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Organizing MP3s and Other File Collections?

Posted by Cliff on from the virtual-file...filing dept.

Anonymous Coward asks: "After trying to merge several sets of media files that I've had laying around across several PC's (and looking at the short-comings of my own Perl script), I began looking at some commercial products and was overwhelmed. Does Slashdot have advice for organizing MP3 collections and what software works well for them?"

174 comments

  1. iTunes by bjprice · · Score: 0

    iTunes.

    Next?

    --
    v4sw6HPU$hw5ln6pr5$ck4ma8u7LMO$w2m6l7DL$i2e3t4MWb9AHKMRTen5a29s0r1p-5.88/-8.36g5CST
    1. Re:iTunes by Tamerlan · · Score: 1
      While the answer may be obvious to you, there is some merit in this discusiion
      • I learned about DSpace
      • Learned about versatile ways in which people manage their music collection
      • ... let alone the list of scripts for mp3/ogg/whatever tag manipulation, put in one place, with some kind of opinion, so I do not have to freaking google it
      --
      my sstream of consciousness
    2. Re:iTunes by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      How about a structured directory tree? Guaranteed software compatibility.

      IE: /home/x0563511/music/genre/artist/album

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    3. Re:iTunes by The_reformant · · Score: 1

      I used genre as a subgrouping for a while but abondoned it in favour of a larger just artists file, the reason being that a lot of music i would class as one genre but people would look for it in another or noth be able to find it.

      Also the tendency is to create really narrow genres and you end up with a bit of a nonsensical mess anyway.

      --
      I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this post is too small to contain.
  2. itunes does it for me by FiDooDa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just use it with the option "Keep itunes music folder organized"

    it does a great job for me.

    1. Re:itunes does it for me by Kosi · · Score: 1

      iTunes could do a great job for me, if Apple didn't miss to implement support for FLAC, Musepack, Monkey's Audio and some other formats.

      Unfortunately Apple made the design flaw that you can't simply drag audio files in a special folder and they are useable, so I have to install iTunes to put music on my iPod.

    2. Re:itunes does it for me by node+3 · · Score: 4, Informative

      iTunes could do a great job for me, if Apple didn't miss to implement support for FLAC, Musepack, Monkey's Audio and some other formats.

      iTunes supports FLAC, OGG, and any other format for which there is a QuickTime plug-in. Unfortunately, QuickTime plug-ins are (it's said) really annoying to program. The release of QT 7, though implies that this might change for the better.

      Unfortunately Apple made the design flaw that you can't simply drag audio files in a special folder and they are useable, so I have to install iTunes to put music on my iPod.

      This is intentional. When the iPod came out, the main HD-based player was the Nomad, which suffered from horrible performance. This was because the songs were just stored as files with no database. The reason the iPod can search through many thousands of songs instantaneously is because of its song database, which iTunes creates (you actually don't need iTunes for this--any program can read/write the iPod database).

      You could easily write a program that lets you just drop songs on it from your filesystem, which will automatically copy them to the iPod, and update the database.

    3. Re:itunes does it for me by Oliver+Wendell+Jones · · Score: 1

      I bought a Samsung YH-820 MP3 player with a 5 GB HD, color photo display, etc.

      It wants you to use either the Napster client or Windows Media Player 10 to synch files to the player and update the database. I open it up in Explorer (it doubles as a removable storage device) and add the files that way (much faster) and then run the "Recovery Utility" and tell it to rebuild the database. 2 GB of MP3 files took about 35 minutes to copy (my work PC has only USB 1.1) and the database rebuild took all of about 90 seconds. The estimated time to move the files with WMP 10 was over an hour.

      --
      A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
    4. Re:itunes does it for me by node+3 · · Score: 1

      In other words, it's just like the iPod in that it uses a database.

      What's the difference between running the "Recover Utility" and using one of the existing tools that does the same thing on the iPod? Not much.

      There is absolutely no reason someone couldn't write a program (a perl script, even!), and stick it on the iPod. Then you could mount the iPod on *any* computer, copy songs over, then run the program (Mac, Linux, or Windows), just like you do with your Samsung player, and do it on any platform and any computer you want.

      An infinitesimal number of iPod owners will ever go that route, though. iTunes is such a nice program, that there's no large demand for alternate ways of loading songs (Linux users being an obvious exception--but it's a pretty safe bet that most of them would just use iTunes if there was a Linux version).

    5. Re:itunes does it for me by Kosi · · Score: 1

      iTunes supports FLAC, OGG, and any other format for which there is a QuickTime plug-in.

      Oh, thank you for pointing out one more huge PITA in iTunes: it installs QT, even without asking, and ceases to work for no reason if you remove this useless annoyancy called Qicktime.

      This is intentional.

      That would make it even worse. What kind of an idiot must one be to leave the handling of an internal database to some external software instead of implementing it in the iPod?

      You could easily write a program that lets you just drop songs on it from your filesystem, which will automatically copy them to the iPod, and update the database.

      No need for it, because when I have to install a program, I could install iTunes. If Apple hadn't been so braindead, you would not need any software at all, you'd just connect your iPod and put music files in the music folder.

    6. Re:itunes does it for me by superstick58 · · Score: 1

      I thought I'd give iTunes a try at organizing my mp3s. It turned out to be a huge mistake. A good portion of my albums have content from various artists. Therefore, iTunes split all my album folders into multiple artist folders. Maybe this would be OK if I used iTunes to play music, but unfortunately it works like crap on my computer because it is so slow and takes up so much desktop space. So when I drag my music folder into Winamp (which I love), the files are not quite organized correctly. In addition, those files that did not have an ID3 tag but had the long filenames are now clipped so that I lost the complete names of the songs. All in all it is a big mess.

    7. Re:itunes does it for me by mazesoft · · Score: 1

      useless annoyancy called Qicktime

      What's so bad about QuickTime? How is it an annoyance?

    8. Re:itunes does it for me by CableModemSniper · · Score: 2, Informative
      Oh, thank you for pointing out one more huge PITA in iTunes: it installs QT, even without asking, and ceases to work for no reason if you remove this useless annoyancy called Qicktime.
      That's because iTunes IS QuickTime (more or less) + some playliist, organizational functionality and a different interface.
      --
      Why not fork?
    9. Re:itunes does it for me by qurk · · Score: 1

      Perhaps a lot, but not neccessarily most. Count this linux user out :) Personally I really really like Amarok.

    10. Re:itunes does it for me by Anonymous+Coed · · Score: 1

      iTunes does support OGG, but last time I checked the primitive FLAC plugin didn't work at all for me. However, that may have been the result of Quicktime updates released after the FLAC plugin was written.

