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Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: salada on 18 Nov 2006, 17:51

Title: Organising your music
Post by: salada on 18 Nov 2006, 17:51
Like most of you here, I listen to a lot of music, a lot of the time. Usually played through my computer (almost especially in the past year, since my record player and record collection are boxed up somewhere in Australia) while I'm at home, or my ipod while I'm out and about.

I like a wide range of music, it just depends on the mood I'm in: So in an effort to stop abrasive noise being queued up after twee pop, I've embarked on the long and arduous task of organising my music a bit better. I've found so far that creating a bunch of playlists organised by record label isn't such a bad idea (Ninja Tune, Rephlex, Blue Note, etc...) but this is probably going to fall apart with groups signed to majors.

I think mood-based playlists might be a good idea, but I'm yet to really try them. Smart playlists with star ratings and sub-playlists and blah blah blah seem a bit too much work for something that really shouldn't be too complicated. But then if you forget to add new music, they can do it for you, so they might not be such a bad idea.

So, in short: How do you organise your music, for listening to? I'm interested in other peoples' organising strategies, especially if you listen to a wide range of stuff that, while all good, doesn't necessarily work together...

Meticulously organised by genre, sub-genre, label, year, mood, BPM? Happy-go-lucky whole library on shuffle?
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: KharBevNor on 18 Nov 2006, 18:09
Alphabetically.

Next?
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Thrillho on 18 Nov 2006, 19:17
Alphabetically, then chronologically by album.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: E. Spaceman on 18 Nov 2006, 19:21
alphabetically/hodgepodge
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: IronOxide on 18 Nov 2006, 19:23
Alphabetically, then chronologically by album.

Exactly.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: BeoPuppy on 18 Nov 2006, 19:50
Alphabetically, then chronologically by album.

Amen.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: amok on 18 Nov 2006, 20:24
(http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/1880/winamprk2.png)

genre/sub-genre/artist - [year] album

the genres aren't supposed to be really pedantic and accurate, it's just so I can queue up a playlist of stuff that goes well together easily on winamp, and find stuff more easily
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Thrillho on 19 Nov 2006, 01:12
Why the fuck separate by genre in your folders? Winamp has at least two ways of making playlists. It'd just take clicking and dragging.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: amok on 19 Nov 2006, 02:21
Why the fuck separate by genre in your folders? Winamp has at least two ways of making playlists. It'd just take clicking and dragging.


Quote
it's just so I can queue up a playlist of stuff that goes well together easily on winamp

Playlist window: "add folder"

As opposed to importing everything into that god-awful media library thing.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Gridgm on 19 Nov 2006, 03:04
quite frankly genre's don't work because if you down load anything it inevitable has the wrong genre on it and it's to much hassel to change it

(my favorite was it listing marduk as country music)
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Thrillho on 19 Nov 2006, 04:59
Why the fuck separate by genre in your folders? Winamp has at least two ways of making playlists. It'd just take clicking and dragging.


Quote
it's just so I can queue up a playlist of stuff that goes well together easily on winamp

Playlist window: "add folder"

As opposed to importing everything into that god-awful media library thing.

In what sense is the media library god-awful? As far as playlists, it does its job just fine.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: amok on 19 Nov 2006, 05:38
If it works for you, fair enough. I just don't see the point of the added effort of moving files into some random extra window, then sorting them, then making playlists - as opposed to organising music as soon as it hits my computer so that it only takes a couple of clicks.

That and as the other person said, the genre tags on mp3s are usually fucked up, so unless I bothered manually renaming that field on everything I downloaded (effort :() like 90% of my tunes would be 'Blues' :)
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Johnny C on 19 Nov 2006, 05:56
iTunes has a nice feature: "album by artist." I use this.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: bff on 19 Nov 2006, 08:18
Happy-go-lucky whole library on shuffle?

*raises hand* that would be me.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Scytale on 19 Nov 2006, 10:59
quite frankly genre's don't work because if you down load anything it inevitable has the wrong genre on it and it's to much hassel to change it

(my favorite was it listing marduk as country music)

Haha someone needs to photoshop a "Tractor Division Marduk"  album cover now :)

http://doci.nnm.ru/black_metal_again/23.03.2006/_leben_ist_krieg_d_1 For people who have no idea what I'm talking about...
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: BrittanyMarie on 19 Nov 2006, 11:03
I'm a happy go lucky library on shuffle person too. I do have mood playlists (one is entitled "cooooffffffeeeeeee"), but most of the playlists I have are for themed radio shows like... I play only covers on Halloween, so I have a just covers playlist, and I had a "Romance Sucks" playlist for Valentine's Day.

I like when a random metal song or electronica or old-school country-western pops up after something super twee like Jeffrey Lewis or maybe even Daniel Johnston.

