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[pulpfiction21]

I was wondering how everybody keeps their music on their computer. I personally keep my music in a folder and keep it very organized. Looks like this:




Every file has the band name - song title. This is a tough way to organize cause whenever I download music, i never get it in that format so I have to correct it myself. If you have ever d/led anything that i have posted on the med!afire thread, you have probably found that the files look just like those that you see above.

I also keep CD's that I have d/led and not burned yet and/or haven't formatted the names correctly yet in a separate folder. Looks like this:




I keep everything like this cuz I don't use itunes and i dont like the library function of WMP. It makes things easy to find but it takes alot of time to organize cuz on most days, i can download anywhere from 10 - 100 albums.

Anyways, how do you guys keep your music organized? Is anyone anal about them being well organized like I am?

[imapiratearg]

About half of mine is organized in folders according to album name and the other half are files arranged by band name.

I've got a little more than ten thousand songs on my computer.

[the_pied_piper]

I have too much music for my laptop hard drive so i keep some on an external drive but it all has to be put into folders by:
Band Name
Album Title
Track Number

all in order. And the Band Names have to be in alphabetical order.

[BlahBlah]

My music is just scattered around in random folders, mostly with meaningless directory and file names.

[Thrillho]

All of it is in a folder called 'Music.' Every artist has their own folder. Any full album has its own folder, formatted as 'Year Title'. Any extraneous tracks are just in the folder by themselves. Songs in albums all start with the track number so they come up in order. On winamp, they come up as 'Artist-Album-Song title'.

Also, to the OP, I'd just like to point out how disgusted I am that your 'The' bands are all under 'T.' Unless it's 'The The,' you fail at life. If you have artists who use their full names under their first name I'm going to give you a cockpunch.

[pulpfiction21]

I just enjoy the word "the" so much, i couldnt put it at the end. Everyone else treats "the" like shit, no appreciation to the fact that having "the" at the start of the band name actually means that it is part of the band name and is there for a reason. I respect that. I do have alot of "The" in my folder though, a grand total of 1,812 songs by bands that start with the letter "the".

[celticgeek]

I keep mine in an overall music folder,
then folders by genre,
then folders by artist names,
the folders by album title,
then the actual music files.

I don't usually bother with track numbers. 

Things are more or less in alphabetical order, since my computer does this for me already.

Almost all of my musics files have been ripped from CDs (using Sound Juicer), and are in .flac format.  The total is about 110 GBytes of music and stuff. 

The others are mp3 downloads from various companies I buy them from.

Scattered in amongst the various music files are text documents of lyrics, tablatures, chords and so forth.  Also scattered in there are pictures of album art, pictures of artists, and so forth.  As well as miscellaneous stuff like play lists for Amarak, recordings I have made on the computer, compilations of various types, and so forth. 

It works for me.

[Thrillho]

Oh, I just have to add a line by a comedienne I saw on TV once that cracks me up all the time:

"He wants to organise his CD collection by genre... I want him to get a job."

[rynne]

I store music by however the default iTunes setting decides to store it.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

i don't store any music on my computer.


i like to live dangerously.

[Be My Head]

I throw an album in there in a folder, since most of my stuff is from zip files with single albums.

Stuff is occasionally put in the Artist/Album/Songs format when it was torrented or ripped from CDs.

[Harun]

I organize by this structure: /Music/Artist/Album/# Track Title


foobar2000's built-in file operation functions include moving files, and I have it set up so that it follows the directory structure above. I absolutely love it.

[wowy319]

I store music by however the default iTunes setting decides to store it.

I second that method.  Anything I randomly download just goes in my catch-all download folder.  I should probably do something different with that so I can actually have some sorting done...

[MrBlu]

About half of mine is organized in folders according to album name and the other half are files arranged by band name.

This.


Plus, I don't use limewire.

[BrainToad]

Main folder called "This Music is Better Than You" (from my Soulseek days and having my music folder viewed by all)

Divided into letter folders based on artist name or various artists, or singles (files not in a complete album)
Then Artist > (Year) Album > Disc # (if applicable) > Track # - Title

Various Artists is split into Compilations, Splits and Soundtracks
Then (Year) Album > Disc # > Track # - Artist - Title

My code for foobar2000 to automatically organize everything into this fashion is pretty insane, based on my laziness to do too much tag editing (like adding the Band, The format in album artist or making !!! go into my 0-9 folder) and other crazy stuff.  I'm very obsessive about neatness in my music folder.

[Tom]

I let iTunes worry about it.

[BeoPuppy]

iTunes here too. I like the pretty pictures all next to eachother. It's ... cheerful.

[jeph]

itunes does everything for me.

[pulpfiction21]

But if you guys use iTunes, does that mean all the music is in a folder somewhere and if you were to look in said folder, it would be madness?


I'm not familiar with how iTunes operates.

[Joseph]

With iTunes, you have a folder.  Within that folder, there are individual folders for each artist.  Within those folders, there are individual folders for each album.  The mp3s for each album are within these folders.