      Hopefully like you say the Quicktime plugins will get out there eventually. If iTunes could play FLAC and SHN I'd be very happy. Hell, if I could get WinAmp to play Apple Lossless files, I'd also be happy. Now if Apple would just understand of the concept of pre-track gaps, I might start taking their music stuff seriously!

    11. Re:itunes does it for me by Synbiosis · · Score: 0

      When the iPod came out, the main HD-based player was the Nomad, which suffered from horrible performance. This was because the songs were just stored as files with no database.

      Wrong. The Nomad HD based players have *always* used a database, but they're not MSC.

    12. Re:itunes does it for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its shitastic browser plugin steals mimetype associations

    13. Re:itunes does it for me by Kosi · · Score: 1

      I dislike software that invades my system almost like the Real stuff. So, for the occasional .mov file, I install Quicktime Alternative and have absolutely no need for Apple's Quicktime anymore.

      Has anyone found out how to run iTunes without Quicktime?

    14. Re:itunes does it for me by Kosi · · Score: 1

      *sigh* A pity that Apple didn't just compile the audio playing functionality from QT into iTunes.

    15. Re:itunes does it for me by hackstraw · · Score: 0


      SInce when is FLAC supported in iTunes?

      There is a FLAC quicktime component, but I have never seen FLACs work in iTunes. If you know something that google does not, please let us know.

    16. Re:itunes does it for me by node+3 · · Score: 1

      There is a FLAC quicktime component, but I have never seen FLACs work in iTunes.

      When you install a QuickTime component, iTunes gains the ability to play back that format (even video, although it will only play the audio). I've only used the OGG (Vorbis) component. The FLAC component should work just the same.

    17. Re:itunes does it for me by BlueCodeWarrior · · Score: 1

      I think if you click the 'Part of a Compilation' checkbox it won't do that to you.

    18. Re:itunes does it for me by skidv · · Score: 1

      This is intentional. When the iPod came out, the main HD-based player was the Nomad, which suffered from horrible performance. This was because the songs were just stored as files with no database. The reason the iPod can search through many thousands of songs instantaneously is because of its song database, which iTunes creates (you actually don't need iTunes for this--any program can read/write the iPod database).

      I prefer my iRiver iHP-40 interface, which lets me add songs through any interface (command line, gui, linux, windows (I assume mac)). Later, I can update the database from a machine with their management software installed.

      If I want to add songs from another machine, I can do it without having to load iTunes or any other software.

  3. Dspace. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://dspace.org/introduction/index.html

    "What Kinds of Content Does DSpace Accept?

    DSpace accepts all forms of digital materials including text, images, video, and audio files. Possible content includes the following:

    * Articles and preprints
    * Technical reports
    * Working papers
    * Conference papers
    * E-theses
    * Datasets: statistical, geospatial, matlab, etc.
    * Images: visual, scientific, etc.
    * Audio files
    * Video files
    * Learning objects
    * Reformatted digital library collections
    "

  4. MP3 Tag Tools by dotgod · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use MP3 Tag Tools. It hasn't been updated for a while, and I'm sure there's newer stuff out, but this does everything I need. You can manipulate both tags and filenames automatically. I don't think it supports OGG though.

    1. Re:MP3 Tag Tools by Albigg · · Score: 2, Informative

      Be careful, tag tools does some odd things. For example, EAC put an "Encoded By" tag in my MP3s with the 'Exact Audio Copy (Secure mode)' as the value. Tag Tools stripped that. Also, the track numbers got re-formatted. Instead of "X/Y" (where Y is the number of tracks) Tag Tools just redid the track number to X.

    2. Re:MP3 Tag Tools by DisKurzion · · Score: 2, Informative

      FYI...it does do OGG for tagging, but other features (like NFO generation) don't work for OGG.

      MP3 Tag Tools is AWESOME. It's a little quirky at first, but once you have everything configured the way you like it (No ID3v1 tags or misc tag nfo thanks!), you can have it automatically generate playlists, sfv files, and more.

      Also, configuring CDex properly for ripping your own stuff goes a long wait to good management of your MP3s (or OGGs).

  5. foobar2000, CDex, and some spare time. by Nicolae · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I keep my music organized in seperate folders, like so:
    Artist\(Year) Album\Artist - Album - Tracknumber - Title
    Orginizing it at first took a while, especially with bad tag info and weird filenames, but fb2k and it's masstagging and freedb lookup took care of that. Now, whenever I get a new CD, I've got CDex set up to automatically rip to the proper folder, so it's pretty easy to keep it organized.

    1. Re:foobar2000, CDex, and some spare time. by The-Bus · · Score: 1

      That's pretty much the easiest solution. I have everything sorted into 5 basic genre umbrellas:

      Rock-Pop-Alt-Country\
      Rap-HipHop-RnB-Reggae\
      D ance-Techno-Electronic\
      Jazz-Classical-Internatio nal-Vintage\
      Scores-Soundtracks-Words\
      Then after that into albums.

      Artists-Album-Year\Track-Artist-Song.mp3
      If an artist has more than one album, they get their own folder. I generally group related artists together (Dave Matthews Band, Dave Matthews, Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds). There are a few artists that could be under either umbrella but for the most part you will know where everyone goes. For any live performances I like to append the date. So on Prince's concert on 21 March 1981, the filename for his performance of "Head" is 10-Prince-Head_032181.mp3

      What's the catch? You use a utility like Nipkick's nmp3 that catalogs the name and location of all your mp3 files (or write your own). Anytime you are at a command line interface (or in nmp3's case, IRC), you type /mp3 followed by a search string. For example, /mp3 eric will bring up anything from Eric B. & Rakim to Eric Clapton to any song with the word "America" in it. At that point you type /mp3 06 and it plays song #6 on the list (06-Stevie_Wonder-Jesus_ Children_of_America). Not everyone has mIRC, but I am sure a lot of people on /. can script something very similar and do it very quickly, and I'm sure other clients have similar scripts.

      I find typing something is always quicker than scrolling through anything. But that's just me.

      --

      Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

  6. The GodFather by Tozog · · Score: 4, Informative

    The GodFather is by far my favorite. It has mass tagging, renaming, organization, and handles mp3/ogg/mpc/ape/flac/aac/apl/wv/mp4/ofr/spx tags, scripting abilities, pull info from online sites, and free, but not open source.

    http://users.otenet.gr/~jtcliper/tgf/

  7. How about by hey! · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Mac OSX Tiger + Spotlight?

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    1. Re:How about by Goo.cc · · Score: 1

      Something that I am curious about: does Spotlight actually look inside audio files for information, or does it simply index information in the iTunes database?

