Best library directory structure?

[Markrg]

Hi,

New to Media Monkey so apologies if this has already been covered - couldn't see any posts though.

I have been trying to get a large iTunes library into an MP3 format so that I can sync any mix of tracks to my HTC phone. I didn't have to convert everything to mp3 format but I got totally fed up with iTunes and decided it was time to move away. So, I now have the bulk of my library (5300 files) as MP3 ready to be loaded into MM (v3.2.1.1297). Currently the mp3 files are all in one directory (some will be duplicates) and I have a choice: 1- point MM at this directory and let it get on with cataloging everything or, 2- Use File Sorter* to create a proper file structure (Genre/Artist/Album) and then let MM loose on this. Which would be best?

*File Sorter reads the mp3 files and then automatically creates directories (Genre/Artist/Album) at a specified location to write that data to. It doesn't get everything right but can save a lot of time.

Look forward to hearing your views. Thanks

[Lowlander]

MediaMonkey can create the folder structure for you as well using Tools > Auto-Organize Files: http://www.mediamonkey.com/sw/webhelp/f ... enames.htm

So you can scan the tracks in and then use Auto-Organize Files to create the folder structure you want. At minimal you want tracks from an Album in an Album folder, this would uncomplicate things with external album art.

[Scooter]

My mask is very simple and over the past 5 years I've used MM it has served me well

Artist\Album\

And for the file name: Artist - 01 Track Name. Thats Artist space dash space track number song title.

And I always input names, last name first, and groups without the "the". So, Sinatra, Frank or Beatles. The only exception is where the artist might not have a discernable last name, "Howlin Wolf" for example. But BB King, is King, BB.

[Lowlander]

I prefer using Album Artist as Artist would split up albums (when using multiple artist feature) and thus arrived at:

Music\<Album Artist:1>\$Trim(<Album Artist:50>)\[<Year>] $Trim(<Album:50>)\$Trim(<Artist:50>) - $If(<Disc#>,<Disc#:2>-,)<Track#:2> - $Trim(<Title:50>)

I first split artists into first letter folders to make things more manageable. I also trim each field to prevent issues with overly long folder/filenames.

[Anti]

I would say it depends on your collection.

If you collect single songs and compilation albums, as tends to be the case with DJs and dance music, it doesn't make any sense to create a new folder for every single artist, where most folders might only end up having one or two mp3s in them. In this case, you might want to have a handful of broad folders, divided by genre or year. Or you could just leave everything in one folder (see last paragraph).

Whereas if you tend to collect several entire albums by each artist, then it makes more sense to have artist folders. Then it's up to you or not whether you subdivide those into album folders or not. Personally I don't; I prefer as flat a structure as possible:
music/[artist]/[artist]- [album]- [NN]- [title]

And of course, if you don't automate the entire process when you use auto-organize then you can have a mixture of both. For single songs I have folders like: 'dance singles', 'drum and bass', 'workout compilation', etc. 'Albums' are made by using the 'album artist' tag, so it doesn't matter that all my 500 dance singles are in one folder.

So really, you only need a folder structure that prevents duplicate filenames from clashing, and if you use verbose filenames, then you don't really need any folder structure. It is the internal mp3 TAGGING that is used to perform actions and provide filtering when you're working with your catalogue. I've never had to open the actual Windows directory and work with files directly using the Windows OS; everything is done through the MM interface.

[Markrg]

Brilliant! Thanks for the suggestions. I will use MM to do the work rather than File Sorter.

There is a lot of classical music in the library and multiple albums for certain composers. One of the problems I have is that, with all music currently in one folder, there are a lot of duplicate file names and iTunes saved them with a number appended: Sanctus, Sanctus1, Sanctus2 and so on. Somehow, I will have to get rid of these numbers when the tracks get organised into seperate folders.

What I am aiming at is to have a good file structure that will make it easy to find album artwork. Once I have got to that point, I will rebuild playlists - I don't think I can import these from iTunes since the file format and location has changed from m4a/m4p to mp3.

To be honest I have a feeling I have made this much more complicated than it should have been: I started with 4700+ tracks (a mix of mp3, m4a and m4p) in my iTunes directory. I exported the lot as mp3 to a folder on my hard drive using Tune Clone virtual CD Writer and am now attempting to get everything sorted again using MM. The goal is to be able to sync any mix of my music to my HTC Desire (16GB card fitted) regardless of whether it was a protected file or not. When I first installed MM it found the itunes library and imported playlists perfectly but when I tried to sync music to the HTC, many of the tracks couldn't be transfered and I made the assumption this was because they were m4p files.