Also: I just let iTunes organize mine, and I hate genres so I regularly delete all the genres when I put new music on there.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Gridgm on 19 Nov 2006, 12:10
quite frankly genre's don't work because if you down load anything it inevitable has the wrong genre on it and it's to much hassel to change it

(my favorite was it listing marduk as country music)

Haha someone needs to photoshop a "Tractor Division Marduk"? album cover now :)

http://doci.nnm.ru/black_metal_again/23.03.2006/_leben_ist_krieg_d_1 For people who have no idea what I'm talking about...
that would be beautiful...especially if they tried to make the tractor look evil...like that episode of the simpsons where barts talking to one
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Narr on 19 Nov 2006, 14:45
Alphabetically, then chronologically by album.
Ditto.

EXCEPT for my CDs I keep in my truck.  Those are pretty much alphabetical by band only because they get shifted around between albums a lot, often because I let my wingperson do the actual changing of CDs.

I also refuse to get an iPod.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: TrueNeutral on 19 Nov 2006, 18:23
Alphabetically, then chronologically by album.

Yup.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: jcknbl on 20 Nov 2006, 10:49
Guys. We all know that "Genre" feature on iTunes is useless. So I figured that it would be more useful to divide by Record label.

I did not think this through.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Gridgm on 20 Nov 2006, 10:53
note above the amount of times it says alpahbettically chronologically
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Toba on 20 Nov 2006, 11:03

drwxr-xr-x    4 eastein eastein    96 Aug 31 12:46 Therion/
drwxr-xr-x   12 eastein eastein   456 Aug 19 20:36 They Might Be Giants/
drwxr-xr-x    3 eastein eastein    96 Aug 31 12:26 Thievery Corporation/
drwxr-xr-x    4 eastein eastein   104 Oct  6 16:33 Third Eye Blind/
drwxr-xr-x    4 eastein eastein   104 Aug 19 20:36 Three Days Grace/
drwxr-xr-x    4 eastein eastein   104 Sep 27 13:35 Thrice/


On a fileserver, alphabetized by artist.  Duh.
Structure:
~/Media/Music/Artist/Album/00 Track Name Here.format
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Will on 20 Nov 2006, 11:07

I also refuse to get an iPod.
I thought I was the only one...

I have the music on my computer organized by artist and then by album, just because that's how iTunes defaults.  I use iTunes just because it's the easiest to shuffle by album with, and I am greatly amused by letting my musical tastes run amuck - I love when I go from, say Pig Destroyer to Nancy Sinatra.  As far as my actual cd collection goes, I'm lucky if I can actually keep the right cd's in their respective cases, let alone organizing them in any way.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Hat on 20 Nov 2006, 13:29
On my computer,it is pretty simple. Band names by Alphabetical order, album order done chronologically.

When it comes to CDs and records, it is pretty much the ones scattered across the living room/bedroom with the wrong CD in it and you have to spend half an hour putting CDs back in their proper cases just to find that one CD you were looking for but now you don't really want to listen to it that much now, that I listen to the most.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Gridgm on 20 Nov 2006, 14:27
really?...i'm analy retentive about my cd collection
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Scytale on 20 Nov 2006, 16:20
My CD collection exists of a huge tower thing in the corner and various other cases scattered all over my desk, bedroom, rest of the flat and the car. I'm hopeless, I'll loose cd's for weeks at a time. Only about 70% of my collection has ben ripped  because a) I'm lazy or b) when I think "I should ripped that" I can never find it.

As for my ripped stuff :


./ulver:
total 8.0K
drwxrw-rwx 2 users 4.0K Mar 24  2006 bergtatt
drwxrw-rwx 4 users 4.0K Mar 24  2006 theme's from william blake's the marriage of heaven and hell

./ulver/bergtatt:
total 40M
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 9.0M Mar 24  2006 01 kapitel i - i troldskog faren vil.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 7.6M Mar 24  2006 02 kapitel ii - soelen gaaer bag aas.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 8.9M Mar 24  2006 03 kapitel iii - graablick blev hun.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 4.7M Mar 24  2006 04 kapitel iv - een stemme locker.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 9.3M Mar 24  2006 05 kapitel v - bergtatt - ind i fjel.mp3

./ulver/theme's from william blake's the marriage of heaven and hell:
total 8.0K
drwxrw-rwx 2 users 4.0K Mar 25  2006 disc one
drwxrw-rwx 2 users 4.0K Mar 25  2006 disc two