      For example, if I have an MP3 file in my home directory, and it has not been added to iTunes's database, can Spotlight still find the file based on ID3 information?

    2. Re:How about by hey! · · Score: 1

      IIRC it has an architecture which allows metadata importers to be defined for different formats, and MP3/ID3s are part of the default set.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    3. Re:How about by Goo.cc · · Score: 1

      That's how I was hoping it worked, but I could see someone trying to take a short cut and just use the information that is in the iTunes library file.

    4. Re:How about by hey! · · Score: 1

      It's interesting to wondera bout what we might be able to someday with this technology. If you had a smart enough importer, you might be able to create a folder that has all your heavy metal rock in it based, not on metadata, but on how the music actually sounds. I've seen some cool image database stuff where you draw a red rectangle, and it can find a picture of a double decker bus.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  8. ID3-TagIt by Winterblink · · Score: 4, Informative

    ID3-TagIt is a FANTASTIC application for managing MP3 metadata, as well as filenames. I used it to completely overhaul my collection so the filenames and tags were what I wanted them to be. Unfortunately it's only a windows application, but it really helped me when I put my collection into iTunes and the browse panes had everything all nice and neat. Best of all, it's free. :)

    --
    "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
    -Hoban Washburn
    1. Re:ID3-TagIt by Albigg · · Score: 2, Informative

      After surveying many MP3 tag programs ID3-TagIt was the one for me too. Once I straightened everything out, I imported everything into iTunes. iTunes works well once you have the major things sorted out. Just make sure that you have the directory laid out correctly and most of the mass tagging complete. Here is the link: http://www.id3-tagit.de/

    2. Re:ID3-TagIt by Winterblink · · Score: 1

      The best part about it was having not only the filenames what you want them to be, but being able to clean out the cluttered tags. Nine times out of ten, when I get an mp3 it's full of advertisements in the tags or something equally useless. And iTunes (or any other jukeboxer for that matter) really works better for you when the tags are kosher.

      --
      "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
      -Hoban Washburn
    3. Re:ID3-TagIt by delus10n0 · · Score: 1

      No offense, but after trying ID3-TagIt and The Godfather.. The Godfather wins, hands down:

      http://users.otenet.gr/~jtcliper/tgf/

      Supports any audio format you can think of, supports scripting, online tagging/album art tagging, batch renaming/re-tagging, etc... too many features to list here. And for FREE!

      --
      Not All Who Wander Are Lost
    4. Re:ID3-TagIt by gr8fulnded · · Score: 1

      I used MusicBrainz to completely overhaul my mp3s. If it can't figure out the name of your song exactly (through id3 or otherwise, it'll compare hashes to songs in it's database and provide the closet matches.

      http://www.musicbrainz.org/

      --Dave

    5. Re:ID3-TagIt by wings · · Score: 1

      For Linux, I prefer EasyTag http://easytag.sourceforge.net/

  9. For OS X by bhima · · Score: 1

    I like MPFreaker

    --
    Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
  10. What I do... by pjl5602 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This is something that I started a long, long, long time ago and it's worked well for me. I have a "Music" directory. In that directory, I have directories 0-9 and a-z. In these, I put the artist by last name. So, if it's Lenny Kravitz, there is a directory (also, I remove all characters that aren't a-z, 0-9, -, _ and replace them with _): /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny

    If the album is Circus I make a directory: /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus

    Then to know if it's the complete album or incomplete, I append a '(c)' (complete) or an '(i)' (incomplete) on the end of the album name. So we end up with: /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)

    Each track is the song name and playlists for XMMS , WinAMP and XBox Media Center are generated.

    When all is said and done, I've got:

    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/beyond_t he_7th_sky.ogg
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/can_t_ge t_you_off_my_mind.ogg
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/circus.o gg
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/don_t_go _and_put_a_bullet_in_your_head.ogg
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/god_is_l ove.ogg
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/in_my_li fe_today.ogg
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/magdalen e.ogg
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/playlist
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/playlist .m3u
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/playlist -xbox.m3u
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/resurrec tion__the.ogg
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/rock_and _roll_is_dead.ogg
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/thin_ice .ogg
    /content/music/k/kravitz__lenny/circus(c)/tunnel_v ision.ogg

    Compilations are put in /content/music/c/compilations. Soundtracks go in /content/music/s/soundtrack___theme (Soundtrack & Theme.)

    This has served me well for years and I can pretty much find anything in a matter of seconds and I can immediately tell if it's the complete album or not.

    1. Re:What I do... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What possible reason is there to replace apostrophes and spaces with _? Are you in the habit of playing your oggs on an ENIAC or something?

    2. Re:What I do... by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting
      No kidding. An excerpt from my music directory is:
      /usr/share/media/music/The Crystal Method - Vegas/The Crystal Method - Vegas - 01 - Trip Like I Do.ogg
      /usr/share/media/music/The Crystal Method - Vegas/The Crystal Method - Vegas - 02 - Busy Child.ogg
      /usr/share/media/music/The Crystal Method - Vegas/The Crystal Method - Vegas - 03 - Cherry Twist.ogg
      /usr/share/media/music/The Crystal Method - Vegas/The Crystal Method - Vegas - 04 - High Roller.ogg

      Graphical programs don't care about the spaces, and I haven't used a CLI that wouldn't tab-complete spaces by escaping them in years. Given that every tool I've used in this millenium can handle the above without any problems, I don't understand the drive to remove innocent (and helpful) whitespace from filenames.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    3. Re:What I do... by CableModemSniper · · Score: 1

      All these file hiearchies people show are clever, (I like the c/i distinction especially) but I feel like this problem would dissapear if you just makethe world simplest DB. Just stick every file in one directory, or keep your current hiarchechal setup, but then have a table with artist, album, etc. and the path to the file on the fs. With something like dnotify you could even automatically add to the databaase as files get downloaded or ripped.

      --
      Why not fork?
    4. Re:What I do... by register_ax · · Score: 1

      Ahh, you're using linux anyway. You can convert spaces to underlines and back easily enough.

      IFS=`echo -e "\012\015"`
      for i in `ls -1 *`
      do mv $i tmp.$i
      mv tmp.$i `echo $i | sed 's/_/ /g'`
      done

      If you want to do recursively through directories you can just use -R in the ls command.

      And there's probably a way around it, but I haven't been able to use scp with spaces. Say on my server I have /usr/local/apache/www/The Crystal Method - Vegas/ and I do:

      me@comp musicdir $ scp root@server:~/music/The Crystal Method - Vegas/* ./
      root@10.2.18.5's password:
      scp: /root/music/The: No such file or directory
      cp: cannot stat `Crystal': No such file or directory
      cp: cannot stat `Method': No such file or directory
      cp: cannot stat `-': No such file or directory
      cp: cannot stat `Vegas/*': No such file or directory

      So I just use the above script to use underlines, no big deal. I can change back in a heartbeat.

