Finished library purging, now what's the best way to organize my files on my HDD?
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  1. #1
    RGAS Guru Xonetacular's Avatar
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    Default Finished library purging, now what's the best way to organize my files on my HDD?

    I went through an purged over 20,000 songs from my collection and hard drive. I did this through traktor by right clicking and selecting delete from collection and hard drive. The byproduct of this is I have a massive mess of orphaned empty nested folders with files all over the place.

    I'm wondering the best way to reorganize my files now and what software to use to automate this.

    I am considering letting itunes organize everything once to sort things then not have it manage my music anymore. I don't like that if I change a tag in itunes it messes with the file location and will mess up traktor, and I will not use itunes through traktor since there is no cover art and itunes support is still slow.

    If I reorganize all my files will I have to redo my whole traktor collection and playlists?

    I also wonder how best to sort music since if you do the typical artist > album > track file structure then it splits up compilations which I would like to avoid.

  2. #2
    Tech Guru space monkey's Avatar
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    my collection depends a lot upon the "date created" concept of file ordering within windows because I remember the time frame of my purchases much better than the actual tracks. I used to put every track for a particular release in it's own Album folder but that got really unwieldy.
    Now I simply keep everything in a single folder and make sure to add all the correct tags and grids the day of purchase adding new songs to analyze in Traktor one-by-one in order to preserve a specific sequence for genre, album, artist etc. WHen I used to drag and analyze en masse shit would get all mixed up because some songs would finish before others.
    I also use winamp lite as my media player and it 1) Never fucks my tracks by updating tags 2) is able to read flac file and tags (thus maintaining a compilations' integrity) 3) has a much more robust sorting and search window 4) doesn't piss me off by moving tracks into a proprietary ordering system and renaming

    I always remember something about a track, be it artist, remixer, publisher wtv so searching between winamp or inside Traktor guarantees i'll find what i'm looking for. I usually maintain an <artist - track name [remixer]> file naming convention but not as religiously as I used to since files are abstracted between Traktor and winamp anyway.

  3. #3
    RGAS Guru Xonetacular's Avatar
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    That brings up another question for me, is there any way to rename files in some unified system based on their tags?

    Because I updated all my tags pretty much perfectly, now my file names are still all over the place. Never thought about putting it all in one folder but that seems like it could get a little crazy.

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    Tech Guru space monkey's Avatar
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    All in one is not crazy for me because I don't keep a lot of active tracks (>800) and don't actually browse the folder via the OS since Traktor and Winamp effectively do it for me. But then again my method also involves PN to MiK and Audacity and is tuned to my flow. Not that those programs are necessary I've just kept that system to maintain consistency.

    I actually spend a lot of time going through tracks during the day (work) to find loops and potential cue points jotting down notes to implement when I get home. This alone has kept me pretty organized. (perhaps a great idea for an iPad app?) Before I would find myself belabored over file structure and storage rather than song structure and sound. One single folder works for me.
    As for autorenaming based on tags I can't help you. I always manually rename immediately after downloading.

    I should also mention that I keep my older, unused tracks on a separate HD ready to plop back into Traktor should I feel inspired. So far i've not had an issue where the strip and and cues aren't magically there when I bring an old track back (unless it predates Traktor 2.x's colored waveform)
    Last edited by space monkey; 01-02-2012 at 09:34 PM.

  5. #5
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    If you change the tags in itunes and still have that same song in an itunes playlist traktor should be able to find it. And I have the newest version of traktor and it shows all my cover art.

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    Moderator keithace's Avatar
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    by how you feel about them...
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    Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal

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    Moderator keithace's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by space monkey View Post
    All in one is not crazy for me because I don't keep a lot of active tracks (>800) and don't actually browse the folder via the OS since Traktor and Winamp effectively do it for me. But then again my method also involves PN to MiK and Audacity and is tuned to my flow.
    please explain "tuned to your flow"...
    Weapons, not food, not homes, not shoes
    Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal

  8. #8
    Tech Guru space monkey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by keithace View Post
    please explain "tuned to your flow"...
    pretty much tuned to my workflow. I buy tracks, download, rename to standard convention, import into PN, import into MiK, bring the resulting wav into Audacity and export as flac (**after first importing the original mp3 into Audacity because all the tags get carried over on the flac export).
    i do this track by track in order of either release date or artist so when I import into Traktor the tracks are in sequence.

    **I am aware that going from mp3 to flac gains no quality...i just don't want to reconvert to mp3

  9. #9
    Tech Mentor elio_xh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Xonetacular View Post
    That brings up another question for me, is there any way to rename files in some unified system based on their tags?

    Because I updated all my tags pretty much perfectly, now my file names are still all over the place. Never thought about putting it all in one folder but that seems like it could get a little crazy.
    Yes, I used a program called Media Monkey, it's freeware that lets your update filenames based on whatever criteria you want. For example it updated my entire library and you can set something like <Artist- Song(Remixer)(Key)> and it will update it for you.
    http://www.mediamonkey.com/
    DJ: Traktor Kontrol S4, Audio-Technica ATH-M50
    Production: LPD 8, Keystation 49, Fast-Track Pro, Equator D5 monitors

  10. #10
    Tech Guru Steve Zorilow's Avatar
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    motion seconded for Mediamonkey. From there you can rename your track AND organize them the way you want. It's an amazing software, even better if you like to roll your own script/add-on. The tag editor sucks IMHO but it's really workable. The free version is cool, but a lifetime paid upgrade worth it, check out their comparison chart. Freeware don't allow you to go on a forum and ask for feature & fix... in my programmer's mind though.

    I organize them by genre on my hdd. In traktor I add playlist sorted by import date. One folder per year, each year have Month subfolder, and each month subfolder have it's import date playlist & favorites.

    Don't forget, once you rename your track, you'll also need to run a check consistency which will also scrap all your previous playlist when you'll remove the missing files.

    Buy/rip your tracks, tag them, rename, import, you're done.
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