I have quite a complex way to organise my 50k plus mp3 songs :
1. Media Type (Albums/Other/Soundtracks/Classical/Pop Music/Remixes/Jazz/Latin/Tango) I create a folder called Albums that will be sychronised with iTunes for the iPhone and my Sonos. In this folder, I only put whole albums and compilations of favourite artists. All other albums, live recordings, singles, extended plays are put into the Other folder. Soundtracks, Classical, Jazz, Latin & Tango are self explanatory. I put in Pop Music songs that are hits which I do not want to have the album - one hit wonders. In Remixes, these are favourite remixes (House, Trance, ...) also by year.
2. Grouping I group artists under certain groups (ie. Peter Gabriel goes into Genesis, Annie Lennox under Eurythmics)
3. Album Artist
4. Year / Symbol / Code / Album name (if there is only one album, I combine the Artist name and the album name together - If the Album name = Artist name, I put Self-Titled) Yes, putting the year here makes sense to have your albums in chronological order. I put a code here to be able to easily find my folders using a search function (i use the character ¦) I then put the first letter of the Media Type field (Album, Compilation, Single, Live, Remix, Tribute, ...) which is followed by the complete Album Name. If the Publisher of the album exists, its first 10 characters are placed after this in parenthesis.
5. (Artist) Disc-Track# - Track Name (feat Other Artist) If <Artist> is different from <Album Artist>, the artist name is indicated before the disc & track numbers. If the word "feat" is present in <Artist>, the featured artist name is put after the track name
Here is what I have :
Tons of fun... but time consuming.
Jean from Montreal
$IsNull(<Media Type>,Albums,$If($Or(<Media Type>="Album",<Media Type>="Compilation"),Albums,$If(<Media Type>="Live",Albums,$If(<Media Type>="Remix",Albums,Other))))\$IsNull(<Grouping>,$Group($Sort(<Album Artist>),1)" "Artists\$Sort(<Album Artist>),$Group($Sort(<Grouping>),1)" "Artists\$If(<Grouping>=<Album Artist>,$Sort(<Grouping>),$Sort(<Grouping>)\$Sort(<Album Artist>)))$If(<Library>=1," ",\)$If(<Media Type>="Various Songs","Various Songs",$IsNull(<Year>,," "<Year>¦)$IsNull(<Media Type>,A,$Left(<Media Type>,1))" "$If(<Artist>=<Album>,Self-Titled,<Album>)$IsNull(<Publisher>,," ("$Left(<Publisher>,10)")")\$IsNull(<Disc-Track#>,,<Disc-Track#>-))$if(<Album Artist>=<Artist>,<Title>,$if($Contains(<Artist>," (feat "),<Title>" (feat "$Split(<Artist>," (feat",2),<Artist>-<Title>))