    5. Re:What I do... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, there already is! ID tags in the the files stores all the relevant information.

    6. Re:What I do... by Bullet-Dodger · · Score: 1
      Ah, good point. That wouldn't quite work for the original poster though, as he replaces all non alphanumerics with '_'. You'd end up with spaces instead of apostrophes, for instance.

      As for scp, it should work if you blackslash your spaces:
      scp root@server:~/music/The\ Crystal\ Method\ -\ Vegas/* ./

    7. Re:What I do... by pjl5602 · · Score: 1

      In my case, the file contains the meta infomation (ID3, Ogg tag) so I don't need the file to convey that information.

    8. Re:What I do... by pjl5602 · · Score: 1

      find . -type f | xargs chmod 644

      How does that work for you? :-)

    9. Re:What I do... by CableModemSniper · · Score: 1

      Yeah but you can't run (efficient) queries against your whole library of music with just id3 tags.

      --
      Why not fork?
    10. Re:What I do... by prefect42 · · Score: 1

      I believe scp root@server:'"~/music/The Crystal Method - Vegas/"'* ./

      does what you want

      --

      jh

    11. Re:What I do... by cortana · · Score: 1

      Why would he want to make his mp3s executable? :)

      But assuming he did, there are two ways of going about it:

      find -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

      or if you must use xargs:

      find -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 644

      better throw in a --max-arguments to the invocation of xargs however, you don't know how many mp3s this guy has!

    12. Re:What I do... by pjl5602 · · Score: 1

      Why would he want to make his mp3s executable? :)

      chmod 644 file

      makes them non-executable. :-)

      As for 'find ... -print 0 | xargs -0 ...'

      Cool. I never knew about that. Thanks!!!

    13. Re:What I do... by cortana · · Score: 1

      Crap, you are totally right. How embarrassing! :)

    14. Re:What I do... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you so much! I swear I spent a day looking and trying everything that would come to mind. Although, ~ does not work with this hack.

  11. iTunes by nathanmace · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    For Windows and OS X, just use iTunes. How does something like this merit an "Ask Slashdot"?

    --
    I'm very responsible, when ever something goes wrong they always say I'm responsible.
  12. Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A question that Slashdotters are actually qualified to answer and informed about.

    Sadly, with the ridiculous number of MP3 programs on Freshmeat, there will no doubt be hundreds of different recommendations so, the requestor will be no better off than before asking Slashdot.

    1. Re:Finally by Albigg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree, but hopefully the cream (of the crop) rises. Apps like http://www.id3-tagit.de/ are good ones to consider. The main thing is just figuring out what your requirements are. There are dozens that typically fit the bill once you figure out what you need done.

  13. Folders and filenames by marcus · · Score: 1

    Pretty much the same here.

    All appropriately named folders and filenames.

    I guess it reflects the way I listen to music. Rarely do I pick individual songs out of an "album", make a playlist, etc. Usually, I grab a whole CD and copy it to my iaudio u2 or drag it onto the player. I don't listen to "dance music", "easy listening", fast, slow, or whatever genre designations you can come up with. I listen to volumes of work as published by artists.

    Kinda like reading a novel I guess. I don't pick out chapters and passages, I read the whole thing front to back.

    --
    Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
    - W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
  14. er... by samjam · · Score: 2, Informative

    so what you are saying is that you have never had to ask the question!

    I have, and after a lot of searching I settled on Amarok (KDE project).

    Sorry GNOME folks, but your music player sucks. Its a bit like Amarok but it doesn't even work on RH FC3.

    Amarok beats windows media player for usability and functionality in everything EXCEPT it won't read TAGS from WMA files, and it only plays audio. Yes I miss playing video but its search facility is so good, I don't care.

    Just point Amarok at your music wherever you put it, and enjoy!

    Sam

    --
    blog.sam.liddicott.com
  15. Single spot by CyberZCat · · Score: 1

    I organize all of my files by putting them into directories organized by type: music/ mp3/ mid/ wav/ ogg/ etc... Files themselves are titled as "[Artist Name] - [Song Name]" I've found that titling them this works well since all of a particular artists songs are all grouped together. Or, if you have a huge collection (>500) you could put them in subdirectories titled after the author: "[Artist Name]/[Song Name]". If you use a cd ripping program such as CDex goto Options -> Settings click the Filenames tab and type "%1 - %4" to have it automatically extract to this format for you. Alternatively you can use "%1\%4" to seperate them into seperate directories by artist name.

  16. Phone the RIAA.... by Fbelch · · Score: 0

    ... I'm pretty sure they'll help you organize your collection. You may end up with a nasty legal letter at the end!

  17. Cantus? by Mad_Rain · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is a tool called Cantus that can be used for mp3 organizing. And of course, once you get them organized, you can set them up to be streamed over the web with Jinzora.

    --
    "What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
  18. MusicBrainz for acquiring and checking metadata by oldbox · · Score: 4, Informative

    Use MusicBrainz!

    I have just started to use the MusicBrainz Tagger to organize my mess of mp3 files. It does all of the normal re-tagging functions, but it will also make an AcousticFingerprint of the music file, and check your it with their database. This solves the problem of tags that are incorrect or missing altogether. It is a little slow, but otherwise a good program. It is available as Windows, MacOS X, and Python. Works with mp3 and Ogg. It's free & GPL'd.

    tagbox
    1. Re:MusicBrainz for acquiring and checking metadata by Elektrance · · Score: 1

      I'd like to throw my support in for Musicbrainz as well. Even if you use another program to play/organize your music, it is well worth running through your collection with Musicbrainz. The best part is, the more people who use it, the easier it becomes to tag your music, as the TRM information is already in the database.

      Don't make the mistake I did, and put your entire collection through at once, turns into a very big task. It is much easier to do a few albums/artists at a time.

      As well, it can adapt to pretty much any file structure you want. There are numerous posts in this thread about various folder structures to keep your music in. The only method I have read that Musicbrainz can't deal with is incomplete/complete albums. Other than that, outputting into first letter, year, artist, album, genre etc is all handled.

      (Not related to Musicbrainz, just a big fan)

    2. Re:MusicBrainz for acquiring and checking metadata by LuserOnFire · · Score: 1

      I have to agree 110%!

      And one of the reasons for this is due to the fact that the data is constantly be reviewed by our peers. That way, things get corrected and (ideally) gets better and better as more people use it.