[pulpfiction21]

Even if you download a song that isnt tagged correctly or have the properties of the file inputted? In other words, is there an "unknown folder"? And do a lot of songs end up there?

[Joseph]

Once you fix the tags, iTunes will move the newly tagged item to the correct folder.  This is assuming though, that you do not have it set so that you manually manage your own library.  Things only go to an "unknown folder" if there are no tags.

[look out! Ninjas!]

And if you tag something as a compilation it will go into a Compilation>Album folder, and if you sort "Album by Artist" it keeps all the compilation albums together. It's a wonderful system that keeps everyone happy.

Even though I run all my music playing through itunes so it wouldn't matter if it just put all the songs into one folder and labelled them all as increasing amounts of the letter z.

[Swordfish]

All my iTunes stuff is on a 250GB external drive.  My computer can't handle all the music.  It's folders by artist and album and all that.

[casull]

My music is managed really well by rhythmbox, an itunes clone for linux. My netbook's hard drive only allows for about 20gb of music, so I delete an album every time I download a new one. That way, music I never listen to doesn't pile up.

[StaedlerMars]

A-Z,0-9/ Band Name / Album / Song

I actually find this very useful. I have a lot of music, and this makes it a lot easier to quickly locate something.

[Patrick]

I just let iTunes do it. It organizes shit really well. I just wish it wouldn't organize albums by certain artists alphabetically. I wish it would go by albums chronologically. How The West Was Won did not come before Led Zeppelin II, for example, but it shows up like that on iTunes.

[StaedlerMars]

My issue with iTunes is that it duplicates files. This can slowly but steadily eat up your disk space.

Players that just scan a folder are much better.

[Zingoleb]

I just let iTunes do it. It organizes shit really well. I just wish it wouldn't organize albums by certain artists alphabetically. I wish it would go by albums chronologically. How The West Was Won did not come before Led Zeppelin II, for example, but it shows up like that on iTunes.

I added in "Year" alongside "Name" "Time" "Album" "Artist" and all that good stuff on my iTunes and I can organize it by year.

Though How the West Was Won comes in just after Zep IV because it was the '72 tour...

How do you sort live tours? The year of the tour or the year of the release?

[J-cob9000]

It's not that organized.
I need to get it organized. I would love to have it tagged correctly for Album, Artist, Title, Year, Genre and have proper album art. It won't get done by itself. I think I'm going to work on that today.
I only have 800 songs or so. I should do it before it gets too much larger.

[Catacombs]

I just let iTunes do it. It organizes shit really well. I just wish it wouldn't organize albums by certain artists alphabetically. I wish it would go by albums chronologically. How The West Was Won did not come before Led Zeppelin II, for example, but it shows up like that on iTunes.

I added in "Year" alongside "Name" "Time" "Album" "Artist" and all that good stuff on my iTunes and I can organize it by year.

Though How the West Was Won comes in just after Zep IV because it was the '72 tour...

How do you sort live tours? The year of the tour or the year of the release?

I do it by the year of the original tour.  When going thru the music, it helps to put the recordings in perspective when you're listening to it.  For example, one of Springsteen's live albums Hammersmith Odeon, London '75 would go under 1975, not 2006 or 2007 or whenever it was first released.  His live show then is a lot different than his live show today.

As for the whole of my music, I let iTunes do it.  It does a damn good job with keep track of everything on my computer.  I get pretty OCD with how songs show up on iTunes tho, so I always make sure I correctly format it with album art work and all.  And as a fun fact i use a program called 'Bowtie' to monitor what's playing while iTunes is minimized.  I can post a link to it if anyone is interested.

[boneykingofnowhere]

Big ass file called Music, folders by artist, folders by album, tracks. Also arranged in iTunes.
I just hate it when I get one song that wont be put in the right order in iTunes. Stupid OCD...

[el_loco_avs]

I have two folders on two harddrive's with music. mostly as
artist/album/songs when I've sorted it out.

Winamp finds the stuff and makes it easy to sort out and stuff.

I hate iTunes.

[dujek]

Folder called Music, then individual folders for each artist, sorted by album, track number and then track name

[Patrick]

I do it by the year of the original tour.  When going thru the music, it helps to put the recordings in perspective when you're listening to it.  For example, one of Springsteen's live albums Hammersmith Odeon, London '75 would go under 1975, not 2006 or 2007 or whenever it was first released.  His live show then is a lot different than his live show today.

I bet it was less nuts-to-camera and more rock and roll.

[Catacombs]

I do it by the year of the original tour.  When going thru the music, it helps to put the recordings in perspective when you're listening to it.  For example, one of Springsteen's live albums Hammersmith Odeon, London '75 would go under 1975, not 2006 or 2007 or whenever it was first released.  His live show then is a lot different than his live show today.

I bet it was less nuts-to-camera and more rock and roll.

Haha, yea, but if you watch the DVD recording of the same concert, he climbed into the stage some how.

[iamiam]

v



v



v




I guess I am a little OCD about organization.  I would go through and add dates for all the albums but I have too much music and that would take ages!

