I do it this way.
D:\My music\Artist - Album_DVD-xx
And filename: Track nr - Songname.m4a
I add _DVD-xx for backup purposes.
But I have tagged all my music very well, so iTunes sort right.
I never use windows explorer to find music I want to play.

normal albums

music\genre\album\artist (year)\nn. track

compliations (various artits)

music\genre\VA. album - artist (year)\nn. track - artist

i find this fairly compact and easy to navigate on my iriver h140.
Some people prefer to put the year before the album but on the my h140 the display is fairly small and you really need to see the album or artist before you see the year

codec\artist - date - album (quality info)\tracknumber - title

for artists with more than 1 album which is 80% of my collection

[Genre]/Artist/[Year] Album/T# Artist - Track.ext
or
[Genre]/Artist/[Year] Album/Artist T# Track.ext
..haven't decided yet which is more suitable for me, and I tend to move all "-" before and after T# because try to save space where I can (joliet)

for artists with 1 album

[Genre]/Artist [Year] Album/T# Artist - Track.ext

for various

VA/VA - Album or Artist or Label [year]/T# Artist - Track.ext

but, I also have other folders eg [Label] witch contains some obscure labels with 10 or maybe more releases, [Bootleg] folder etc etc ..and they have different structure, if one have a wide spectar of music it's impossible to have just one naming structure.
end yes, I always move "_" cause it looks ugly and all my txt, nfo, sfv, jpeg files are in the same folder and have 00 before file name.

I my case, I end up focusing more on directory structure than on that same music
..but it works fine now

Wow.
Some interesting schemes among all these.
What does strike me as interesting is how many of you use 'genre' as a folder, which implies that all tracks from an album are going to be under a parent folder such as 'rock' (at some level).
As someone who has worked in commercial radio, I want every song to have it's own specific genre, not an entire album labelled as 'rock'. That way, if I want to listen to ballads, I could listen to ballads that come off otherwise 'rock' albums. For example, let's say, I dunno, Springsteen, for instance. Let's take 'Born in the USA'. A track like 'I'm on fire' or 'My hometown' would definitely be labelled a ballad, while 'No surrender' would most definitely be 'rock'.
Do these kinds of conflicts not bother those of you who use 'genre' as a folder?
I can definitely see the sense in contracting the filename so joliet limitations don't truncate said filenames when burnt to cd. Very smart.
Something else I'd personally never considered was putting the year in the album level folder, so that albums are sorted by year of release, rather than alphabetically. Nice.
Looks like I'm off to do some major re-sorting.
Oh, to the dude who said "if you use a single folder, you musn't have very large collections", mmmm, I dunno.
My collection is probably not as large as some who lurk around these parts, but I'm currently around the 5500-5600 mark ALL IN ONE FOLDER. Yeah, I know, I'm crazy.
What brought me to this thread is I'm wondering if parsing some of the tag data to the folder level (and therefore creating a couple of hundred 2nd and 3rd level folders) will help Windoze Explorer to browse the folders quicker?
Keen to hear peoples thoughts on that, too.
Cheers,
Bruce.

I have two structures, one with albums in just in a single folder (only about 50 of these) and one with individual downloaded songs (about 1,500 of them), which are filed alphabetical letter, band name then just the songs and the filenames are just the title of the song.

Music\Albums\Genre\Artist - Album

And a separate folder with lossless albums.

/Artist Name/(yyyy) Album Title/##. Track Name

When storing 10s of GB on a hard drive, I divide into Genre parent folders, like:

/Genre/Artist Name/(yyyy) Album Title/##. Track Name

Archiving (before formatting to my specs)

Artist Name - Album Title (<mm-dd- (if available)>yyyy) <3-letter code representing the source (ex: SBD, AUD, etc)> [CODEC] <Number of discs, if more than one (ex: 2 CD)>/<if multi-cd> Disc #/Track name as acquired

As in:

Juliana Hatfield - Live at Iota Club & Cafe (12-02-2004) AUD [FLAC]/juliana2004-12-02t01.flac

My way of thinking about the music seems significantly different from yours. For whatever reason, I kind of append a "working genre" to a band's name in my head, so if I decide to sort and/or listen by genre, it is to hear the bands that I know will show up that way.