  19. Winamp by pruneau · · Score: 1

    Well, the last free version as a feature called "Media Library" that has satisfying search/edit functions.

    --
    [Pruneau /\o^O/\ warranty void if this .sig is removed]
  20. My gripe by numbski · · Score: 2, Informative

    I can't allow iTunes to manage the music for me. It won't allow me to control how it names files. It insists on reading the song title from the id3 tags, and then creating this structure:

    Artist Name/Album Name/Song Name.mpg

    That seems fine, but for me, I want it to come out this way (which has been the standard since, oh Napster):

    Artist Name/Album Name/Artist Name - Song Name.mp3

    That way if I'm using something OTHER than iTunes or my iPod, maybe something that only reads filenames, I'll know what the song is. You wouldn't believe how many songs have similar or identical names, and if you don't prepend the artist's name, it gets very messed up.

    That said, I use MP3 Rage to manage my mp3's. Very nice tool.

    --

    Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    1. Re:My gripe by he1icine · · Score: 1

      If you have a very large collection, iTunes management is a nightmare. You can end up with a music folder with hundreds and hundreds of folder, to the point where it is a headache to deal with. If you never look at your music folder - then it's fine I guess. I prefer this structure:

      1st Letter of Artist Name/Artist Name/Artist Name - Album Name/Track Number - Track Name

      So of course I have to manage my library by hand.

      I also don't like throwing partial albums together into a folder with the album name. That just feel s misleading.

      --
      Ignorance is the Agent of Fear; Fear Is the Agent of Violence - >1
    2. Re:My gripe by b-baggins · · Score: 0

      It won't allow me to control how it names files.

      Why do you care about the file name? You're doing all your organizing through the iTunes database. Your complaint is like someone who complains because Windows won't let him control his registry key names.

      --
      You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
    3. Re:My gripe by node+3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you have a very large collection, iTunes management is a nightmare.

      then (about not using iTunes):

      So of course I have to manage my library by hand.

      I can't imagine how using iTunes can be a nightmare, but doing it by hand isn't.

      You can end up with a music folder with hundreds and hundreds of folder, to the point where it is a headache to deal with. If you never look at your music folder - then it's fine I guess.

      That's the whole point. iTunes essentially *is* your filesystem. Your standard tree-based filesystem is really poor for managing songs (quick, find that one Beatles song, oh, which album is it on again?).

      With iTunes, you can still access your songs directly via the Finder/Windows Explorer (but any changes should be done through iTunes itself). You can even drag a song from iTunes and drop it (this will copy the file) somewhere if you want to do use it outside of iTunes.

      I prefer this structure:

      1st Letter of Artist Name/Artist Name/Artist Name - Album Name/Track Number - Track Name

      That's the trade-off, isn't it? Easier song library management vs. fine-control over the filesystem structure. When iTunes first came out, I wasn't too keen on the idea of not being in direct control of the mp3 files and their folder structure, but *quickly* came to stop worrying and love the bomb.

      Now, the idea of managing, by hand, thousands of songs... <shudder!>.

    4. Re:My gripe by tommertron · · Score: 1, Insightful
      My other problem with iTunes is that it keeps the original file in its same location when you drag it into the libarary, so you've got to really keep track of what you've added when you're adding files from... ahem... legal, creative commons downloading services that you've downloaded. Otherwise you'll have duplicate files all over the place and clog up your hard drive.

      Oh, and try dragging your library in a second time. That was a fun hour of manually selecting all the duplicate songs and deleting them.

      --
      Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
    5. Re:My gripe by elmegil · · Score: 1
      That way if I'm using something OTHER than iTunes or my iPod, maybe something that only reads filenames, I'll know what the song is.

      Or can't you read?

      --
      7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
    6. Re:My gripe by Elektrance · · Score: 4, Informative

      My friend did this a few times on a very large iTunes collection, and decided to write a perl script to fix it... I'll shamelessly promote it on here, cause well, its not my script. It's called iTunes Dupeblaster Source is available as well, so you can modify to suit your needs.

    7. Re:My gripe by tommertron · · Score: 1
      Damn, I wish I could use my mod points here, cause that is super informative! Thanks!

      Now if only I could actually code...

      --
      Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
    8. Re:My gripe by lone+bear · · Score: 1

      um..in itunes you can move files to the library instead of copy. and the find duplicates is useful.

    9. Re:My gripe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "That way if I'm using something OTHER than iTunes or my iPod, maybe something that only reads filenames, I'll know what the song is."

      I'm sure there is some program out there that would be useful to run in addition to iTunes. I have no idea what program that would be though. I imagine such a program would have capabilities that iTunes does not have. My problem with your comment is I'm having trouble reconciling the idea of a program more advanced than iTunes that cannot read the ID3 tags and can only read filenames.

      Wouldn't it make more sense for iTunes to add whatever features you find compelling from the other program so you don't need to have to use multiple programs for dealing with your songs, rather than add more options for renaming files that only a few people would find useful?

    10. Re:My gripe by cei · · Score: 1

      How is that a nightmare? My iTunes library is only managing 16,000+ tracks, (small, compared to some collections, I know) and it's automatically keeping them in 1047 artist folders under "iTunes Music" (each of those containing album folders as well).

      It's a breeze. Any track I want to find, I type a couple of characters in the search field in iTunes to narrow it down to the track I want, click the song in question, type cmd-R and the file is instantly revealed. I never have to drill down through those folders to get to the data by hand.

      Haven't upgraded to Tiger yet, but if Spotlight groks ID3 tags, I understand that the Spotlight search capability will be available in Open and Save dialogs so that even using programs other than iTunes (say, I wanted to send a track to a buddy via iChat), I could find it just as easily.

      --
      This sig intentionally left justified.
    11. Re:My gripe by ahrenritter · · Score: 1

      I needed that first letter thing for my DensionMP3 a while back so I wrote a java program (it's what I had at hand) that created NTFS reparse points from my normal collection
      Artist/Album/Track Number - Track Name
      to
      !ABC/1st Letter of Artist/Artist
      Worked well for me because I could rip to the more normal structure then just run the program to get my ABC folder updated.

      --

      All I wanted was a rock to wind a piece of string around, and I ended up with the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota
    12. Re:My gripe by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 1

      It's also annoying when you're sharing compilation albums. Instead of having all track tracks together in /music/Cool Movie Soundtrack

      you have them all scattered about in /music/Foo/Cool Movie Soundtrack /music/Bar/Cool Movie Soundtrack /music/Xyzzy/Cool Movie Soundtrack

      etc...

      Very annoying.

