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Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: pulpfiction21 on 26 Feb 2009, 09:27

Title: Music On Your Computer
Post by: pulpfiction21 on 26 Feb 2009, 09:27
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:

(http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff346/pulpfiction21/mymusic.jpg)


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:

(http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff346/pulpfiction21/music2.jpg)


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?
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: imapiratearg on 26 Feb 2009, 09:32
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: the_pied_piper on 26 Feb 2009, 09:34
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: BlahBlah on 26 Feb 2009, 09:42
My music is just scattered around in random folders, mostly with meaningless directory and file names.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Thrillho on 26 Feb 2009, 09:45
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: pulpfiction21 on 26 Feb 2009, 09:53
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".
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: celticgeek on 26 Feb 2009, 10:04
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Thrillho on 26 Feb 2009, 10:11
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."
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: rynne on 26 Feb 2009, 10:32
I store music by however the default iTunes setting decides to store it.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Scandanavian War Machine on 26 Feb 2009, 10:35
i don't store any music on my computer.


i like to live dangerously.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Be My Head on 26 Feb 2009, 13:31
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.

(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i293/Jarlaxle_56/music.jpg)
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Harun on 26 Feb 2009, 14:24
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: wowy319 on 26 Feb 2009, 18:44
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...
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: MrBlu on 26 Feb 2009, 18:55
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: BrainToad on 26 Feb 2009, 22:37
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Tom on 26 Feb 2009, 23:31
I let iTunes worry about it.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: BeoPuppy on 27 Feb 2009, 00:07
iTunes here too. I like the pretty pictures all next to eachother. It's ... cheerful.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: jeph on 27 Feb 2009, 00:18
itunes does everything for me.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: pulpfiction21 on 27 Feb 2009, 08:27
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Joseph on 27 Feb 2009, 09:10
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: pulpfiction21 on 27 Feb 2009, 11:38
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?
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Joseph on 27 Feb 2009, 12:16
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: look out! Ninjas! on 27 Feb 2009, 18:38
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Swordfish on 01 Mar 2009, 10:46
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: casull on 01 Mar 2009, 12:59
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: StaedlerMars on 01 Mar 2009, 13:11
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Patrick on 01 Mar 2009, 21:04
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: StaedlerMars on 02 Mar 2009, 10:38
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Zingoleb on 02 Mar 2009, 11:07
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?
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: J-cob9000 on 02 Mar 2009, 14:23
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Catacombs on 02 Mar 2009, 16:48
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: boneykingofnowhere on 02 Mar 2009, 21:35
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...
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: el_loco_avs on 03 Mar 2009, 02:55
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: dujek on 03 Mar 2009, 03:16
Folder called Music, then individual folders for each artist, sorted by album, track number and then track name
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Patrick on 03 Mar 2009, 03:26
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Catacombs on 03 Mar 2009, 06:37
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: iamiam on 03 Mar 2009, 20:33
(http://i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv300/inthebookstore/one.jpg)

v

(http://i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv300/inthebookstore/two.jpg)

v

(http://i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv300/inthebookstore/three.jpg)

v

(http://i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv300/inthebookstore/four.jpg)


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!
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: öde on 05 Mar 2009, 11:59
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: jimbunny on 05 Mar 2009, 15:16
Quote from: OP
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?
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Catacombs on 05 Mar 2009, 15:30
Quote from: OP
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: pulpfiction21 on 05 Mar 2009, 16:38
Well first of all, i download a lot of my albums via amazon or cdbaby, which i pay for. Also:

Quote
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: sunexplodes on 05 Mar 2009, 16:43
This is how I roll:
 Music Folder/ Artist Name / Year - Album Title / Tracknumber - Track Title

(http://s5.tinypic.com/1pjpqc.jpg)
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Freddybear on 05 Mar 2009, 19:33
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. :roll:
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: ThePianoMan on 06 Mar 2009, 19:56
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: s0ck ninja on 07 Mar 2009, 16:59
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Melodic on 07 Mar 2009, 17:12
I'm so banal about music organization that all of the music on my computer is from CDs I own.

Ffffffffuuuuuu
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: pulpfiction21 on 27 Apr 2009, 08:53
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: pwhodges on 27 Apr 2009, 09:28
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 (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx)".
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: StaedlerMars on 27 Apr 2009, 09:34
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: doombilly on 27 Apr 2009, 09:41
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.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: McTaggart on 27 Apr 2009, 09:48
Everything that I do and more

I don't have the artist folders split up into separate alphabetical folders, but I don't really think that's nescessary yet. I'll leave that for some day that I'm feeling vulnerable. The root folder for all this is 'My Music' and I just let Media Player 11 populate it's database from there. I really like Media Player 11.

