Regarding directory structure, I find it best to keep things simple where they can be kept such (as you'll see below.)
But, not so simple as to make things a mess (as you'll see further below.)
How you structure your folders and files will probably also depend on what type of music your library consists of... albums... singles... film scores... classical, etc. I'm not much of a singles guy, and my organization structure reflects very much so reflects this.
I use three main structure types:
Album Artist - Album // this is pseudo-code - don't employ unless you clean it up and view the results
Drive Letter :\ $Left($Sort(<Sort Artist>),1) \ <Sort Artist> \ <Sort Album> \ <Album Artist> - $If(<Original Year>=<Year (yyyy)>,(<Year (yyyy)>),(<Original Year>) (<Year (yyyy)>)) - <Album> [RELEASECOUNTRY · PUBLISHER CATALOGNUMBER · SOURCE MEDIUM]
...which gives results like...
M:\J\John Coltrane\Box Set\Impluse! Records\John Coltrane - (1997) The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings [US · impulse! IMPD 4232 · CD]
M:\P\Philip Bailey\Studio\Philip Bailey - (1983) (2010) Continuation [NL · PTG Records PTG 34084 · CD]
This structure is self-explanatory and fairly easy to implement.
Compilation Type \ Album Name// this is pseudo-code - don't employ unless you clean it up and view the results
Drive Letter :\ Compilation \ <Genre Category> \ $If(<Original Year>=<Year (yyyy)>,(<Year (yyyy)>),(<Original Year>) (<Year (yyyy)>)) <Album> [RELEASECOUNTRY · PUBLISHER CATALOGNUMBER · SOURCE MEDIUM]
...which gives results like...
M:\Compilation\Hip-Hop\(2012) Kanye West Presents Good Music Cruel Summer [US · G.O.O.D. Music · Digital Media]
M:\Film Score\1980s\(1982) (1997) Poltergeist [US · Rhino Movie Music R 2 72725 · CD]
M:\Soundtrack\Disney\1980s\(1989) (1997) The Little Mermaid [US · Walt Disney Records 60946-7 · CD]
Classical and OperaOnly those with hardcore OCD should check out this part.
// this is pseudo-code - don't employ unless you clean it up and view the results
Drive Letter :\ Classical \ PERIOD \ SUBPERIOD \ <Sort Composer> (LIFESPAN) \ <STYLE> \ <Album Artist> - $If(<Original Year>=<Year (yyyy)>,(<Year (yyyy)>),(<Original Year>) (<Year (yyyy)>)) - <Album> $If($IsMatch(<ENSEMBLE>,"(orchestra|choir):"),(<ENSEMBLE>),) [RELEASECOUNTRY · PUBLISHER CATALOGNUMBER · SOURCE MEDIUM]
...which gives results like...
M:\Classical\Classical era\Middle\Bologne, Joseph (1745-1799)\Concerto\Rachel Barton Pine (violin) - (1997) Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries (Encore Chamber Orchestra) [US · Cedille CDR 90000 035 · CD]
M:\Classical\Twentieth Century\Shostakovich, Dmitri (1906-1975)\Ballet\José Serebrier - (2006) Shostakovich The Golden Age (Royal Scottish National Orchestra) [GB · Naxos 8.570217-18 · CD]
The trick here is I don't do any of this in MusicBee; I use
MP3TAG to format tags after acquiring them from
MusicBrainz Picard. I would highly recommend anyone wanting to start seriously laying out their music folder structure to start using Picard to initially tag your files. As a side note, I have no problem with Discogs or the information one can obtain from that source, but the only automatic Discogs tagger I'm aware of is a
plugin that comes with the command line interface tagger
beets, which isn't everyone's cup of tea.
Whether or not to incorporate MP3TAG afterwards is up to each individual. If your folder structure and tagging methods range from beginner to intermediate, Picard will accomplish all this quite easily, but I believe MP3TAG makes advanced tag editing a much easier process to accomplish over Picard.