[öde]

Music > Band > Albums
Organise > big mess
Desktop > big mess
Torrents > big mess

I fear the day I finally begin to file the big messes into the neat and ordered world of the music folder. Also my tags are mainly mega-fucked thanks to stupid douches on the internet. TAG YOUR MUSIC PROPERLY.

[jimbunny]

It makes things easy to find but it takes alot of time to organize cuz on most days, i can download anywhere from 10 - 100 albums.

You people make me feel more at ease, because any legal trouble from the RIAA is likely to hit you first. Seriously, why? If you can't possibly listen to these albums more than one time through, if at all, why do you have them?

[Catacombs]

It makes things easy to find but it takes alot of time to organize cuz on most days, i can download anywhere from 10 - 100 albums.

You people make me feel more at ease, because any legal trouble from the RIAA is likely to hit you first. Seriously, why? If you can't possibly listen to these albums more than one time through, if at all, why do you have them?

You can't possibly listen to half of those period.  Even if you do 20 albums a day for a week, you're all set for like 2 months let alone actually getting in to and enjoying said albums.

[pulpfiction21]

Well first of all, i download a lot of my albums via amazon or cdbaby, which i pay for. Also:

As of late 2008 they (RIAA) have announced they will stop their lawsuits and instead are attempting to work with ISPs who will use a three strike warning system for file sharing, presumably based upon an accusation=guilt policy, and upon the third strike will cut off internet service all together. However as of 2009 no major ISPs have announced, and Verizon has publicly denied, any involvement with this plan.

I'm never too concerned with the RIAA.

As for the not being able to listen to all the albums, this is true. I have quite a few albums that I have yet to listen to. But i like having them whenever i see the album because if i don't download it then, i might forget about the band later. I will eventually get to them all. Alot of the albums that i download, i listen to a song or two and realize its not something that i enjoy, so i delete it.

And when i said "10-100" albums a day, the "100" is not the norm, there has just been a couple of occasions when I just went download crazy and downloaded a lot of albums, most of which were albums that I used to love and realized i didn't have.



EDIT: To Jimbunny's comment, the RIAA didnt know how much music that the person had downloaded when they would sue someone, it was just a random selection process done through IP addresses. You would be almost as susceptible to getting sued as me if you have ever downloaded any music illegally. When they would sue somebody, they would have no knowledge of the person other than their IP address.

[sunexplodes]

This is how I roll:
 Music Folder/ Artist Name / Year - Album Title / Tracknumber - Track Title

[Freddybear]

I'm down with the /Music/artist/album/track_title.mp3 (or ogg or flac or whatever) name format. Classical music is by composer instead of artist. Mostly. Except Horowitz and Perlman and Segovia and Parkening.

BUT, I've been getting majorly anal about fixing up the tags so the FOOBAR music player works optimally. So all of "The Flaming Lips" are "The Flaming Lips" and not "Flaming Lips, The" or "Lips" or whatever.

And getting the right year into the date tag.

And getting track number tags for those CD that I ripped before I realized that the default in the ripper didn't include track numbers. That has been a lot of fun.

[ThePianoMan]

Music\Arist\Album for me. I usually toss individual song downloads into a "Various Artists" folder, though, just because it's a hassle making a subfolder for each artist if I'm d/ling a lot.

[s0ck ninja]

about 2GB of my music lives on my hard drive. 5GB live on a hard drive in a shed across my lawn on the network server. the remaining 8 or 9 gigs are on a hard drive in florida named "buster." the folders are all named some horribly mangled misspelling of "music" and that's really as organized as it gets. ahhh itunes.

[Melodic]

I'm so banal about music organization that all of the music on my computer is from CDs I own.

Ffffffffuuuuuu

[pulpfiction21]

Ok so I recently organized all my music on my computer into album folders. My problem is that i want to open up the album folder and have the songs organized by order of songs. However, whenever i do the "sort by #" button on the top, it sorts them the way I want but when I go to the same folder a couple days later, all the songs are back to being ordered alphabetically.

Is there a way to stop this from happening? and also is there a way to have all the files in all the folders be organized by # without having to go into each individual folder and do it manually one at a time? Cuz if there is, it could save me a shit ton of time.

I'd really appreciate any help you guys can offer.

[pwhodges]

When you've got the folder the way you want it, you can go to the menu item Tools->Folder Options, and on the View tab click Apply to All Folders.  But that will cause your non-music folders to be sorted the same way.

The forgetting the settings bit is because the number of folders that Windows can remember the settings for is limited, and so older settings get forgotten.  You can increase the number, but I can't remember how - it's probably a setting that can be changed by Microsoft's "TweakUI PowerToy".

[StaedlerMars]

Question:

how do you guys deal with remixes, featuring, etc?

On the artist name or on the song name? I still haven't decided which one is best. Song name works best for iPod, but it's not very accurate I think.

[doombilly]

scattered. smothered and chunked on three computers, a blackberry and various cheap ass mp3 players. Mostly in /my music though and I try to ID3Tagit pretty consistently.