Author Topic: Best way to organize 65K plus of files.  (Read 19171 times)

redwing

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I have just started scratching the surface of MusicBee after switching from iTunes, but boy do I have a long way ahead of me...   :P

You can start with this guide:
http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=10980.0

In the end, anyone can write more complicated rules than that. It's just about how to customize it to your tagging scheme.

Pingaware

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Now, I wonder what do you do with artist aliases? This happens a lot in electronic music, artist has 3 other names to extend his creativity. Do you put them in one folder?

I use $First(<Artist>) in cases like this.  For example, in the case of The Wailers vs Bob Marley vs Bob Marley & The Wailers, I use the release name as the display artist but put Bob Marley as the actual artist tag.

As an aside: Marley is one of pet hates when it comes to tagging. Really like his music, but there are so many different releases, under so many different names and with so many different song versions, it can be a nightmare to work out what you've actually got.
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vincent kars

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In the past I used the Artist for folder name only to learn that i an album has multiple artist, the album get scattered all over the file system.
Keeping the tracks together helps if a track is missing in the library.
Having the filenames pre-fixed with the track number helps as well when looking for missing tracks.
Hence  organize by a unique folder for each Album.

In the past I used multiple libraries.
I didn’t like the switching and indeed what to do with the crossovers?
So 1 library for my and filters
Classical goes into Root\Cassical, Jazz into Root\jazz, etc.

Basically, the organization of the files isn’t that important to me.
Classical/Jazz/Blues/Pop does the job for me.
A folder per album is occasionally needed when hunting for missing tracks.

Zak

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In the past I used the Artist for folder name only to learn that i an album has multiple artist, the album get scattered all over the file system.
Keeping the tracks together helps if a track is missing in the library.
That's where Album Artist is useful, even if it's just set to "Various artists" for a compilation of random songs.

The good thing about MusicBee is that anywhere you use <Album Artist> in a template or expression it will only use it if it is set and default to <Artist> if it isn't. So you only need to set Album Artist where it is needed and don't need to write expressions like $IsNull(<Album Artist>,<Artist>,<Album Artist>)...
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UK82

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You can start with this guide:
http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=10980.0

In the end, anyone can write more complicated rules than that. It's just about how to customize it to your tagging scheme.

Redwing - thanks a lot for that link - and for the guide you wrote there.

I'm new to MusicBee and find out more great stuff I can do with it by the day. Being able to rename folders with $Sort(<Artist>). Simple - but very handy!


bobemor

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(First time posting so please tell me if this is the in the wrong place)
Been using Musicbee for a bit over a year and still feel as if I've not really found a good way of organising/lay-out my music very well. Was just wondering how you people do it. Understand different people want different things but thought it'd be interesting to hear what you guys have to say

Currently I organise/lay-out by Album Artist and have it permanently on All Artists so I can then select the artists with a big photo and then an album, and a song. However, I'm not sure this is the best way as the part on the left side is completely redundant to me and Musicbee gets very confused by collaborative albums and multiple artists on a track (The Black Panther album for instance has left me stumped as to how to file it).

I mostly play from auto-playlists based on star rating, but I first have to listen to every new album a few times before rating.

psychoadept

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Hi, welcome to the forum!

Have you played around with different layout elements found in the arrange panels dialogue (next to the search box)? That left panel can be changed or removed.

Also, it sounds like you should look at whether your compilation albums, like Black Panther, are tagged with a consistent album artist (usually various artists, but it can be whatever you want). Then also make sure you're sorting /grouping by album artist, not just artist. Assuming you want it all to be treated as one album.
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ShayUrkell

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..make sure you're sorting /grouping by album artist, not just artist. Assuming you want it all to be treated as one album.

I agree with this, as it is how I would organize my music as well.

BillTor

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Good advice. I was sorting everything just by artist for a while. I sort of got used to it but when I switched to album artist, it was so much easier to keep track of everything.

byteme67

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I ask this to get a feel of how's everyone's file organization on your storage device and not necessarily in MusicBee. I currently have a few folders.

My main folder is labeled Good. I place all the music I have tagged and in the process of rating. I then have 26 folders one for each letter of the US alphabet. Then I have the artists or band in those folders and then additional folders under them labeled Albums, Compilations, Live, etc. So it would look something likes this: Good > A > AC_DC > Albums > [YYYY]Album Title.

So what is your organization like? I've been doing it this way for years now. Sometimes I think it's too much. I currently have 33,000+ tracks and 250GB+ stored on my NAS drive.

psychoadept

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Personally, I just organize my files by first letter, then by album artist (removing any special characters or articles), then by album (ordered by year), etc
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supersonic

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I organise mine by file format followed by where I bought it from and then the standard Album artist and Album, for example:
Music/MP3/Amazon/[Album artist]/[Album]/[disk#-track# Title].mp3 or Music/ALAC/CD/[Album artist]/[Album]/[disk#-track# Title].m4a

I know roughly where a specific album or song is but as I don't play music through the File Explorer I don't need to, that's what I use MusicBee for  ;)