    13. Re:My gripe by revxul · · Score: 1

      I've always done it by hand as well, but I use this structure:
      artist/[album]_00_song_title.mp3
      and consequently
      artist/album_name.m3u

      --
      Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!
    14. Re:My gripe by b-baggins · · Score: 0

      Apparently not since I missed that part. Thank you for being so polite in pointing it out.

      --
      You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
    15. Re:My gripe by elmegil · · Score: 1

      Given your own level of politeness, I think we're about on par.

      --
      7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
    16. Re:My gripe by cei · · Score: 1

      Except when you click that button that labels a track part of a compilation in which case all of the related tracks end up in /music/Compilations/Cool Movie Soundtrack/

      Seems like a reasonable compromise to me.

      --
      This sig intentionally left justified.
    17. Re:My gripe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm guessing that people out there with complaints like this are the ones who've never hit ctrl-I (or cmd-I) on a track (or multiple tracks) in iTunes. They've never even seen the real tagging screen. They think the only way to change a files' tag is by pressing F2 and retyping the name. Just a hunch...

    18. Re:My gripe by jpkunst · · Score: 1

      The combination of:

      1. Preferences -> Advanced -> Keep iTunes music folder organized
      2. Preferences -> General -> Group compilations when browsing
      3. and setting the 'Part of a compilation' option to 'Yes' on the tracks of the compilation album

      does exactly what you want. At least on my system (iTunes 4.7.1) it does.

      JP

    19. Re:My gripe by delus10n0 · · Score: 1

      That way if I'm using something OTHER than iTunes or my iPod, maybe something that only reads filenames, I'll know what the song is.

      Something that only reads filenames? Welcome to 2005, where 99% of the players out there support ID3 v1 or v2!

      I don't seem a point to even putting your files in a Artist\Album\ folder structure if you're just going to duplicate the Artist information in the filename. The only time I put the artist name in the filename is when it's a compilation/various artist album.

      --
      Not All Who Wander Are Lost
    20. Re:My gripe by delus10n0 · · Score: 1

      Shouldn't do that if they're properly tagged; iTunes defaults to a structure like this for Compilations:

      \Compilations\Album Name\Artist - Title

      --
      Not All Who Wander Are Lost
    21. Re:My gripe by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 1

      Ah, neat. I've never actually used iTunes, I just sometimes download from people who do :)

    22. Re:My gripe by NeMon'ess · · Score: 1

      Did you properly tag all the hundred of megabytes of music you downloaded from Napster? Or did you dump them in folders like mpe3\Rock\Metallica ?

    23. Re:My gripe by C0vardeAn0nim0 · · Score: 1

      That's the whole point. iTunes essentially *is* your filesystem. Your standard tree-based filesystem is really poor for managing songs (quick, find that one Beatles song, oh, which album is it on again?).

      on his directory structure all he need is

      #find <mp3 directory> -iname "*beatles*"

      and find will give him the list of beatles songs whith the directory structure prepended (which contains the album name).

      in windows he can use , and to have the benefif of the windows indexing service for a fast search, follow this arcticle

      a computer program with fixed rules will never be as smart or clever as a human nor will it fit all persons. i tried myself using a "jukebox" to manage my songs, but im back to a well organized sub-directory structure/manual, descriptive file naming/carefully created playlists. works much better tha any program i tried.

      --
      What ? Me, worry ?
    24. Re:My gripe by Bobsledboy · · Score: 1

      Actually, I do tag all my music before adding it to my library. With http://www.musicbrainz.org/

    25. Re:My gripe by Skynyrd · · Score: 1

      Why do you care about the file name? You're doing all your organizing through the iTunes database.

      I have an old (there were only two on the market) CD MP3 player in my truck, and it plays by alphabetical order. I must have the tracks ordered by track number if I want to play an album in order:

      ## - Title - Artist.mp3

      iTunes won't let me do that, so I have to organize by hand. If my music was 100% iPod, it would work just fine.

  21. Organizing MP3s and Other File Collections? by Bozzio · · Score: 4, Funny

    Organizing MP3s and Other File Collections?

    Don't be coy Roy. Just admit you have a pr0n collection.

    --
    I just pooped your party.
    1. Re:Organizing MP3s and Other File Collections? by sharkey · · Score: 3, Funny
      Just admit you have a pr0n collection.

      And the best way to organise it is to post it on the web, and let us investigate the best solution for you.

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
    2. Re:Organizing MP3s and Other File Collections? by pla · · Score: 1

      Don't be coy Roy. Just admit you have a pr0n collection.

      Actually, on that topic, I would have to say that organizing one's... "image" collection takes quite a lot more thought than music.

      With music, a dozen posters have already suggested trivial variants of what most of us already do - "music_root/artist_name/ album_name/song_title", possibly throwing a release year in there somewhere, possibly an a-to-z layout above the artists' names, and with a few ways to deal with hard-to-describe material such as soundtracks, collaborations, and the like (incidentally, symbolic links work wonderfully for soundtracks and collaborations, but make it a tad harder to easily back-up one's collection).


      But with images, how do other Slashdotters organize them? By... um... "model" name? By photographer? By release date? By set name? And speaking of sets, how do you know when you have a complete set? And the order within the set - Most online sources of images rename them to something more-or-less meaningless, so how do people figure out order (beyond the obvious sequential information, such as... uh... "events" in the pictures that have distinct temporal dependancies on other pictures?


      Music doesn't take much effort to categorize. How do people deal with material that doesn't neatly fit into a simply directory structure?

  22. yeah okay, but instead of an app ... by edgarde · · Score: 1
    Looks okay, GUI-wise. Features I would like:
    • Linux port, KDE-friendly
    • Data saved in portable format, preferably something XML
    However, the way the question was asked (or phrased by Cliff) suggests not so much an application as a system.

    It should be possible to cobble something from a script and some metadata reading utilities. Start with mp3info (or whatever) & vorbiscomment (or whatever), and gradually add functionality for metadata in other documents.

    Ideally the collected data should lend itself toward data queries and use (perhaps directly but more likely thru some derived output) by other applications (for example, generating MP3 playlists).

    This would be a lot more "open" than any freeware app, and potentially more powerful. Eventually this system might duplicate the functionality of (OSX) Spotlight (which I've never used and may be misunderstanding) or something.

    Someone has probably done this already -- the initial post suggests they were doing something like that and hit a wall somewhere. Maybe someone else has taken it further. Or thinks this would be a fun project.

  23. My favorite by Klowner · · Score: 1

    An old machine with a beefy harddrive, running apache and zina
    Works nicely, and you can listen to whatever songs you want, on any machine in the house.

  24. Audio tag tool by mc_barron · · Score: 1

    I'm a big fan of the Audio Tag Tool for linux: http://pwp.netcabo.pt/paol/tagtool/ Simple, intuitive, powerful.

