised for the file structure also apply directly to tagging. Do you tag it uniformly as "OST: [Movie Name]" or "[Movie Name]" or "[Full title as provided on the CD]"? AMG has a habit of using "Soundtrack" as the Album Artist for all multi-artist soundtracks. Do you follow that, or use "Various Artists"? These are questions about tagging as well.
Sure, most people never think twice about such questions. But then, those people aren't following this discussion, are they?
..and some people keep their photos in bulk in shoe boxes, no matter when, where or why they were taken and by whom. It's a choice.
I prefer album before artist, because I can hear and remember who's the artist, but most of the time I don't recall which album it is.
I prefer album before artist, because I can hear and remember who's the artist, but most of the time I don't recall which album it is.
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