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Organizing digital music

Hi all,

Ive got to a point where my digital files are so unorganized. When doing a spontanious mix I have so many files that its hard to find I'm looking for. At the moment I have my files stored in genre folders and then the key of the track but, I'm thinking its time for a re-think.Has anyone got any good suggestions on how they organize their music??

I just keep my files in a folder by month, so November 2010, October 2010 etc.


All of the genre/playlist sorting is done within iTunes.

I don't know what gear you have, but as a Traktor user I don't really care about folder structure. I have all of my tracks in one big folder. The key for me is having a standard metadata format that I use for all of my files. I can easily search by genre, key, release date, etc.

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...01&forumid=8&s=

all my files are in one folder called "Music".

quote:

Originally posted by Mr.Mystery http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...01&forumid=8&s=

+1

So a search for this. It's been covered many times over.

I actually just have my digital files organized by Artist - Title and by genre folder.

However, in Excel I keep a list of all my music and organize by key, bpm, artist - title, artist, title, genre, and I add columns as necessary (date purchased, date produced, anything that helps me reference the track). When I'm at home I use Excel exclusively. If I'm playing out, I can take my laptop or print out the list I'm going to use. I have such an easier time searching in Excel than just scrolling through files.

thanks for the feedback...

also thanks for posting the link for the other thread. I tried to do a search but didnt come up with anything.

My post in the other thread only covered CDs / vinyl as I hadn't started playing around with laptops yet, but now that I do... (in case you care)

I'm still an advocate of chronological order: when you get something new, it goes on the end. It's usually fairly easy to remember roughly how long ago you bought something (up to a point) and the longer you've had something the more likely you are to just remember which folder it's in anyway.

It also means a track will always be surrounded by the same other tracks: "Ultimo" by Evil Nine will always be next to "Alter 9" by Etostone in my collection as I added them on the same day, so if I couldn't remember the artist or title of "Alter 9", I could look for Ultimo because I happen to remember it's next to it (which happens to me more than remembering the name of the track I want to play, for some reason) - I generally need as many clues as I can get! Adding another track won't break this relationship, like it could do in just about any other organisation method.

I don't rely on searching for anything recent because I can never remember the names of things, but I'm more likely to remember the name of an older track so rather than trying to remember exactly when I got
it I can just search if I like.

I hate scrolling, so I now group my MP3s into folders which will fit on one screen in Traktor, which is about 15 with the font size etc I use. It ends up being very similar to how I used to arrange my CDs (~10 per CD) and in fact I still think of each folder as a 'disc'. The main benefit of this are I can just flick through 'pages' and a particular track will always be in the same position on its page (in the middle, or 2nd from bottom, or whatever) so I usually know where to look for it... again, my brain has funny ways of remembering things like that rather than the name of the tune.


Reasons I shied away from other organising methods:

• By key would encourage me to choose by the key rather than the track: I just like to know what key the track I've picked is in but I don't let it have much influence over my track selection - I just use it to help me choose how to mix it in
  
• Alphabetically would mean knowing the names of stuff, which I'll never be able to do
  
• All in one folder would mean lots of scrolling or searching, plus more than a couple of hundred files in one folder can slow your laptop down a bit (not usually noticeably though)
  
• By 'style' would mean pigeon-holing things pretty severely and my opinion of a track can change... what sounds really chilled to me in one mood or environment can sound quite up-beat and groovy in another
  
• By tempo I think is fairly irrelevant as the original tempo doesn't matter: I sometimes play 120bpm tunes at 135bpm and vice versa and doing that can change the feel of a track, so tempo doesn't really pin down a track's potential in any way.
  

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