Best Music Filing Structure? Please share your management practices :)

[Adub]

Originally Posted by lestatar

Adub: What happens when you are in a mood that you have not created any genres for?

e.g.: "Ramen Noodles With Tabasco" mood? "Praying For A Nut Flush" mood?

There is always a music for every mood

[Strephon Alkhalikoi]

Someone said that their music directory was detailed? Get a load of mine...my OCD regarding music coming through again.

<Genre>
|__<#>
|   |__<Artist>
|       |__<Album>
|           |__Track
|__<A-E>
|   |__<Artist>
|       |__<Album>
|           |__Track
|__<F-J>
|   |__(Etc.)

In general the preceding is my directory structure, though with some variation. At this moment I have the following broad categories:

Audio Drama
Classical
Comedy
Miscellaneous
New Age
Rock-Pop
Soundtracks
Wrestling (because I am a wrestling fan).

Artist folders are used where applicable and are sorted by last name first, first name last. For example, <Thorogood, George>, not <George Thorogood>. In the case of a band, which is especially important in the Rock-Pop category, The band's name is spelled normally, e.g. <Pink Floyd>, not <Floyd, Pink>. A band with "The" at the beginning has "The" moved to the end, e.g. <Doors, The> and not <The Doors>. The tags of the music files do not reflect this. So "I Drink Alone" by George Thorogood would not appear in my tags as "Thorogood, George" and "The End" by The Doors would not appear as "Doors, The".

Soundtracks follow the rule of "The" given above, in that "The" is appended to the end of the directory. <X Files, The> not <The X Files> for example. Soundtracks do not have an <Artist> subdirectory. They are sorted by title only, Like this:

<Soundtracks>
|__<#>
|   |__<Movie Title>
|       |__Track
|__<A-E>
|   |__<Movie Title>
|       |__Track
|__<F-J>
|   |__(Etc.)

Classical composers are sorted last name, first name. Their works though require a fair amount of planning and research on my part, because if there are multiple compositions on one CD, each composition gets split into its own directory, with its date of composition in the date tag. In the case of Classical music, the full title is the folder name, along with Opus (or similar) number. For example, I have a disc by Beethoven that has the Edgmont Overture and his short piece "Wellington's Victory". When I rip the disc, I create two folders, one for the Edgmont overture and one for Wellington's Victory. So that one disc turns into two albums (because that's how I have it set up). Thus:

<Classical>
|__<A-E>
|   |__<Beethoven, Ludwig van>
|       |__<Egmont Overture In F-Minor, Op. 84>
|       |__<Wellington's Victory, Op. 91>

Audio Drama, Comedy, Miscellaneous, and Wrestling don't have a great number of albums in them at this time, so none of them are divided by an alphabetical range. These sections are the exceptions to the structure I describe above. With so few albums in each section, there is no need for alphabetical ranges, and no need for creating folders that are sorted by last name, first name. There's no need in these folders to move "The" to the end. When the time comes and an alphabetical range is needed in one of these genres, then the folders will all be renamed.

The Miscellaneous category is the "catch-all" category for music that doesn't fit into one of the other genres. For example, I have a copy of The Blues Brothers (not the soundtrack) and naturally its Genre is blues. Since I don't have a directory marked <Blues>, it gets put into the <Miscellaneous> directory under the album title.

Classical, New Age, Rock-Pop, and Soundtracks each have an additional directory: <Compilations>. I have a fair number of singles by artists and a fair number of albums by single artists. The Compilation album folder allows me to take the albums with multiple artists, like the 1999 Grammy Nominees CD, and keep them together, without moving the files to seperate aritst directories. Makes things a little less time consuming for me.

It's complex. It's detailed. 10,000 songs, and more to come with 8 CDs to rip and about a dozen cassettes to transfer to computer. But it works for me.