i've been lurking on these forums for a while now and have tried to read as much as i can about all things relating to eac, flac, and tagging.
i have taken it upon myself to re-rip my entire music collection again (did it many years ago), but this time to use a lossless codec instead of mp3. i think i've got a pretty good grasp on how to do everything, but there are a few things that i would still like some clarification on--or at least some opinions from some members here.
some of the things i'm trying to follow:
tagging standards
suggested eac settings with flac and accuraterip
razer's filename conventions
proper capitalization and naming conventions
so, the questions i have for now are...
what do people do with special symbols (such as slash '/', colon ':', and double quote '"') that aren't allowed in filenames? use an underscore, leave it out completely, use a symbol that looks similar (such as semi-colon for colon, single quote for double quote, etc.)?
how do you handle artists, albums, etc. that begin with "The"? ditto for artists where you want to sort by last name... the way i have started to do it is to make the filename with the format "Beatles, The" but then have the ARTIST tag contain "The Beatles" for example. that way i can just sort by filename in foobar and all will be well. does this seem like a good approach? on musicbrainz, they spoke of a sort name that could be used in a tag, but i have seen no talk of this on these forums.
please share your opinions and current conventions!
Full Version: filename conventions and sorting
Well, I can't help you with the other stuff, but I replace all symbols that aren't allowed in the filenames with underscores.
For illegal characters for file names.. i just let dBpowerAMP replace them with whatever. If I find that I don't like how it replaced something, I just edit the name manually... it replaces '?' with '¿' so I'm all set with that one 
A while back I decided to name my files like so:
(tracknumber XX) - (artist) - (title)
... works for varius artist CDs
I just sort by path and filename (in winamp) and it's all good
... almost...
"the" is a problem for the alphabetizer (is that a word
), it's the convention of the english language to not alphabetize using 'the'. I say it's the developers' fault if 'the beatles' is under "T" instead of "B" 
A while back I decided to name my files like so:
(tracknumber XX) - (artist) - (title)
... works for varius artist CDs
I just sort by path and filename (in winamp) and it's all good
... almost...
"the" is a problem for the alphabetizer (is that a word
), it's the convention of the english language to not alphabetize using 'the'. I say it's the developers' fault if 'the beatles' is under "T" instead of "B"
QUOTE(cowgod @ Jan 22 2006, 04:51 PM)
what do people do with special symbols (such as slash '/', colon ':', and double quote '"') that aren't allowed in filenames? use an underscore, leave it out completely, use a symbol that looks similar (such as semi-colon for colon, single quote for double quote, etc.)?
Replace with a dash immediately after the last previous legal character in the filename.
QUOTE(cowgod @ Jan 22 2006, 04:51 PM)
how do you handle artists, albums, etc. that begin with "The"? ditto for artists where you want to sort by last name... the way i have started to do it is to make the filename with the format "Beatles, The" but then have the ARTIST tag contain "The Beatles" for example. that way i can just sort by filename in foobar and all will be well. does this seem like a good approach? on musicbrainz, they spoke of a sort name that could be used in a tag, but i have seen no talk of this on these forums.
Just forget the "The" completely.
I use a dash for illegal characters. I have to admit that it doesn't really matter to me since I rarely, if ever, see the actual file name. Any sorting is done by tags (even Windows Explorer supports this with id3) and my car CD player as well as standalone CD player support id3 tags.
I don't worry about "The" in artist names since my player sorts these properly, but if I had to, I would add "The" to the end.
I don't worry about "The" in artist names since my player sorts these properly, but if I had to, I would add "The" to the end.
i replace the '?' with '--' and i replace '/' with ';' in file names. i then simply use the $replace() command in foobar to display the ? and / inplace of the -- and /
that way, the illegal characters show up in foobar, but the filenames retain their legality at all times.
that way, the illegal characters show up in foobar, but the filenames retain their legality at all times.
well i certainly didn't get as many opinions as i wanted, but i think i'm going to have to go with my gut feeling on this one...
i've started ripping and have gone with the following conventions:
filename special symbols:
replace colons ( : ) with semi-colons ( ; )
replace slash ( / ) with dash ( - )
replace double quote ( " ) with single quote ( ' )
remove question mark completely ( ? )
examples
The X-Files: The Album -> The X-Files; The Album
AC/DC -> AC-DC
"Weird Al" Yankovic -> 'Weird Al' Yankovic
What Would Brian Boitano Do? -> What Would Brian Boitano Do
I can then place the correct character in the tag and everything will display properly in foobar.
dealing with "the":
i am placing "the" at the end of the artist in the filename (Beatles, The) and then tagging it as "The Beatles". then i can just sort by filename in foobar and all will be good. no need for an extra "sort name" tag. the same will be true here of artist names. i can name the files as "Jackson, Michael" and "Jackson, Janet" and then sort by filename and all the jackson's will be grouped alphabetically, but they will be tagged as "Michael Jackson" and "Janet Jackson" so they display properly in foobar.
i've started ripping and have gone with the following conventions:
filename special symbols:
replace colons ( : ) with semi-colons ( ; )
replace slash ( / ) with dash ( - )
replace double quote ( " ) with single quote ( ' )
remove question mark completely ( ? )
examples
The X-Files: The Album -> The X-Files; The Album
AC/DC -> AC-DC
"Weird Al" Yankovic -> 'Weird Al' Yankovic
What Would Brian Boitano Do? -> What Would Brian Boitano Do
I can then place the correct character in the tag and everything will display properly in foobar.
dealing with "the":
i am placing "the" at the end of the artist in the filename (Beatles, The) and then tagging it as "The Beatles". then i can just sort by filename in foobar and all will be good. no need for an extra "sort name" tag. the same will be true here of artist names. i can name the files as "Jackson, Michael" and "Jackson, Janet" and then sort by filename and all the jackson's will be grouped alphabetically, but they will be tagged as "Michael Jackson" and "Janet Jackson" so they display properly in foobar.
Album - Track # - Artist - Title
That way if the files are all tossed into the same folder they maintain their order. It used to matter to me what the illegal characters were replaced with, but I've come to realize that filenames are too limiting; the useful information should be in the tags.
The only use of the filename now is to make the file unique, help sort it for in-order playing (or adding to a playlist), and aid quick visual identification from the file system.
That way if the files are all tossed into the same folder they maintain their order. It used to matter to me what the illegal characters were replaced with, but I've come to realize that filenames are too limiting; the useful information should be in the tags.
The only use of the filename now is to make the file unique, help sort it for in-order playing (or adding to a playlist), and aid quick visual identification from the file system.
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