  25. Re:Spare Linux PC with large drive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The topic was on organizing mp3 collections; not about what a cool system you have.

    My server is bigger than your server...
    nah-nah!

  26. database (vb.) your colelction by majid_aldo · · Score: 1

    combine file folders and tags. supposedly, the next gen file system for windows will do this.

    --
    --- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme, ..etc.
  27. Amarok by edgarde · · Score: 1
    Haven't used this app, but cool feature: it can be compiled with MySQL support.

    These links aren't hard to find, but here they are for lazy clickers:

    http://amarok.kde.org/
    http://amarok.kde.org/wiki

    1. Re:Amarok by mosabua · · Score: 1

      Thats what I use all the time. It's great. Allows you to fix up tags and has all sort of goodies like favourite songs and so on. Works well for me.

  28. best pratices by ClioCJS · · Score: 1
    c:\mp3\bandname\albumname\01_track.mp3

    I like to make my album names like:
    "1 - 1987 - Kill 'Em All"
    "2 - 1989 - Ride The Lightning"
    "3 - 1991 - Master Of Puppets"

    Also, I think trusting such a thing to any program is asking for trouble. Manual is the best way.
    Playlist-generation is an entirely different issue. How do you deal with files you want to keep, but don't want to hear on a regular basis? Is there a way to adjust the music so that certain bands you don't want to play wont play when friends are over? (Because how many normals want to hear an anime theme song? Or King Diamond?)

    Tagging: I use Tag-and-Rename. It lets you specify how to tag based on the filename. Like: %4\%3\%0_%2 would be "artist\album\tracknumber_title". And then auto-tags.
    Also, MusicBrainz can tag based on acoustic fingerprint, but is not too good with unpopular songs.
    Please, all people should tag both id3v2 AND id3v1. Both are important in different situations.
    Encoding: Use LAME.exe, VBR, highest setting!
    Playing: Winamp.
    Best visualizer: MilkDrop.
    Best companion program: EvilLyrics (http://www.evillabs.sk/) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    EvilLyrics autodownloads the lyrics of whatever you are listening to and permanently stores them in a cache! When and if you hand-edit the lyrics, you can save them and they will be set to read-only.
    You can listen to the song, and hilight the lyrics as you listen to it, and a timing-file (karaoke file) is saved, so that the lyrics are hilighted. It is uploaded to a central server. You can download all 27000 karaoke files via bittorrent.

    Best of all: These timed lyrics are sent to milkdrop, which displays them as you listen. Best listening experience ever!

    --
    -Clio
    Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
    Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
    1. Re:best pratices by angle_slam · · Score: 1
      I like to make my album names like: "1 - 1987 - Kill 'Em All" "2 - 1989 - Ride The Lightning" "3 - 1991 - Master Of Puppets"

      Why not put the actual year the album is released?

      1983 - Kill 'Em All

      1984 - Ride the Lightning

      1986 - Master of Puppets.

    2. Re:best pratices by ClioCJS · · Score: 1
      1. Because I was at work, I did not have my mp3 collection with me.

      2. It's totally and completely irrelevant to the concept of organization.
      3. Only a fucking geek would point that out. I know I'm replying to a troll here, but in truth, I was the original troll, because I knew somebody would respond... Loser
      --
      -Clio
      Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
      Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
    3. Re:best pratices by enjoys-pigeons · · Score: 1

      Well, I admit angle_slam was being a prick,but I don't really see the point of adding even more numbers to show when an album came out. The year already does this and keeps in order quite nicley. Can you name an album that came out in 1976 that came out after an album that came out in 1978?

      What if your missing an album you don't know about when ordering your albums? If it comes to your attention, then you'd have to give it the number previously assigned to another album and consequently change the number of every album coming out after it. Only time you have a problem with only the year is when two albums from the same band come out within the same year. This can be solved by adding a letter (1987a, 1987b) or if you're lucky, the first letter of the album will keep them organized.

      I keep my music in a structured tree like so:
      Music/Artist/year-Album/Track Number - Track Name

      I also don't see any need to reduntly repeat over and over again the artist and album. It is already in the file structure and in the idv tags. The only time I ever deviate from the above method is when it comes to compilations and soundtracks for which I use this structure:

      Music/Various Artists(this stays unchanged)/Album/Track Number - Artist - Track Name

      This is very rare for me in particular because I usually just downlo..er.. buy the albums that have the songs in question.

      I use WinAmp and use primarily the same structure in my Library. I only create playlists for albums that are not complete(very few, although I don't mind adopting the i/c method mentioned earlier) and a few mixes.

      A few other programs I hadn't heard of were mentioned in this thread so I'll be checking those out tonight. All tho I haven't seen any radically innovative ideas, this thread is turning about better than expected.

      --
      Hello slashdot, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again...
    4. Re:best pratices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      clintslashdot@acm.vt.edu wrote:

      -Clint

      Yeah, but if you squint, the l and the i sort of look like another, single character...

    5. Re:best pratices by ClioCJS · · Score: 1
      The numbers tell you more than just the year.
      Bandname\1975 - AlbumName\
      Tell me, based on that structure, if this album is during Bandname's early career when they were good, or if this album is during Bandname's later career, after they sold out and went all poppy. I don't know. But change it to "1 - 1975 - AlbumName" and now we know: This was their debut album. (And yes, I end up renumbering these sometimes.) I usually use whatever is listed on AllMusic, but I don't always count compilations and singles as a separate number. For instance, my Ween directory looks like (notice 2 album #3s, one is a single . . . I cheated):

      8/18/2002 4:12p <DIR> .
      8/18/2002 4:12p <DIR> ..
      8/18/2002 4:13p <DIR> 0 - Craters Of The Sac
      8/18/2002 4:13p <DIR> 1 - God, Ween, Satan
      8/18/2002 4:13p <DIR> 2 - The Pod
      8/18/2002 4:13p <DIR> 3 - Pure Guava
      1/22/2003 9:51a <DIR> 3 - Push Th' Little Daisies (single)
      8/18/2002 4:13p <DIR> 4 - Chocolate And Cheese
      8/18/2002 4:12p <DIR> 5 - 12 Golden Country Hits
      8/18/2002 4:13p <DIR> 6 - The Mollusk
      8/18/2002 4:13p <DIR> 7 - White Pepper
      3/06/2004 6:37p <DIR> 8 - Quebec
      1/22/2002 7:04p <DIR> LIVE
      1/24/2002 1:12a <DIR> MISC STUDIO
      1/22/2003 1:58a <DIR> MISC-IMAGES
      1/22/2003 1:58a <DIR> MISC-VIDEO
      3/28/2003 5:52p <DIR> NON-MUSIC
      1/22/2003 2:40a <DIR> side-project - Moistboyz
      8/18/2002 4:13p <DIR> side-project - Z-Rock Hawaii
      3/31/2003 6:56p <DIR> TRIBUTES

      What if your missing an album you don't know about when ordering your albums? If it comes to your attention, then you'd have to give it the number previously assigned to another album and consequently change the number of every album coming out after it.

