How do you guys organize your music?

[jp1982]

I am in the process of reorganizing my MP3s. I found a software called MediaMonkey that seems to be working very well with storing songs in the correct folders and getting the cover arts.

Here is my delima:
I store my music in a /<artist>/<album>/ hierarchy.

But what do you guys use for filenames?

If I use <track number> <title> then in SageMC, if I view songs by title (to get a complete listing), it lists all the 01 then all the 02,....

but if i use just the <title> without the track number, then the tracks do not show up in the correct order when viewing an album.

Would anyone mind sharing how they are organizing their mp3s and if they are happy with their results? like which softwares do you find helpful and what directory/filename structures do you use?

Thanks!

[S_M_E]

I've never included the track number in my MP3 names but having them out of order doesn't bother me either. Why does it matter if they're out of order? Do some CD's need to played in sequence for some reason?

I have used MediaMonkey in the past but I haven't tried it on Vista64, which I now use. I'm not sure what I'll use to rip the next CD I buy with either.

[Ikarius]

I store all my music files in a tree of the format


\<Artist Name>\<Album>\<Track #>- <Title>.mp3


As far as your dilemmna goes, that should be handled by the MP3 file metadata; Each of those should be a separate field in the metadata inside the MP3 file, so that the application (SageTV) can use the fields individually. I haven't tested your exact case, so I'm not sure if you're facing a problem of Sage's code not doing the right thing, or if your metadata is incomplete.

I use "Tag & Rename" for applying correct metadata to my MP3s.... it's a windows app that costs some money to register, but it's far and away my favourite app for adjusting the metadata on my MP3s.

[boognish]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

I've never included the track number in my MP3 names but having them out of order doesn't bother me either. Why does it matter if they're out of order? Do some CD's need to played in sequence for some reason?

To answer the question i sort mine artist-album-track
I dont really care how the actual file name is labeled.. either 01-song or song is fine with me. Im very anal about the tags being correct though.. if the tags have the correct track number than they will list in the correct order.
hope that helps

[jp1982]

Thanks for your responses!

I dont think i had the track numbers in the metadata, now that you mention it. I didnt think it mattered as the sort options didn't list track numbers. I will have to try when i get home!

Thanks again!

[SWKerr]

Media monkey will let you edit and name change in mass. Great Tool.

Directory Structure
\Genre\Artist

File Name:
Artist - Song Name

I delete duplicates or rename them with Live in the Song Name if I want to keep it.

All the tag info stays regardless of the file name.

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by boognish

To answer the question i sort mine artist-album-track
I dont really care how the actual file name is labeled.. either 01-song or song is fine with me. Im very anal about the tags being correct though.. if the tags have the correct track number than they will list in the correct order.
hope that helps

OK, I still don't get it, I have Dark Side of the Moon (had it on vinyl and cassette back in the day too) and I still don't care what order they play in. Is it supposed to better or mean something played in order or is just a personal preference? Either I'm missing something (subtle or obvious) or it's just a preference which, don't get me wrong, is perfectly valid too. I do like the tags to be accurate as well but my files are all in <Artist> - <Title>.mp3 format and all ripped to 320-CBR. I never thought that the order the tracks played mattered though...

[david1234]

Track order is very important with some Kid's albums... just ask my 3 year old

I bought her an sansa shaker, and it only plays in alphabetic order by file name (Great player for kids, but it doesn't a very good job of alphebetizing the filenames)... and some kids music has the intro to the song on the prior track, so when things get out of order it can be really strange.

So, mine are artistname-albumtitle-tracktitle-track#

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by david1234

Track order is very important with some Kid's albums... just ask my 3 year old

I bought her an sansa shaker, and it only plays in alphabetic order by file name (Great player for kids, but it doesn't a very good job of alphebetizing the filenames)... and some kids music has the intro to the song on the prior track, so when things get out of order it can be really strange.

So, mine are artistname-albumtitle-tracktitle-track#

Now there's a good reason, I have a bunch of my grandkids' movies in Sage but not their music.

[boognish]

For albums like DSOTM some songs flow into the next.. you would lose the buildup and release that comes with a track progressing near the end for the sole purpose of the next dropping in. I guess to Some albums i listened to first in the straight order and am just used to it

I listen to alot of "jamband" artists and I have about 1500 live shows that can sound pretty choppy when not listened to in order. Alot of tracks segue into the next very smoothly.

At the same time I love putting albums or complete artists catalogs on shuffle and enjoy the spontaneity that comes with not knowing what track will be next

all in all I just love music!

[dgeezer]

You may also want to try MP3Tag. I've been using it to slowly get my music collection organized. It will also do lookups from amazon for cover art, track names, numbers etc. It has a nice clean interface and is really easy to use.