I honestly had never even thought of each song having its own genre. I know what you mean, and can see how that makes sense, but I think of it kind of like this:

You've got the movie director (artist) and the film's genre (genre) and the film's name (album title) and scenes within the film (songs). While this obviously doesn't work across the board with many directors, it would play out like this for me.

Thriller/Alfred Hitchcock/(1935) The 39 Steps/The scene with the prayer with the guy and the farmer's wife

So the way I think of genre, it would be like classifying each scene in a movie as its own genre. I know it's a peculiar way to look at it, but it's in my brain that way.

Fair enough. Each to their own, eh? It's things like this that I love about these sorts of forums (or fora).... hearing everyone's different views on stuff.

I know this isn't the thread to post this in, but seeing as how this is where I am right now....
...anyone know why the url tag doesn't seem to work in the sig file?

music\artist\artist_date_album_track#_title_genre[_year2]


year2 = re-release date, if there is one

I store my music files on a different drive than that of the OS, for safety reasons.

The folder structure is:
<quality>\<music genre>\<codec>\<artist-album>

where quality is:
-RandomFi (this special folder is for a few random tracks and has no structure)
-HiFi (mpc q5+, mp3 --aps+)
-LoFi (mp3 128kbps , etc)

\Artist\Year - Album\tracknumber. title.ext

When an artist has multiple albums for one year:

Year (1) - Album
Year (2) - Album

Two folders:
"Academical" (serious) music>Composer>CD Title>(often)CD 1, CD 2, CD 3...
"Pop music">Group>Album (01, 02, 03 according to the year of release)

And one more, special folder "Various" in each main folder.

P.S. It's quite complicated, so I'll provide some examples:

Music Library/Academical/Beethoven Ludvig von/Symphonies (Karajan)/CD X/03 Symphony No. 3 Es-dur op.55 Eroica 3. Scherzo. Allegro viace.ape
(I.e. Track # (space) Track name.ext)

Or Music Library/Pop/Therion/01 Time Shall Tell (1990)/02 Dark Eternity.mp3

Codec\Artist - Date - Album\Track - Title.codec

that's approximately my style..

e:\audio\music\artist\artist - year - album [encoder.bitrate]\nn. track

For bands like "The Soundtrack of Our Lives" I'll abbreviate, or exclude, their name at the album level; otherwise I tend to hit the filename length limit.

I keep audiobooks and classical music in a separate root directory, as I do 'incoming music' which hasn't been tagged/error-checked/replaygained. once that process has been done, it gets moved to a 'clean' directory, which gets dumped to DVD once it's reached 4.3GB. Only then do things get moved to the main music dump.

The [encoder.bitrate] field is added manually, with reference to EncSpot or MQM. I've long pined for something which could tag directories automatically, but alas..

It's 2005. Are you guys really still doing this manually?

I had to actually look at how the database-like management program I use (iTunes )keeps things organized. Turns out it's Artist/Album/T# - Song.codec

negritot: I use foobar2000. It allows me to organize my files the way I want them, instead of shoehorning me into whatever format it wants.

For "full albums":

F:\Albums\*Genre*\*Artist*\*Album*\Tracknumber Title.extension

F:\Albums\Rock\Pink Floyd\Dark Side of the Moon\03 Time.ape
F:\Albums\Metal\Sonata Arctica\Ecliptica\07 Letter to Dana.mpc





For "various songs":

F:\Tracks\*Letter*\*Artist*\Title.extension

F:\Tracks\S\Springsteen, Bruce\Blinded by the Light.mp3
F:\Tracks\W\Who, The\Pinball Wizard.ogg
F:\Tracks\B\Beatles, The\All you need is love.mpc



Not perfect but I don't have that many files (~8,000) so it works fine for me

I do Poll option #3; it looks like this: Artist\Album\Track

D:/music/format(mp3 , ape)/ type(rock , heavy)/

You're missing the point. The idea is that the database program becomes the front end to your music. I didn't even know what the directory structure was until now.

I'm too picky. I prefer doing it myself. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion you know

(Also a happy foobar2000 user)

Single artist albums (other than classical)...

I:\My Music\<artist>\<album>\<tracknumber> <title>.flac

Soundtracks...