If you can tell me I am messing this up and that there is a better way I will be eternally grateful.

Thanks

[rovingcowboy]

i just scanned through the other replys so if they said this before sorry.

but one important thing

scan in your songs to the monkey's database. view the songs in the listview area by clicking on the all accessible songs playlist.

make sure the data in the list is correct for each song. then select the songs in groups and go to tools menu and click on advanced tag management then click on sync tags. make sure you get all the songs sync'ed

BEFORE YOU USE AUTO ORGANIZER other wise you end up with a scattered mess of songs all over the place.

[winniethepujols]

I personally like to use my own directory structure -- I group the songs by the month and year I ripped/bought them in.

So for example: any songs I get this month I put in a folder called "2010 August." Any songs I get next month I'll put in a folder called "2010 September."

This actually comes in really handy when I back up my library; I like to burn my library to disks (I don't like the idea of backing it up to another hard drive and having a catastrophic mass-hard-drive failure). By grouping by date, it makes it extremely easy to periodically make updates to my archive/backup. ("OK, let's see, the last time I updated was April of 2010, so any directories created after that now need to be backed up as well.")

[Pete10]

First of all the obvious - make sure that you work on a copy of the mp3 files, you do not want to make irreversible errors.
Then import and see if MM has made a reasonable album -artist - composer etc database. Do not worry about filenames - if the mp3 tags are ok MM can make a new folder/file structure by the auto organise feature (you can test it with a few albums, no need to do everything at once). Be careful if the tags (such as artist + track names) are extremely long - can happen with classical and causing errors. Use the trim option as above if needed then.
I use a different file structure for classical and modern, using composer rather than artist, respectively, as main folder name. For some reason the composer is often used as artist, also in freedb.

[Teknojnky]

@ winnie, thats an interesting idea.

all, see @ http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... s_Examples

and there are probably hundreds of threads about organizing methods and masks.

[botijo]

UPDATE: The previous post did have incorrect information that I fixed.

By the way,
try to avoid anything that puts over 500 directories or files inside one directory in a FAT32 formatted drivee. Performance of accesing this kind of directory gets too slow with too many files or directories, as far as I experienced.

[gggirlgeek]

KISS: My favorite system (Keep it simple stupid.)

I have 12 folders in my Music folder that are basically macro-genres -- i.e. Rock, Classical, Folk, Slow Pop, Fast Pop... whatever your largest categories are. These are old folders from the days when I needed to backup to DVD and wanted to occasionally listen to them. If you're playing a DVD on random you really don't want to scared out of your pants by Marilyn Manson after listening to Enya (showing my age, I know.) So I put everything into folders that were safe to randomly play.

This is nice because when I get really sick of endlessly tagging my music I can simply grab the folder name in Media Monkey's Tag from filename, slap in the Genre field (in all CAPS so I can find them for later tagging,) and blam! I'm not very far off from the real genre. I can now stick in my mp3 player and hit random play. There are artist and album folders inside these folders but I don't generally worry about creating these. I just make sure my tunes are named <Artist> - <Title>, optonally, with <Album> and let MediaMonkey/Explorer worry about the dups. The tags tell me which song version I am listening to.

This does require a little bit of organization in Explorer but I have never regretted having these folders. I also have a rather large folder called @NotBackedUp which serves as my procrastination folder for sorting and backing up. In addition I have folders outside the "Music" folder for stuff like Audiobooks, and Christmas music that I don't want to see in MediaMonkey.


Album art? I HATE it when other media players stick thousands of new jpg's in my folders without asking me. So I simply don't use those media players, or turn off that option (WMP, WMC, VLC etc.) Same with mp3 players. I either buy one that can read album art in the tags or go without album art. Is it really that necessary? Those thousands of jpg's slow down your system, take up space, and tend to come up in really annoying places, like Media Center's photo viewer without being told to. Do a search in your computer for *.jpg sometime. You will be cleaning house for the rest of the day.

[Dreadlau]

edit: I moved this post to a new thread:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =1&t=52917

[Teknojnky]

your question has nothing to do with the thread...

in any case, sounds like you need to check the options of windows media player/center and disable downloading of internet metadata.

[Dreadlau]

Sorry.
You are right.

I will move it to a new thread.


Here is the new thread:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =1&t=52917