Music Filename/ID3 Tag conventions;

[a_witko]

All my music filenames are "Artist - Title" and the ID3 Tags ONLY have the "Artist", "Title" and "Genre" fields filled in (in both V1 and V2 tags) UNLESS I have an entire album, in which case I also have "Album", "Track" (e.g. '13 of 21'), "Disc" (e.g. '1 of 2') (If there is more than one disc) and "Album Art" fields completed.

When there is a song which features another artist, it is always indicated after the song name within brackets ("(Ft. **) e.g. 'Cassidy - Hotel (Ft. R. Kelly)'.

I narrowed down my genres to 15 - 80's, Alternative, Blues/R&B, Classical, Dance, Easy Listening, Hip Hop/Rap, House, Jazz, Oldies, Pop, Rock, Soundtrack, Techno, Trance (I could put House, Techno & Trance all under 'Electronica/Dance' but I am a House, Techno and Trance enthusiast, hence I split them up for my own convenience).

All words in all filenames and ID3 Tags have the first letter capitalised.

All my albums have Album Art OR they are not permitted in my PERFECT library until they have it.

Naturally, All my albums are located in my "Albums" folder in "My Music" and each has their own sub-folder named "Artist - Album Title" (e.g. "VA - Ministry Of Sound The Annual 2004). All my other song files are in one big heap in the "My Music" folder (1000's).

Different mixes of songs are indicated by the name of the mix in square brackets after the song name (e.g "Deep Dish - Flashdance [Original Mix]"). Unfortunately, despite the ugliness, when there is a featured artist and the song is a particular mix it can look like this: "Stellar - Get Up Stand Up (Ft. Brandi Emma) [Phunk Investigation Instrumental Club Mix]" - A little too long for my liking, but I have three other mixes and it's the only nice way of distinguishing them from one another in an organised fashion.

I organise my ID3 Tags and Filenames with a program called 'Tag&Rename'.

My music library is organised with iTunes.

I love my PERFECT music collection.

Edited September 24, 2004 by a_witko

[t3h.beast]

damn man uve given me inspiration. It would take ages to do that. But hey, I just formatted so now i got something to aim to..

[insanekiwi]

i let eac tag my shiat. works fine. i hate it when people dont tag their mp3s correct.

for me it needs artist, album, trackname, tracknumber, releaseyear, bitrate.

[Bearded Kirklander]

I use Music Match 7.5 and have it setup with paths and then the file name:

\My Music\Artist Name\Album Name\01 - Song.mp3

\My Music\Artist Name\Album Name\02 - Song.mp3

\My Music\Artist Name\Album Name\03 - Song.mp3

\My Music\Artist Name\Album Name\04 - Song.mp3

Etc. Works great. (Y)

The internal tag info matches the file tag info and MMJB handles super tagging very easily.

[a_witko]

I use Music Match 7.5 and have it setup with paths and then the file name.

I thought of doing that, but I really dislike having so many sub-folders. You end up double-clicking 20 times until you get to the song files. And I rarely have more that two albums from the same artist - that way of organising would only be good if you had at least 10 albums from each artist.

[Bearded Kirklander]

I thought of doing that, but I really dislike having so many sub-folders. You end up double-clicking 20 times until you get to the song files. And I rarely have more that two albums from the same artist - that way of organising would only be good if you had at least 10 albums from each artist.

Guess I'm used to it. Besides, I use Music Match Juke Box's library to manage my MP3's. I hardly ever get at them in the File Manager or Explorer. I just start up MMJB and all the stuff is right there.

[Colin-uk Veteran]

i dont bother with tags, i just use "artist - song title" for the file name of the song and keep all my music in one folder

(Y)

[pimpshiznid]

Naming is normally artist - song name

For tagging, Artist, Song Title, Album Name, Release Year, Track Number.

Then, I have the playlist for the CD in the folder with the files. I can never remember the CD order, so, I just go to the folder and click the playlist.

[a_witko]

I use Music Match Jukebox's library to manage my MP3s. I hardly ever get at them in the File Manager or Explorer. I just start up MMJB and all the stuff is right there.

Once again, iTunes can also manage your library on it's own like MM, but I have my own way which is better (IMO, naturally).

But that's where iTunes shows its limitations. It doesn't sync the filenames with the ID3 Tags, which is a crucial function for many people.

[bennett]

Once again, iTunes can also manage your library on it's own like MM, but I have my own way which is better (IMO, naturally).

But that's where iTunes shows its limitations. It doesn't sync the filenames with the ID3 Tags, which is a crucial function for many people.

I dont like that either i have to write it mostly all out :(

But my mp3's are set up really good with Band/Album/01-Songname.mp3 :D it is the best

[Novex]

I have a (somewhat strange) way of naming my music, but hey it works ;)

'AlbumName' #TrackNo - TrackName (Artist).mp3

It works really well, cause most of my music ends up on mp3 cd's for my discman, I dont need to rename the songs to get them to play in order, they generally end up in folders (albums to the mp3 player) with artist name anyway, hence why it's at the end :D

If I could be bothered Ill sort them into alphabetical folders based on the first letter (A, B, C, etc) and then into folders based on their artist, but that doesnt happen so much anymore cause I havent found a decent program to batch that kinda stuff with :/

[Makeshift Hammer]

01 - artist - song title.mp3 I hate (not literally of course :p ) people who tag 01 - song title.mp3. I have overwritten songs due to this before cos i download live/unmastered etc version :| Bastids :p

[Shift02]

I just use the standard iTunes system, I couldnt imagine using my iPod without proper tags, I'd have stuff everywhere.