People featuring on other people's work end up in the song name so it doesn't play hell with MP11's sorting. Two things I haven't sorted out yet: Collaborations - Sunn0))) and Boris or Boris and Sunn0))) - and bands changing their names, I like to keep my Bill Callahan together with my Smog, though that's only really an issue with storing physical cds.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: pulpfiction21 on 27 Apr 2009, 12:20
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 (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx)".

Okay well I have windows vista and there is no "tools" option at the top of the folders anymore (or at least not visibly, i could be missing something here though). I searched for "Folder Options" in my Windows search bar, and I found where you are talking about "Apply to All Folders", but it is not clickable because dumbass Windows doesn't know what folders I have open.

Is there a way to be in the folder and click on "tools->Folder options" and I'm just missing it, or does Vista make things that used to be easy very difficult?


EDIT: Nvm. Of course two seconds after I posted, I figured out where the damn Folder Options was within the folder. Thanks for the help, that seemed to work. Do you know if it will save all of them like this, or is it still going to forget after a few days and revert back?
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: scarred on 27 Apr 2009, 12:24
I'm another one of the iTunes kids... and frankly, I think it's a beautiful system. Plus, whenever I download anything, I don't copy the files into the iTunes Folder, I copy them directly into the player. iTunes creates its own copies of the files in its own folder, and then I discard the download (which just lands directly on my desktop in the first place).

Everything, of course, is backed up to my own 250GB external hard drive, and now that I'm living back home again (economy booo), my dad's terabyte drive.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: WriterofAllWrongs on 27 Apr 2009, 12:37
I store the actual music in various folders on my computer, but most of it is a Folder called Music on my external hard drive.  I obsessively organize my iTunes, though.  It is actually really fun in a really pedantic and bureaucratic way!
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: pwhodges on 27 Apr 2009, 12:58
Windows should remember the default OK - it's what it sets the ones it forgets back to!  Unless Vista has changed the rules; but they've been the same for ever.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: bbq on 27 Apr 2009, 13:31
i had it sorted in music > artists > albums, but now it's just scattered in various different music folders. Still in the artists > albums ordering system though.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Thrillho on 27 Apr 2009, 14:46
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.

Depends. If it's on someone else's record, then I put it in the song name. If it's an individual single I kinda figure out who is the dominant party (or who is credited as the main person) and work off that.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Zingoleb on 27 Apr 2009, 15:43
Hay guise I have problem

I generally let my computer sort by firstname/lastname (shame on me, yes). Eric Clapton is under E, Warren Zevon is under W, Tom Waits is under W...wait, what?

Tom Waits is filed under 'W' and the lack of continuity there is DRIVING ME FUCKING BATSHIT

Any help?
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Scandanavian War Machine on 27 Apr 2009, 16:46
i think everyone has that problem with Tom Waits.
he shows up on my iPod twice, once under T and again under W with different albums under each one except for one album that is on both for some reason.


Quote from: Computers
Tom Waits?
Processing...processing...proces...
DOES NOT COMPUTE. BEEP.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Zingoleb on 27 Apr 2009, 17:51
Tom Waits please stop fucking with my computer that is just not cool man
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Harun on 27 Apr 2009, 18:28
i think I already said it but I don't think anybody noticed/cared: foobar2000's built in file operations plug-in is so awesome. It's basically a manual version of iTunes' 'keep my folder organized' feature, so it can order/rename your files any way you like.

(http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/840/foofileopsy.png)
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: sunexplodes on 23 Jul 2009, 15:07
OKAY DUDES I HAVE A QUESTION

My collection which I sort by /<ARTIST>/<YEAR> - <ALBUM> in the folder structure is becoming large enough that I'd like to structure it like /<GENRE>/<ARTIST>/<YEAR>-<ALBUM> but I'm having a lot of trouble with genre distinctions.

I'd like to keep it kind of simple, but not mindnumbingly simple as /rock/pop/hiphop/etc. But it's hard to make the distinctions like post-rock, avant, jazz, shoegaze, etc, without a lot of overlap and shit like that.

Do any of you guys sort by genre? and if so, HOW?
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Touch Me Im Sick on 23 Jul 2009, 16:19
Whatever is on iTunes, is under C:/My Music, in m4a format.

Whatever albums I haven't listened to yet are together in one giant folder on my desktop.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Hat on 23 Jul 2009, 16:28
OKAY DUDES I HAVE A QUESTION

My collection which I sort by /<ARTIST>/<YEAR> - <ALBUM> in the folder structure is becoming large enough that I'd like to structure it like /<GENRE>/<ARTIST>/<YEAR>-<ALBUM> but I'm having a lot of trouble with genre distinctions.

