managing MP3 collection

[dZeus]

ok this is a situation that probably many of you have been in, or will be in sooner or later:

the chaos of an ever expanding collection of MP3s onto your HDD. I would like to make some kind of logical arrangement in the directory structure, but I've got no clue where to start.

I've thought about making directories for every artist/band, but that way I would end up with one directory which contained many, many subdirs, which wouldn't make it much easier to find stuff.

I've thought about making dirs for different music styles, but I've got no clue which style lots of music I listen to belongs to.

What's the best solution for this problem?

[az]

Edit the ID3v2 tags properly, and use Winamp 2.91's music library.

From times before that, I've used a directory structure with subfolders for every band I have complete albums from (the albums again being subfolders of the band), and folders from A to Z (and # for numbers, etc.) for bands of which I don't have full albums.

My mp3s are named artist [- album - tracknumber] - song.mp3

AZ

[Tom]

I keep my .mp3 file list simple:
arranged aphabetically by artist, with each artist having
folders for separate albums/CDs.
Believe it or not, I use WMP for managing my .mp3s
But then, my 5000 .mp3 collection is pretty
tiny compared to some I've seen.

[M|x]

i mostly have full albums, and i arange them like this in folders:

artist name - album name

i think that is a good way to do it. i think the general view becomes great that way. on the other hand,my single mp3s is a total mess

[isochar]

I just have a directory for artists (throw full albums or singles under each artists name), soundtracks, and compilations. Seems to cover all my bases, but the artists folder has 1,054 subfolders!

[Belwarrior]

\my_music\language\artist_name\album_song.mp3 or \my_music\language\artist_name_album_song.mp3

larger no. of files per folder but less folders to look at.

[KeiFront]

I've got 3 style folders (EBM, Pop, Alternative). Under these folders every band/artist has his folder with a subfolder for every CD/album.

Every mp3 file has the same format "Tracknumber - Title.mp3" and every mp3 is tagged (ID3v1 + ID3v2).

E.g. C:\Mp3\Alternative\Beastie Boys\Ill Communication\01 - Sure shot.mp3

Every folder also has a playlist.

The tagging is very important (all ±6500 mp3's are tagged ). It's very easy to manage the tagged mp3 files with e.g. the media library of Winamp.

[knirfie]

hey, an EBM-listener ^_^

I keep everything sorted under general style\band\album

with my general styles being:

Alternative
D&B
EBM
Metal/Goth
Punk/Britpop
Soundtracks
Trip Hop

unknown

if i dont have complete albums i dont use an album directory

[Gurm]

At the moment I have one big directory with band names. I suppose to cut down the clutter I could break that down into A-Z directories. *shrug*

I was forced, recently, to pull all my MP3's back onto the hard disc from the CD's where they lived, due to said CD's getting rather scratched up.

- Gurm

[HomeBrewer]

Collectorz.com has some quite good and reasonably priced software for various collections. I use both Music Collector and Movie Collector. If MP3 collector is of the same quality then I recommend you check it out.

You can download a free trial version from this page

[Wombat]

I tried doing the themes thing, but it mostly doesn't work. I keep Classical, Blues, Swing, and Techno folders, but most everything else is at the top level. "Artist - Album." When I get more than 5 or so things by the same artist (albums, singles, etc) I create a folder "Artist."