How do you organize your music on the harddrive?
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  1. #1
    Schreiberie Meister Afterhour Ali's Avatar
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    Default How do you organize your music on the harddrive?

    Even after years I'm not comfortable with the way I organize my music-files (about 5000) on the harddrive.

    While most people don't care where iTunes or other library-tools store their music I'm a control-freak (plus my music-libraries often don't last very long)

    Please help me improve my current system!

    This is how I do it now:

    Code:
    Music-folder
     |- Tracks
     |     |- Year (e.g. 2011)
     |           |- Month (e.g. 04)
     |                  |- [tracks I found this month]
     |
     |- Official Soundtracks
     |    |- [Soundtracks]
     |
     |- Albums
     |    |- Year
     |          |- [Album]
     |
     |- Charts
     |    |- [charts] (e.g. Single Charts 2011-07-06)
     |
     |- Sampler
     |
     |- Mixes
     |
     |- Hedgehog
     |    |- [mix-cds, edits, remixes, original tracks]
    Then there's another folder with unsorted music. Charts, oldies etc. -> all music I don't want to spin but have to sometimes at friends weddings etc (music I don't consider part of the collection).

    I'm looking for ideas on how to improve it!
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  2. #2
    Tech Guru basspenetrator's Avatar
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    i dont trust itunes

    i have a genre based system:

    music folder - genre folder - tracks

    and then folders for non DJ music and my sets..
    Setup: TP 3, Kontrol S5, MF Twister, MF3D, MF Classic, DIY-Midifighter, Aiaiai Tma-1
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  3. #3
    Schreiberie Meister Afterhour Ali's Avatar
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    Aren't some of the genre-folders huge?
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  4. #4
    Tech Guru Zaniac's Avatar
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    Default

    here is a link to How I sort my Toons

    There may be a couple of things I do which may help. (helps my sanity lol, as it is much easier to navigate and find stuff)
    "Wow! I wanna be just like your friend! Thats honestly what i told my mom and dad when i was about 11 years old...i said when i grow up i wanna dj for rich people"

  5. #5
    DJTT Infectious Moderator photojojo's Avatar
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    I use iTunes and really don't understand why people don't like it.
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    Podcast - Soundcloud - Mixcloud - Beatport Charts - x

  6. #6
    Tech Mentor racoon's Avatar
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    i organize my music on my HDD, when i buy a CD i rip it to WAV and add them to my archive.

    there i have 4 folders: "~ Favorites ~", "~ SETs ~", "Albums", "!!! NEW !!!" and one extra folder for every dj from which i get tracks "gotten from XY"
    (so that i can seperate "their music" from "my music" and i don't play accentially their hottest tracks in my set ;D which is one of the reasons they share it with me because they can trust i don't play their bombs until they feel good about it and tell me)

    when i make a folder for an album i want to store i name it like:

    "Artistname (or VA) - Albumname - Label Country Year Dataformat" for example "VA - Psychedelic Blabla Vol 23 - Blablarecords UK 2011 wav"

    When i like an Album really i make an SHORTCUT to an folder i called "~ Favorites ~" and describe in the link what i like on it

    When i pick a Track into a DJ-Set i COPY them into a New Folder in my "~ Set ~" folder and name it like the gig i organize for and name them "Artist - Tracktitle - KEY BPM" for example "Secret Society - Explosive Diorama - 11 152"

    for the sets im working on i make a shortcut to it lying around on my desktop so i keep focused on

    when i burn a set-cd i put the KEY and the BPM (which i scan with an virtual dj demoversion since my traktor pro 2 can't scan for keys *lol*) in front of the artistnames on the cd-text so i can see the tracktitles "fast" and find the track i search, and then i switch to the "artist info tab" and look which key & bpm the track has.
    (would have to wait for scrolling if i want to know the artist, but the most of the time i know the artist when i see the tracktitle)

    all albums and tracks i didn't heard often enough to judge are in the "!!! NEW !!!" folder and this is the folder i select my winamp playlist out of it the most of the time. when i heard a album/track often enough i decide to delete it or move it in my "albums" folder. there it will stay forever

    this "system" i developed a few years long and changed the way i named the folders or tracks a few times until i had it as described. now i can navigate my music relatively fast. (i make excessive use of the file-search-function of my operating system)
    Last edited by racoon; 11-29-2011 at 08:16 AM.

  7. #7
    Tech Guru basspenetrator's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HedgeHog View Post
    Aren't some of the genre-folders huge?
    up to 5 gig.. r.g. my dubstep folder contains about 400 tunes. i put them in a traktor playlist and it works ..

    Quote Originally Posted by photojojo View Post
    I use iTunes and really don't understand why people don't like it.
    i want to organize my music myself and dont let any program put it in some weird folders, where i could only find them again with the program..
    Setup: TP 3, Kontrol S5, MF Twister, MF3D, MF Classic, DIY-Midifighter, Aiaiai Tma-1
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  8. #8
    DJTT Infectious Moderator photojojo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by weltraumpapst View Post
    i want to organize my music myself and dont let any program put it in some weird folders, where i could only find them again with the program..
    That's what I don't understand. Itunes doesn't store stuff in weird folders. I let iTunes organize my library and it's all in Music>iTunes>iTunes Music>Artist>Album. As long as I know the artist I can find it on my hard drive without doing a finder search for it. Am I missing something? I'm not trying to be difficult, just trying to understand.
    Chris Jennings FHP

    Podcast - Soundcloud - Mixcloud - Beatport Charts - x

  9. #9
    Tech Mentor racoon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by photojojo View Post
    just trying to understand.
    what is with your order when itunes scans the artistname or albumname wrong?
    what is with your order if you want to have your files sorted differently than the itunes standard-pattern?

    for people which want CONTROL over this things it seems to be better not to use itunes =)
    Last edited by racoon; 11-29-2011 at 08:25 AM.

  10. #10
    DJTT Infectious Moderator photojojo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by racoon View Post
    what is with your order when itunes scans the artistname or albumname wrong?
    I'm religious about making sure stuff is properly tagged, I would be the same no matter how I stored it on my hard drive.

    Quote Originally Posted by racoon View Post
    what is with your order if you want to have your files sorted differently than the itunes standard-pattern?
    I guess this is why I'll never understand it. I NEVER have to search for something on the harddrive so it doesn't really matter to me how it's stored on the hard drive. I just type a few keywords into itunes or Traktor and it automatically begins to narrow down my list.

    That brings up another question. How do you search by keywords? I pit keywords like jazzy, or latin, or indie vocal in iTunes comments. that way if i'm looking for a deep house song with a jazzy sound I can open my deep house smart playlist and search jazzy and find all of the songs that I've tagged that way.
    Chris Jennings FHP

    Podcast - Soundcloud - Mixcloud - Beatport Charts - x

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