I'd like to keep it kind of simple, but not mindnumbingly simple as /rock/pop/hiphop/etc. But it's hard to make the distinctions like post-rock, avant, jazz, shoegaze, etc, without a lot of overlap and shit like that.

Do any of you guys sort by genre? and if so, HOW?

I've recently had a similar problem and the best way to do it is just go by what genre YOU think they're in, you're going to be the one accessing them so you need to be intimate with the system. Don't overspecialise either, my basic genre distinctions for organizational purposes are "siiiiiiiiiiiiiiick beats", "gee-tars" "beep beep boop" "bubbles and kittens and shit" "funky shit" and "mashups and other", to make the distinction between hip-hop, rock music, electronic music, pop music, funk/soul music and miscellaneous.

Genre lines are so arbitrary that being too specific for the purposes of organising your music library is often pretty counter productive unless you have a lot of spare time and unimpeachable music geek knowledge.

Maybe if you're REALLY keen to do this, just start of with a really simple system like mine (maybe minus silly names?) to begin with, and then as you look at the artists you have in those genres you might intuitively know that certain artists should be split up more and so you can build on that slowly, without the demand of retagging and reclassifying your ENTIRE MUSIC LIBRARY as part of a giant project because you will almost certainly get bored and give up
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: celticgeek on 23 Jul 2009, 16:37
I tend to organize by <Genre><Artist><Album> myself, with the genre list kept fairly short:

Celtic
Christmas
Classical
Compilations  (compilations I have made)
Country
Flamenco
Folk
Guitar
Humor
Jazz
Miscellaneous
Popular
Renaissance
Rock
ShowTunes

I also have no problem with keeping albums in two different genre folders, such as Classical and Christmas, or Classical and Guitar, for example. 

Occasionally it occurs to me to separate a genre folder into two folders within the genre folder, but I actually have never done it.

Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: The Joker on 23 Jul 2009, 17:01
I have my music folder, and all my music is in there, organized alphabetically by artist, album, and track number.  The file name is just the song name, no artist.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Moo Cow on 23 Jul 2009, 18:16
itunes does everything for me.

In all honestly, I totally agree. All I really need is Itunes, and Last.fm also i have Time Machine to backup my music.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: MrBlu on 23 Jul 2009, 19:09
OKAY DUDES I HAVE A QUESTION

My collection which I sort by /<ARTIST>/<YEAR> - <ALBUM> in the folder structure is becoming large enough that I'd like to structure it like /<GENRE>/<ARTIST>/<YEAR>-<ALBUM> but I'm having a lot of trouble with genre distinctions.

I'd like to keep it kind of simple, but not mindnumbingly simple as /rock/pop/hiphop/etc. But it's hard to make the distinctions like post-rock, avant, jazz, shoegaze, etc, without a lot of overlap and shit like that.

Do any of you guys sort by genre? and if so, HOW?
I couldn't possibly do that.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: sunexplodes on 24 Jul 2009, 12:43
I've recently had a similar problem and the best way to do it is just go by what genre YOU think they're in, you're going to be the one accessing them so you need to be intimate with the system. Don't overspecialise either, my basic genre distinctions for organizational purposes are "siiiiiiiiiiiiiiick beats", "gee-tars" "beep beep boop" "bubbles and kittens and shit" "funky shit" and "mashups and other", to make the distinction between hip-hop, rock music, electronic music, pop music, funk/soul music and miscellaneous.

Genre lines are so arbitrary that being too specific for the purposes of organising your music library is often pretty counter productive unless you have a lot of spare time and unimpeachable music geek knowledge.

Maybe if you're REALLY keen to do this, just start of with a really simple system like mine (maybe minus silly names?) to begin with, and then as you look at the artists you have in those genres you might intuitively know that certain artists should be split up more and so you can build on that slowly, without the demand of retagging and reclassifying your ENTIRE MUSIC LIBRARY as part of a giant project because you will almost certainly get bored and give up

This what I'm leaning toward, something simple like this, I just have trouble with a lot of bands really overlapping genre.. Oh well. I'll figure it out, and I won't have to retag, as I'm pretty anal about using the artist/album/songtitle/date/tracknumber convention as the ONLY tags I use.

Fuck it, I'm giving it a go. Not like I can't go back.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Zingoleb on 04 Aug 2009, 19:01
Whatever is on iTunes, is under C:/My Music, in m4a format.

Whatever albums I haven't listened to yet are together in one giant folder on my desktop.