It also can rename your files after you update the tags. You can even choose whether or not to save the track number as part of the file name. I don't since having the track number in the tag is all that is needed for Sage or any other player I have used to get the songs in the right order.

[S_M_E]

I haven't listened to DSOTM in a while, I'll have to check it out, I never noticed it when playing individual tracks before.

Shuffling can be fun but what I like to do is watch a movie muted and play music to see if the actors lip sync Ozzy or whomever...

[sonoman]

This is a pet peeve of mine. Many albums are are arranged in a particular song progression to give a certain flow and feel to the total composition and the ones that crossfade tracks are designed to be listened to as a whole arrangement. Many classical pieces are this way with various movements within the total piece. Wouldn't it bother you if a movie you were watching had it's chapters randomly rearranged. Also, while I'm on a rant, wouldn't it also bother you if there were 5 second blank segments while the chapters progressed during the movie? This is why I feel that until sage can play back songs without gaps it will never be a true music playback device. The ability to use replay gain to bring various albums to a more uniform volume is also a very desirable feature in any true music playback system. It seems sage looks at music playback like a secondary thrown in feature but to me a true "Media Center" should be able to handle both video and music (as well as picture) playback effortlessly.

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by jp1982

I dont think i had the track numbers in the metadata, now that you mention it. I didnt think it mattered as the sort options didn't list track numbers.

The track numbers should be listed as a sort option, although you may need to scroll to the right to find it.

MediaMonkey provides many methods to get your track numbers (& other meta data) into your tags.

Auto-tag from Web (uses Amazon.com *hint* you can type the ASIN from the Product Details section of Amazon into your search if it isn't found by default)

Auto-tag from File-name (what it sounds like)

Auto-increment track numbers (Tools->Scripts)

Also, I'd recommend checking out the following site for tons of useful scripts: http://trixmoto.net/mm/search.php?all=scripts

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

I never thought that the order the tracks played mattered though...

Do you watch movies on DVD or Blu-ray in a random chapter order? Skip around chapters when reading a book?

While obviously not all albums have a similar narrative construct, many, many albums are sequenced deliberately by the artist. These works shouldn't be treated any differently then film or literature if you're interested in preserving the artist's original intent.

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by sonoman

This is a pet peeve of mine. Many albums are are arranged in a particular song progression to give a certain flow and feel to the total composition and the ones that crossfade tracks are designed to be listened to as a whole arrangement. Many classical pieces are this way with various movements within the total piece. Wouldn't it bother you if a movie you were watching had it's chapters randomly rearranged. Also, while I'm on a rant, wouldn't it also bother you if there were 5 second blank segments while the chapters progressed during the movie? This is why I feel that until sage can play back songs without gaps it will never be a true music playback device. The ability to use replay gain to bring various albums to a more uniform volume is also a very desirable feature in any true music playback system. It seems sage looks at music playback like a secondary thrown in feature but to me a true "Media Center" should be able to handle both video and music (as well as picture) playback effortlessly.

This is absolutely right. I moved to Sage recently from Media Center because of the good PVR (specifically HD PVR) support. The music part in particular keeps me thinking, whether Sage is a long term solution for me. I cannot playback dts or ac3 files anymore, there's no gap less playback, and the music libary is not as nicely arranged. I really like an album artist approach, where every album is sorted by artists firts. Sage kind of has this in a very poor way, but it doesn't even ignore articles (e.g The Beatles is under T instead of B).
If this doesn't improve and Media Center gets the HD PVR sorted out in Windows 7, then I might switch again.

[jp1982]

Thanks for all the answers!! When I got back home to look into this again, I did find that some of my tags were not correct (example, Artist vs. Album Artist are two different tags and only one showed in mediamonkey).

To answer the question on why I wanted my tracks in the correct order, some other users apparently have the same opinion as me. Some albums I could care less about, but some (especially live albums) are just not the same in random order.

Also big thanks to jm9843 for the provided link. There seems to be quite a few useful scripts there that I could use.

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by jm9843

Do you watch movies on DVD or Blu-ray in a random chapter order? Skip around chapters when reading a book?

A movie and a collection of songs are not the same thing. While there may be albums that are ordered in a "desired sequence" I've found none in my collection of several thousand MP3s that confuse things like watching a movie with random chapters. As others mentioned, albums that have "overlap" between tracks might be an exception but that's the exception not the rule.

[mickp]

Originally Posted by sonoman

This is a pet peeve of mine. Many albums are are arranged in a particular song progression to give a certain flow and feel to the total composition and the ones that crossfade tracks are designed to be listened to as a whole arrangement. Many classical pieces are this way with various movements within the total piece. Wouldn't it bother you if a movie you were watching had it's chapters randomly rearranged.

I couldn't agree more. Classical, Baroque, 70's Concept Albums, almost anything from Ministry of Sound... the list is extensive.

Mick.