./ulver/theme's from william blake's the marriage of heaven and hell/disc one:
total 57M
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 4.7M Mar 25  2006 01 the argument - plate 2.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 3.3M Mar 25  2006 02 plate 3.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 1.8M Mar 25  2006 03 the voice of the devil.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 3.3M Mar 25  2006 04 plate 4.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 2.9M Mar 25  2006 05 plates 5-6.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 5.1M Mar 25  2006 06 a memorable fancy plates 6 -7.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users  11M Mar 25  2006 07 proverbs of hell plates 7-10.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 2.4M Mar 25  2006 08 plate 11.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 4.0M Mar 25  2006 09 a memorable fancy.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 6.9M Mar 25  2006 10 plates 12-13.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 2.5M Mar 25  2006 11 plate 14.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 5.6M Mar 25  2006 12 plate 15.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 3.8M Mar 25  2006 13 plates 16-17.mp3

./ulver/theme's from william blake's the marriage of heaven and hell/disc two:
total 60M
-rwxr--r-- 1 users  14M Mar 25  2006 2-01 a memorable fancy plates 17-20.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 2.9M Mar 25  2006 2-02 plate 21.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 3.7M Mar 25  2006 2-03 plate 22.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 5.6M Mar 25  2006 2-04 a memorable fancy plates 22-24.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users 4.6M Mar 25  2006 2-05 a song of liberty.mp3
-rwxr--r-- 1 users  31M Mar 25  2006 2-06 plates 25-27.mp3

Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: thepugs on 20 Nov 2006, 18:43
Someone isn't using Winders.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Misereatur on 20 Nov 2006, 20:25
Genre, alphabetically, then chronologically by album.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Thrillho on 20 Nov 2006, 21:24
really?...i'm analy retentive about my cd collection

I am autistically obsessed with music, so my room is a craphole but my CDs are perfect.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Holm on 20 Nov 2006, 21:50
alphabetically by artist, then by album
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Thrillho on 21 Nov 2006, 00:05
I've never understood the logic of organising albums alphabetically. It just makes no sense to me. Surely it doesn't put them in the right order. If you played them in the order they are in your folder, the progression of the band would be all over the place. Chronological has just always made the most sense to me.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Misereatur on 21 Nov 2006, 00:29
Yeah, chronologically makes so much more sense.

Btw, where do you put live albums? I usually put them right after the last studio album.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Gridgm on 21 Nov 2006, 00:36
I've never understood the logic of organising albums alphabetically. It just makes no sense to me. Surely it doesn't put them in the right order. If you played them in the order they are in your folder, the progression of the band would be all over the place. Chronological has just always made the most sense to me.

personally i split everything into metal and not metal (i ran out of room because my cd rack only holds 100 cd's and this was the most even split i could find in my collection...coincidently it's filled up again since i split it)

then alphabetically by artist - chronoligically by album
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Thrillho on 21 Nov 2006, 00:39
Yeah, chronologically makes so much more sense.

Btw, where do you put live albums? I usually put them right after the last studio album.

I put them where they were recorded rather than released. Like Bob Dylan's Live 1966 album was released in 1998, but I put that between Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde On Blonde (1966) because that's when it was recorded.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: öde on 21 Nov 2006, 01:56
In winamp: alphabetically, or by number of songs to find my favourite bands (I have a lot of 1-5 song entries of bands I kinda like).

My shared folder is a mess since I stopped tidying it up, my Downloads folder is much neater since I currently use that one and stuff there is downloaded with bittorrent so I get whole albums, etc.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Moo Cakes on 21 Nov 2006, 02:52
Organise?
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Freezey on 21 Nov 2006, 03:22
on the computer folders, it's alphabetical (one folder for "A" bands, another for "B" and so on). For any bands that have several releases I just give them their own folder (ex. Sonic Youth)

in Winamp, it's alphabetically and then by album in chronological order. Live stuff goes at the end, if applicable.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: nihilist on 21 Nov 2006, 22:27
I sort my music at the highest level into three groups: albums, DJ sets, and singles.  Each one is then divided by artists (alphabetically), and then chronologically.

It is tedious and time-consuming when I get new stuff.
Title: Re: Organising your music
Post by: Dimmukane on 22 Nov 2006, 00:14
Divided into artists, which are then listed alphabetically.  The albums are listed either alphabetically or chronologically.  Special cases (Film Music, Game Music, Classical Music, and Jazz) have their own folders, because I don't feel bothered to remember all the names of each one of them on top of the billions of stuff I already have.  In those folders, I also have it divided by artist, or by Movie Title/Game Title/Franchise.  I also have one folder with a bunch of random things, where I put Various Artist material.  Disney stuff, the "100 greatest guitar solos of all time", mixes that people put online that I thought were good.  And a couple single tracks, or things that I haven't been able to get around to organizing yet.  I will probably create a folder for the loads of semi-obscure black metal, power metal, and technical death that I seem to have.  Seperate ones, of course.