I:\My Music\Soundtracks\<album>\<tracknumber> <title>.flac
(...and the artist tag contains the actual artist for each track.)

Various artist albums...

I:\My Music\Various Artists\<album>\<tracknumber> <title>.flac
(...and same as with soundtracks, the artist tag contains the actual artist for each track.)

Classical music...

I:\My Music\<composer>\<album> (<orchestra> - <conductor>)\<tracknumber> <title>.flac
(...the artist tag on all tracks contains the composer, and the title is usually appended with additional track info such as tempo, key, etc.)

You've clearly never worked with your files. It sounds like you have a single source (perhaps self-rips only) with reliable and consistent tagging and nothing but music in your folders. I personally have many sources and many of these sources have unreliable tagging and filenaming conventions. Many of these sources provide me with copies of cds that I own but are too damaged to rip.

Furthermore, I have multiple computers on which I use my music selection and I have an FTP front-end allowing me access to all my music from anywhere on the internet.

On top of that, I occasionally enjoy having extra files along with my music. Cover art, files from data tracks from my cds, cuesheets for accurate reconstruction of the original CD, and so on.

Don't assume that just because someone disagrees with you they're missing your point.

And the two aren't mutually exclusive, either; one can both disagree with me and miss my point.

music/genre/artist/album/song

In my music folder (C:\Mp3\) I have:

\Artist\Year - Album (or Date, Location)\CD # (if applicable)\All that again - ## - Title.ext

eg.
C:\Mp3\Anathema\2001 - A Fine Day To Exit\Anathema - A Fine Day To Exit - 09 - Temporary Peace.mp3

C:\Mp3\Muse\2002 - Hullabaloo\CD 2\Muse - Hullabaloo - CD 2 - 01 - Dead Star.mp3

C:\Mp3\John Butler Trio\2003-08-17 - The Tivoli, Brisbane\John Butler Trio - 2003-08-17 - The Tivoli, Brisbane - 22 - Take.mp3


Any Songs I'm not sure of the cd or whatever just go in \Artist\
Songs I don't know the artist for go into \Unknown\

ok, I wrote my structure couple of posts before and there is a lot of explanations about that, but how do you (if you have any) manage files nfo, sfv, jpeg, ini, etc
Do you have 00 before so files are at the top, or not numbering at all, or you save them in different folder?

x:/music/artist/album/artist - nn - title.codec

I use that for my full album collections. (Korn, Deftones)

x:/music/decade/artist - title.codec

I use that for my "one hit wonder" types. (Various Artists Over The Years)

x:/music/collex/artist/album - title.codec

I use this for bands/entertainers who have more than just a few songs I dig, but not worthy of a full album. (Oasis, Greenday)

x:/music/FLAC/artist - album/nn - title.codec

I use this for ALL my albums, while I evaluate them. I give them a listen a few times, figure out what songs I like. When I decide something is worth keeping, I foobar/convert/Vorbis into the one of the categories above. After I have enough albums together (+ PAR Files) I burn them off to DVD-R.

Don't get much time to convince me you have good songs, though. Maybe a week.

Music/Artist/Album/Title.codec

I either convert them directly to my mp3 player or play them with a server (SlimServer). Either way, both options snarf up the track number (and a nicer title) from the ID3 and/or flac tags.

I say that to point out that I really depend on other software (that maintains a cache of all of the tag info) for organization. It maps songs to their actual directory location and that's sufficient for me. Moreover, some of the stuff is tricky - e.g.: a lot of orchestra music albums include music by more than one composer and sometimes more than one orchestra and conductor. Do you just throw all of these in "Various Artists"? I'm curious as to what others put in for the "Artist" on these (composer, conductor, or orchestra).

Mark

In terms of tagging I leave it off (or leave it how it is if it's downloaded) - Foobar is set up so it if there's a composer and performer it ignores the artist field (perhaps not very good in terms of global standardisation, but I'm a little obsessive compulsive about my tags now ), and just put in Composer and Performer, on individual tracks if needs be. If I had any large collection of orchestral stuff on computer I'd probably put it in directories by composer, but I only have one classical recording on my PC, I think, which I'll put on CD when I get round to it anyway, so it's not really an issue for me.

x:\one of 6 main genres\artist\album\## - artist - title.mpc

Normal
d:\1of7Genres\artist - year - album [BITRATEorFLACorAPEorVBR]\## title.ext

after reading earlier posts, my VA's need to be restructured/taggged, but Im sticking with the NORMAL layout!

