Suggest some ways. I have realised that it is totally in a dis-organised state here in my harddisk.
So, if you have many songs -
1. Do you keep them according to the name of the artist/band ?
2. Do you keep according to the genre ?
3. Do you keep in randomly in 'favourites' folder ? (and later go mad searching)
4. Do you maintain id3 tags on all the mp3s ?
Just need some help over organisation. Plus, are there any softwares available for maintaining the song library efficiently. (Not playlists)
Thanks,
Rahul
Hmm not sure I can say much on this as I never save any musical material other than my own on my Music PC. However I save my finished work at 320 kbps MP3 on an external drive just in case the PC gets bombed and file it all by year and alphabetically.
The original wave files are all stored with the song folder on my HD's within the PC. Never on the program drive as one year I lost a lot of work on a crash when my PC got hit and was connected to the Internet. Since then I have never connected my music PC to the internet and also use an external storage drive.
Hope that makes sense.
Gerry
Those who can't dance always blame the band.
I use iTunes. (I'm a Mac. For Linux I use RhythmBox, a GPL software similar to iTunes.)
1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Not exactly. You can set to 5 stars to each song. Then you can create smart-lists for artist, genre, year, etc. and the number of stars. I follow a criterium like this: 5-I like it very much, 4-I like it o it is "known", 3-It is Ok, 2-I don't like, 1-The track is not Ok or it is not music. So, I have lists for my favorite 70s rock songs but not 'Pink Floyd' (I prefer the whole LP and not single songs).
4. Yes.
i use media player. got all my music in a folder, with each artist having a subfolder within that further subfolders for each album. Works like a charm. Both WinAmp and Mediaplayer allow you to just load all songs at once and then just search through it as if it was a library catalogue.
I have one folder called "music" which then has lots of folders inside wth artist/band names, and then those folders have album folders inside with the music files in.
I also then have one folder on the desktop called "Current" where I keep copies of the songs I'm listening to at the moment which I use for my current playlist in my Media Player (I use GOM Player, a nice little player that will play almost anything and auto-downloads new codecs, so no messing around like with Windows Media Player! Plus it's never crashed on me, unlike WMP which is rubbish! The downside? GOM can't store playlists, hence the folder with the current music files in, which I have to drag to the player when I open it).
I also keep everything backed up on various external drives since my laptop crashed a couple of years back and I lost it all :evil:
Pete
ETD - Formerly "10141748 - Reincarnate"
Purely in alphabetical order by artist and then by song
A :-)
"Be good at what you can do" - Fingerbanger"
I have always felt that it is better to do what is beautiful than what is 'right'" - Eliot Fisk
Wedding music and guitar lessons in Essex. Listen at: http://www.rollmopmusic.co.uk
In one folder on desktop, but also in WM library in alphabetical order of band name.
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Folder labeled Music the sub folders of decade then sub folders of genre then subfolders of artist finally sub folder of album
All stored on external hd and backed up on dvds
Immature? Of course I'm immature Einstein, I'm 50 and in a Rock and ROll band.
New Band site http://www.myspace.com/guidedbymonkeys
I use amarok (linux) for playing the files, but really what this comes down to is how you store the files in the first place. I store everything in flac (free lossless audio codec) for backup purposes. Also convert it to mp3 for use with the ipod, but the main archive is flac. The first subfolder is artist name, the next is album, then I have the individual files named ${tracknum}_${title}.flac. That's just how I prefer it though. Really the most important thing is to be obsessive about those id3 tags. If you do that, you can always find some way to pull the information out of the files and reorganize them however you want.
Good to see at least a couple people mention backing up, too, very important. I don't want to rip my collection again. I have mine on a separate HDD in the same computer, but an external HDD or a second machine would be even better.
TZ
Yeah I've got over 70 gig of stuff, some can't be replaced I don't take chances when it comes to my music
Immature? Of course I'm immature Einstein, I'm 50 and in a Rock and ROll band.
New Band site http://www.myspace.com/guidedbymonkeys
My Music --> Folders by genre (i.e. Classic Rock, Modern Rock, 80's Pop, Slow, Misc) --> Folders by artists (Unless I have < 3 songs, which means they don't get an entire folder) ---> Folders by Albums ---> Song files
Seems I am pretty straight forward, wish I could be more imaginative than analytical. I have about 20 genres or what I have decided are my personal listening genres.
It's not easy being green.... good thing I'm purple.
I use Media Monkey. It's the best software I've found to manage your music collection. I've got over 8G so it's a bit to handle. With this software you can get album art, make mass updates to songs like auto tagging Album Name, Genre, ,Mood, Category, etc.. Check it out!
Teamwork- A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.
Currently using iTunes on the Mac. On Linux I use Amorok.
iTunes doesn't do a bad job of organising stuff but it does throw a wobbly occasionally and dump stuff in the compilations folder when quite clearly it's not a compilation album. I'm sure there's a setting for this somewhere but haven't found it yet.
8)
I've had a lot of sobering thoughts in my time.
It was them that turned me to drink.
Count me as another itunes on mac guy.
I don't have to organize it, it's organized for me :)
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
Hey I have to thank Pete for giving the suggestion of GOM player. Its really is an awesome player - nice interface and plays all the formats ever known to me.
It can even play .flv files properly which was a pleasant surprise for me. (As I could not find a good .flv player anywhere over the net)
In summers now, as I am free, I am gearing up to completely categorize my music library. Any more insights or suggestions will be welcome.
Rahul