[Shannon]

Artist\[Year] Album\01 - Title

[UKDarkJedi]

Pretty standard here:

mp3's\Artist - Album\track# - track name.mp3

My id3 tags are all set from within mediamonkey (great program, I love it) to read this info in the specific order from the file name. Works every time.

[Galley]

I'm so anal that I recently started to use the original year of release for individual tracks on compilation CDs. If the year isn't listed in the liner notes, I look them up on AllMusic.com. :fro:

[dafinga]

I use CDEX and program the tags to my liking. Its kind of like open-source ripping ..... i guess?! ha!

[bkellner]

MP3\Full Albums\ARTIST\ALBUM\ARTIST - ALBUM - 01 - SONG.mp3

MP3\Full Albums\ARTIST\ALBUM\Disc 1\ARTIST - ALBUM - Disc 1 - 01 - SONG.mp3

MP3\Singles\ARTIST - ALBUM.mp3

MP3\Singles\ARTIST - ALBUM [mix].mp3

ID3v2 and ID3v2 tags filled out with:

Track #, Title, Artist, Album, Year*, Genre

*Sometimes I don't fill out the year.

In my Winamp Playlist, I disable all usage of ID3vX tags, so it lists them by how the mp3 is named. I don't know why I fill out ID3 tags and disable them from being used, but sigh.. I do. I think it has to do with having a lot of songs that are mpc and ogg, and I don't like how their ID tags work. ;)

[drekon_v1]

My Music\mp3\Genre\[sub-genre]\Artist\Album\Artist - Track_name.mp3

Rest of the info is in the ID3 Tag like the year and track number

[DrZoidberg]

Single CD albums: <initial letter>\<artist name>\<album name> <year>\<track name>.mp3

Multi-CD albums: <initial letter>\<artist name>\<album name> <year>\CD<cd number>\<track name>.mp3

Singles: <initial letter>\<artist name>\<track name>.mp3

Tags: artist name, album name, track name, track number (must have a leading zero if <9), year of release, genre.

[epple]

I let the scene tag for me.

[_R2D2]

All files are tagged with:

* Artist

* Title

* Album

* Genre

* Disc number (if avalible)

* Date (if avalible)

* Tracknumber

* Replaygain-info (uses 4 different tags)

and

* Either isalbum, issingle, isnonalbum or isvarious.

All albums are in My Music\Album\Genre\Artist\Album\tracknumber (filled with zeros to 2 digits) - title.

All singles are in My Music\Singlar\Same as album ^^

All non-album are in My Music\Enstaka L?tar\Date (= date added)\artist - title

All albums with various artists are in My Music\Album\Samlingar\album\if disc exists, cd #disc\tracknumber - artist - title.

All this is done automaticly by a foobar masstagger preset done by me and another guy from the foobar forum, all I need to do is tag them correctly with the isalbum, issingle, and the other "is-tags" (read above).

$if(%isalbum%,Album,$if(%issingle%,Singlar,$if(%isvarious%,Samlingar)))\\$if($or(%isalbum%,%issingle%),%genre%,$if(%isvarious%,%album%))\$if($or(%isalbum%,%issingle%),%artist%,$if(%isnonalbum%,Enstaka L?tar,$if(%isvarious%,$if(%disc%,CD %disc%))))\$if($or(%isalbum%,%issingle%),%album%,$if(%isvarious%,$num(%tracknumber%,2) - %artist% - %title%,$if(%isnonalbum%,%date%)))\$if($or(%isalbum%,%issingle%),$num(%tracknumber%,2) - %title%,$if(%isnonalbum%,%artist% - %title%))

Some other files are semi-automaticly to the folders

My Music\

Remixer

Trading (for my linkin park stuff)

Egna L?tar (my own songs)

Midi's

Demos

All other files (that does't have the isalbum, issingle, isvarious or isnonalbum tags are in My Music\Unsorted\original filename.

I organize them with foobar + columns ui + database sidebar.

Currrent look:

[Chris Allen Veteran]

I think I have some competition for the original thread starter. This is how I organize;

Genre breakdown

> Album Folders

Artist - Album Title

> Artist - Song Title (feat. Artist) (remix)

Also included in every folder is a playlist for each album

> Singles

Artist - Song Title (feat. Artist) (remix)

Now I get really picky though. Here are some of the ways I do things;

'Artist' has to be Capitalized for any words (except trivial ones for grammatical error)

'Song Title is the same as artist for Capitalization

'(feat. Artist)' will always be (feat. _____) not 'featured' or 'featuring' or any variation

'(remix)' must be in full capitals but the actual remix type must be in lower case: ex. Artist - Song Title (Armin van Buuren remix)

Yeah, I also delete all ID3 tags becuase sometimes there isn't enough room to enter them so I got too frustrated with shortforms. All my info is in the title.

[a_witko]

^^ See, I need ID3 tags for my iPod.

People that use deeper information (genre, year) use it because they probably have a big music collection. I never used to have genre, but once my collection hit the thousands, I couldn't survive without them.

[ZZOOzzoo]

I usually leave the way it is when ripping CDs.