Regular:
Music/Artist/Year - Album/Artist - Year - Album - Disc # (even if theres just one cd) - Track # - Title.mp3
eg. Music/Lake Of Tears/2004 - Black Brick Road/Lake Of Tears - 2004 - Black Brick Road - 01 - 01 - The Greymen.mp3

Various:
Music/[VARIOUS] Year - Album/Album - Disc # (even if theres just one cd) - Track # - Artist - Song.mp3
eg. Music/[SOUNDTRACK] 2003 - Freddy Vs Jason/Freddy Vs Jason - 01 - 01 - Ill Nino - How Can I Live.mp3

For my purposes, just


../My music/Artist/Year Album (ev. CD1, CD2, ...)/NN Title.codec

is enough, and in case the artist released more albums in the same year, I make the appendix to the YEAR like XXXXA, XXXXB, ....

Crzmn

Just changed mine.

Album Artist / [Date] Album / nn. [Artist] Title

Heh - some of these schemes make me shudder No idea how you guys cope with them like that!

For various reasons I reguarly need to locate files via windows explorer, so I spent a while comming up with a naming scheme that was fast to explore and easy to use (for me at least) - plus it's fast and easy(ish) to parse with scripts when I need to.

E:\Music\<source>\<type>\<album artist>\<album>\[<disc>\]<tracknumber>. [<artist> -] <title>[ <mix>].codec

items in '[' & ']' are optional based on the release

<source> = DVD, CD, LP, Downloaded, etc.
<type> = Album, Single, Compilation, etc.
<album artist> = main artist for this release, or if a compliation label or series (but never ever Various Artist - which is something I really can't stand )
<disc> = contains disc type (often same as source), disc number and name of disc
<artist> = artist of this track if different from <album artist>

It's a bit confusing written like that, so a some examples:

E:\Music\CDs\Albums\Hardfloor\Best Of Hardfloor\CD 1 - The Tracks\01. Once Again Back.flac
E:\Music\CDs\Albums\Hardfloor\Best Of Hardfloor\CD 2 - The Mixes\01. Rising High Collective - Fever Called Love [Hardfloor Remix].flac
E:\Music\CDs\Compilations\Twisted Records\Unusual Suspects\01. Younger Brother - The Finger.flac

Which works well for me, only thing I might change is adding in the album year for sorting purposes.

My Music\Atrist\[year] Album\Atrist - track# - Title.*

Genre\Subgenre\Artist\Album\T#. TrackName.mp3

I was thinking of incorporating the Album release years or Recording years in this, but I can't think of a way to do it.

I like this one very much. inspirational. Maybe I'll try it myself.

Cheers! Glad someone else likes it

Goodluck wi that and let me know if you come up with any improvements (or have any questions)

Did you think of adding genre to it?

Not really - partially because
and partially because I have trouble putting much of my music in a single genre - where does one genre start and another end? One day I'll feel like a band should be one thing the next day another, not to mention bands who change styles as they go.

IMO adding genre to it just adds confusion - so any genre grouping I do is generally done in playlists (which has the benefit of easily being able to add those problem tracks to as many genre as needed).

AUDIO\$if2(Album Artist,Artist)\(Date) Album\Artist - Date - Album (Disc#) - Track# - Title.flac

Organizes well, tree structure wise, and I can still sort by filename if i wanted to for the same results.

Music\Artist\YEAR - Album\T# - Title.codec

What I use. Still have some albums that I need to fix with the years.

Genre \ (Year) Artist - Album \ T# - Title . mpc/mp3/ogg
or
Genre \ Artist - Title . ext

codec/artist/album/[cd1/cd2]/trnumber - trname - artist.ext

eg

flac/coldplay/xy/01 - square one - coldplay.flac
or
mp3/coldplay/xy/01 - square one - coldplay.mp3

also have in folder
flac/coldplay/xy/00 - xy.png
flac/coldplay/xy/00 - xy.sfv
flac/coldplay/xy/00 - xy.m3u