whiteair Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Hey, I've finally become fed up with the state of my music collection, half on CDs, numerous different formats & bit rates, and illogical file structures. So in an attempt to tidy things up a bit, I began to follow a system which made sense to me at the beginning, however, the further I got into sorting out the collection, I found myself bending my own rules to get things to work. Then I began to wonder how the professionals handle their digital music, the likes of the BBC and so forth. Which led me to creating this post and just out of curiosity, how does everyone else sort things out ? Or do you just not bother and adopt the "It's all in a big folder and I'm not quite sure how its organised strategy." Hope this becomes useful for other people who have the same query. Jon North [Edit, by the BBC I'm refering to the radio broadcast area including Radio 1, which I have listen to assuming that music is stored digitally.] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 If it's MP3 and your tags are set then the directory structure doesn't matter. Use an MP3 cataloguer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiteair Posted June 20, 2007 Author Share Posted June 20, 2007 True, as most people probably do. However, having everything in one big folder does make things a hassel so surely you would adopt some form of structure ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Then I began to wonder how the professionals handle their digital music, the likes of the BBC and so forth. Jon Sorry I'm struggling to understand what you mean? The BBC is a huge corporation with many different areas with different requirements. BBC I&A (Information and Archives) have a huge catalogue of media (Commercial Music, Document Files, Radio/Sound Tapes, Reference Books, Sheet Music, Still Photographs (hard copies)& Television Tapes) and act as a research organisation and lending library to BBC departments and Independent programme makers working on BBC Commissioned programmes. I don't think this is the answer you want though - if you could clarify your question it might help. Cheers James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiteair Posted June 20, 2007 Author Share Posted June 20, 2007 Yes sorry, I didnt pick up on that when I reread it. Having listend to Radio 1, I assume that all of the tracks are now stored digital for the radio broacast part of the BBC. Therefore, I assumed that their music wouldnt simply be stored without any structure to it. Time for an edit I think... Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alec Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 If it's MP3 and your tags are set then the directory structure doesn't matter. Use an MP3 cataloguer. No thanks. You can never guarantee that all the tags are correctly set. Artist\Album\Track for me - that way, it's a piece of cake to do anything, and still doesn't hamper the use of an MP3 cataloguer. Also, I don't want to have to rely on software to do all the manipulation for me. And do you know how long it takes to index 15,000 files! And, the real bummer is the way it's all sorted literally, whereas doing it manually allows me to use a "Surname, First name" format which is much better. And, actually, I do have separate bit-rate folders, but only because I have a master 256bit folder, and then transcoded everything to 128bit to fit better onto the kids' portable players & my in car player where quality is less critical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 If it's MP3 and your tags are set then the directory structure doesn't matter. Use an MP3 cataloguer. No thanks. You can never guarantee that all the tags are correctly set.But equally I've got plenty of files with wrong filenames. And do you know how long it takes to index 15,000 files!Yes, 14 minutes 32 seconds for the initial scan on my not-that-fast PC but I can then open the database instantly and a random search completes as fast as I can type. So I can search by artist, title, year, bitrate etc etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamchristuffin Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 I put Artist/Album/Track, cos that's just the way iTunes organises it ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnymurray Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Artist/Album/Track for me, easy to find exactly what you want! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fletch Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Hi Having listend to Radio 1, I assume that all of the tracks are now stored digital for the radio broacast part of the BBC. Therefore, I assumed that their music wouldnt simply be stored without any structure to it. Indeed Radio 1 have digitised their library. However they use a system supplied by a company called VCS (VCS Website) and it's a huge database, not just a hard disk stashed in a cupboard. Folder structures are not such a concern, they are mainly used to assist with the work flow. Every piece of information about the track is stored and can be searched. Obviously the main ones are normally title and artist but if there is more than one track other fields would be used. If music is stored directly on a hard disk this is managed by individuals and done in what ever way suits them! CheersFletch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomLyall Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 One folder. Set the tags correctly and you can't go wrong. My big big pet hate is people who use the Artist / Album / Track structure and use filenames like "03 - Song Title.mp3". Which means if you get the file without it being in the correct folder structure and the tags arn't correct, you've got no idea who the artist is. Long story short, whatever organisation you use, don't use filenames that make no sense out of the context of the folder they are in. I find it easier to browse this format than anything in folder. In the "details" view of a folder you can easily order by any of the tags, which makes it really easy to browse by year, genre, album, etc. It also makes file operations easier, selecting multiple files etc. I refuse to use any software that makes any changes to my music collection / tags, and I especially hate anythin which stores any extra files in there (like album art), grr! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Beesley Posted June 21, 2007 Share Posted June 21, 2007 \Artist\Track\ for me with the actual file names as "Artist - Track.mp3" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alec Posted June 21, 2007 Share Posted June 21, 2007 I refuse to use any software that makes any changes to my music collection / tags, and I especially hate anythin which stores any extra files in there (like album art), grr! How do you know until it's too late, though? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomLyall Posted June 21, 2007 Share Posted June 21, 2007 Well, quite, but there are some pieces of software that are well known for messing with your music more than others. For example, Windows Media player used to be really bad for trying to "fix things", I'm not sure if they've improved it recently though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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