I fucking hate m4a formatting because I've run into so many incompatibility issues with it. I realized once a couple years ago that everything I was ripping was m4a and promptly switched over to mp3, and then had to convert several thousand songs into mp3.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Sir-Namin on 09 Aug 2009, 10:20
My music folders are sorted into 3 sections right now: cds I own, which I have ripped with WMP at 128 kb/s, Music I have downloaded that is organized, and music that is completely unorganized and scattered all across my desktop/my documents/downloads folder. I am in the process of buying all the music that I listen to, but until then it's kind of a huge mess. the music that I do have organized is in the /artist/album/## Track name.mp3, because that's what works best for me right now.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Sir-Namin on 09 Aug 2009, 12:16
iTunes still consolidates your library the first time you install it, I got all of the music off of my old iPod that way. but I've tried Media Monkey and for some reason I wasn't able to figure out anything. so I stick to the old fashioned method of letting WMP figure it out for me, lol (if you let iTunes rip it the files are like 10x as big and sonically aren't that much better than WMP ripping the mp3s.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Zingoleb on 09 Aug 2009, 19:25
This is why I love MediaMonkey - you can set it up to auto-sort all the music you add into folders. iTunes used to have this function (then called "consolidate library") but Apple cut it out once they realized that this was basically only useful to people who illegally download music, and gosh, we don't want anything to do with criminals do we.

Uh...what?

It still has that feature.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Be My Head on 10 Aug 2009, 00:23
Right now it's like this.

(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i293/Jarlaxle_56/arrrmusic.jpg)

It's organized by folders of album or whatever the hell I download or rip, because on the frontend in whatever media player I'm using at the time (Banshee on Lunix, Foobar on Windoze) it shows up perfectly fine. I don't see the need to organize folders, I just scan it into my media player.

As far as *tagging* goes: If it's a band, I follow the tracklisting/names I find on the internet, if it's a composer's works I go by the full name of the composer and then add in the performers/conductor in extra fields, if it's a cover or compilation or something, I go by the name of the artist performing the cover.

If there's someone featuring in someone else's music, I suppose you could add a "Feat. name of person here". But I would add them in an extra field.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: look out! Ninjas! on 10 Aug 2009, 04:46
This is why I love MediaMonkey - you can set it up to auto-sort all the music you add into folders. iTunes used to have this function (then called "consolidate library") but Apple cut it out once they realized that this was basically only useful to people who illegally download music, and gosh, we don't want anything to do with criminals do we.

Uh...what?

It still has that feature.

It's been moved. It's now under File>Library
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Zingoleb on 10 Aug 2009, 14:15
I'm on Mac, and it's just under Advanced > Consolidate Library... for me.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Zingoleb on 10 Aug 2009, 19:08
Mac OS X 10.4.11; iTunes 7.0

Was that a feature they ripped out with the 7 to 8 upgrade? I love Apple's products but the way that they handle business just frankly pisses me off (you used to be able to upload music from your iPod to your iTunes, but they removed it with one 'upgrade').
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: a pack of wolves on 10 Aug 2009, 19:45
Nope, it's there for me under File>Library>Consolidate Library and I'm on 8.2.1 which seems to be the latest release.
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Zingoleb on 10 Aug 2009, 20:02
iTunes still consolidates your library the first time you install it, I got all of the music off of my old iPod that way. but I've tried Media Monkey and for some reason I wasn't able to figure out anything. so I stick to the old fashioned method of letting WMP figure it out for me, lol (if you let iTunes rip it the files are like 10x as big and sonically aren't that much better than WMP ripping the mp3s.

Did not see this post the first time.

I at first had this issue, years ago, which put me off ripping music to the computer until I figured out the problem - iTunes was automatically set to import music using an AIFF encoder, which makes the files fucking massive. Under Preferences, go to Advanced, click on the 'Importing' tab and you can change it from AIFF to MP3 and also choose the bitrate you want (the presets are 128, 160, and 192 - I have mine set to 256).
Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Leon7386 on 26 Aug 2009, 20:45
home/Music/"Letter"/"Band"/"Album"/"Songs"

After my first music collection was lost I decided I wanted to organize my second and I love it. I use amarok to edit tags but because our desktop is too slow I use this bitchin mp3 player.

(http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/1075/screenshotfwx.th.png)

Title: Re: Music On Your Computer
Post by: Tuke on 31 Aug 2009, 12:12
Everything I download I sent through Winamp's Auto-Tag to make sure it has correct ID3 tags, then I send it through a format converter so it gets renamed with the naming and organizational scheme that I rip all my CD's with, <Artist>\[<Year>] <Album>\## <Title>  Everything in a folder called Music, and about 80% of it is properly organized with that naming scheme. I'm slowly working on getting the last 20% finished. The Beatles was a bit of a head scratcher to get organized chronologically, since they have a lot from the same years, so I added the full date, month day and year, to each folder for them. Multiple disc albums sometimes become a hassle, only because it outputs them with each disc its own folder, instead of in one folder with DISC#-## <Title> like I'd prefer it. Then it all gets thrown onto my Zune and it's out the door I go!