How do you organize your music?

By artist, then album. I try to tag and add album art to as many of them as I can. Only now am I getting into adding playlists in iTunes, previously I've just selected an artist in 'Browse' and let it play in shuffle mode.

#316864

I have few albums and many singles... so usually use Smart Playlist for Albums, and I've also used Group tag in most of my songs for perticular grouping... like Retro songs, Cool Mood songs, Rodies and so on.... so I've made Smart Playlists based on groups.

#316867

Ah when will iTunes support arranging music chronologically?

#316868

Yeah that would be really useful just like Sid said, we could finally group those insane 80s heavy metal albums.

Number Of The Beast, Screaming For Vengeance and last but not least Master Of Puppets, right Sid ? (I noticed your avatar, nice one). Anyways I hope Apple add that feature to the next version of iTunes

#316880

I would try to explain my setup, but it's very complex because I'm so obsessive about things.

A short version is as follows:

- for single artists, always put the real name in reverse order (last, first); if I don't know the full name I either put what I know or their alias in the format ? (alias)

- classical music is tagged as a compilation and uses reverse order (with full name in proper order for the composer). Name is the movement, or (entire). Album is Opus, Symphony, common name, key. I try to put year of composition and put the movement number as the track

- any rock 'n roll from the 50s through the 80s is labelled as classic rock

- I only have two custom genres; I try to stick with the defaults whenever possible

- since a fair portion of my music is scene stuff, I make heavy use of the grouping field: for example, a track might be grouped as 8bitpeoples | scene | Soothing

The grouping field is used heavily in my smart playlists. Speaking of which, I have a few special ones that are used as a filter - delete (songs with delete in the title; used on stuff I downloaded en masse), incomplete (same as previous), and Valid Songs, which filters against delete, incomplete, books & spoken, tracks with `language' in the grouping, movies, streams, podcasts, &c.

For file structure, I have L:Multimedia, with folders for audio, video, and music. Under music we have (Re)mixes, Anime Soundtracks, Artists, Composers, Groups, Multi-artist Albums, Soundtracks, Unsorted, and World.

I think that's way too much information as it is, and it's definitely the short version. I think I may make a full write-up of how I do things in case anybody's interested. It takes a while to set up; I've probably put several days worth of work into my collection, because I've been refining my methods for about a year now. Other people could probably benefit from my ideas somehow, though (at least as a `no way I'm doing that!').

#316894

i use music brainz tagger to get the proper ID3 tags and then group them by artist with album art for everything.

#316945

Thanks for all your help...I got so many genres...like classic, jazz, pop, dance, OST etc.. sometimes too detailed....Like Acid Jazz, Trance Fusion, New Wave, Techno, Urban House, Pop House, Modern Rock, Drum & Bass, funk and so on...too many...these would be a headache when I'm arranging the folder....

Anyway, really got some tips from all of you. Thanks!

#317011

I arrange my folders manually: Music::Artist::Album

In iTunes all music is 192kbps, IDTagged and Arted (and as per AnalMan Stevie's advice all album art is >300x300px)

#317019

I use smart playlists. 'coz i set them using "Per letter" folders. (artists with "the" will not go in letter T folder) so for example The Carpenters, i place them in folder letter C.

#317030

iTunes does that automatically, Kaloyster. It overrides the "the" in such named bands/groups/artists

#317044

@Seph: huh? how? and to do this do i need to check the thing that lets iTunes organize my music (meaning it will copy ALL of my songs and place it in My Documents -> My Music folder?)

#317147

I believe Seph didn't realise you meant the actual files, but thought you meant the way it's displayed in iTunes.

#317172

ah yes, stilist. i reorganize the mp3 files painstakingly BY NAME OF ARTIST per folder. so it's easy for me to look for something, just know their name and i'm done.

#317517

...organize?

#317576

Ah when will iTunes support arranging music chronologically?

I take it you mean something more advanced than enabling the "Year" collumn in the library, and just clicking it to sort? Otherwise that feature is already available.

The two things iTunes need to add is automatically adding album art, and letting you look up ID3 tags per song. Otherwise I use MusicBrainz for improperly tagged files.

#317577

I use iTunes Art Importer for Album art, it's proven to work best for me. I'm definitely checking out MusicBrainz tho.

#317600

Like this:

Click on the Beastie Boys to be amazed at my musically driven anal-retentiveness!