      That is certainly true, but what happens more than that is that, in the process of renumbering the folders to indicate the order, I *FIND OUT* about albums I don't have. And later, when looking at the folder again, I might see "1, 2, 3, 5", and know: "Hey, I need the 4th album still!"; otherwise I would have to rely on my non-photographic memory and that would be bad with how much media I have (um... 1690G LAN space, 3000-6000 cds worth of data offline, 6000 hrs of VHS too).

      >The year already does this and keeps in order quite nicley.

      Usually, yes. But it gives no information about missing albums or where in the career the artist is.

      >Can you name an album that came out in 1976 that came out after an album that came out in 1978?

      Compilation albums often cover a range of years, and if the range was first in the list (instead of the release number, my way), then a comp album of "1980-2000" would be listed before an album that came out in 1981. But in reality, the compilation album came out in 2001. I'm nit-picking, yes.

      I also don't see any need to reduntly repeat over and over again the artist and album. It is already in the file structure and in the idv tags.

      Hopefully in both the id3v1 and id3v2 tags, but that's another story. So with your system, one can't just look at a file and know who the artist is? If I was, say, browsing your files, I would have to actually open them with a specific piece of software just to find out the band?!?! That seems utterly ridiculous! That simply cuts off different forms of usefulness, like grepping a band name out of a playlist generated with a simple "dir /b" (think: ls -1) command. Files should scream out what they are. They shouldn't have to be inspected. That's overhead.

      Sorry about the formatting of my post. I'm lazy and prefer real-HTML. Slashcode doesn't properly handle UL OL LI either!

      Oh, and for additional info: I use a playlist generato

      --
      -Clio
      Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
      Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
  29. Explore by Goo.cc · · Score: 1

    Cliff,

    You do not state what operating system you are using, so it is not easy to answer this question. However, speaking generally, there seems to be about a million ways to organize audio files.

    I had the easiest time managing MP3s when I was running BeOS. There was a tool call MP3 Army Knife, IIRC, that made it very easy to copy ID3 tags back and forth to BeFS file system attributes. (Using BeFS queries to create playlists was the bomb!)

    When I switched to NetBSD, I kept all my audio files in a single directory and used links to organize things into albums.

    After NetBSD, I moved to Mac OS X and depend on iTunes for management of my audio files.

    If I was a Windows user, I would give Foobar2000 a look.

  30. Re:Spare Linux PC with large drive? by krunchyfrog · · Score: 0

    I did the same thing, but instead of using a hifi, I used my TV via the S-video outlet of my video card. Works pretty well.

    --
    printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
    -- myself
  31. as a related question -- SQL v. LDAP v. whatever by Shaleh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ideas on some form of database / directory / foo? Clearly SQL is a well trodden path, but is it the "best" choice?

  32. MusicBrainz Tagger by Bammel · · Score: 5, Interesting
    An amazing program that allows you to not only modify the ID3 tags of your mp3s, and rename them accordingly, but does so automatically, by creating an acoustic fingerprint (TRM) of the song, and comparing that to other TRM's from its online database. The more people use it, the better it gets, as there are more TRM's to compare your own against.

    From the description on its homepage:

    The MusicBrainz Tagger application allows you to automatically look up the tracks in your music collection and then write clean metadata tags (ID3 tags or Vorbis comment fields) to your files. As you tag the files in your collection that MusicBrainz didn't recognize, you submit the acoustic fingerprints (TRM ids) of your files back to the server. Submitting acoustic fingerprints will allow MusicBrainz to automatically identify these tracks in the future, so that other people using the Tagger can benefit from the work you have done.

    Don't let that discourage you, though. The program is fully usable right now.
    From the Statistics page:
    Artists 155884
    Albums 261790
    Disc IDs 124538
    Tracks 3211514

    It's a gem.

    For now there's only a Windows version out, but the program is GPL'd, and the source code is available to everyone.

    Download it here:
    http://www.musicbrainz.org/tagger/download.html

    1. Re:MusicBrainz Tagger by gothzilla · · Score: 1

      I tried it and it didn't work for crap. It found about 1 out of every 30 songs.
      The last thing in the world I'm going to do is register to use a product then use that to upload fingerprints of all my mp3's to some company that knows exactly where they came from. I can't wait till the RIAA figures out how to get their hands on that database. Though it can't be used directly, it can show them who has tons of files so they can watch their IP's.

    2. Re:MusicBrainz Tagger by Rob+Parkhill · · Score: 1

      A similar program that actually works is MoodLogic.

      Best $40 I've spent on software in a long time.

      My technique is to let MoodLogic tear through a pile of MP3s and rename them/tweak the ID3 tags. I then let iTunes arrange them into folders.

      As a bonus, you can pick a song you like and tell MoodLogic to create a mix of similar songs from your collection. I think that is what the program was originally intended for, but I use it more for renaming files and ID3 info.

      --
      "Tomorrow's forecast: a few sprinkles of genius with a chance of doom!" - Stewie Griffin
    3. Re:MusicBrainz Tagger by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 1
      Actually both JuK and amaroK can make use of this to automagically retag your mp3/ogg files. I discovered this just a few days ago when I tried out JuK on a whim.

      (Saw this comment while meta-moderating and had to reply...)

      --
      Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
  33. My pr0n example. by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 4, Informative
    I have 59,224 pornographic files (including 879 movies and clips), all organized by category (sex acts performed, races involved, clothing worn, kind of kink, etc.).

    Since I have several of those that span more than one category, I put everything on a Linux server and I put hard links to directories containing the various categories the pictures are into.

    So whenever I crave for a particular kind of kink, I have no problem locating the series of files I want to look at.

    1. Re:My pr0n example. by slaker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Porn is normally self-organizing. You have to work pretty hard to find random collections with no central theme.

      Several years ago, while I was learning Delphi, I wrote a simple program that basically lets me browse directories of pictures and videos and tag each directory with metadata (girl-girl, softcore, transexual midget porno etc) that gets saved in a text file with those pictures. With that metadata in place I've rearranged my collection several times. Whenever I'm particularly bored I can take some time to tag some more of my porn.

      --
      -- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
    2. Re:My pr0n example. by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      Jokes aside, KimDaBa is an excellent image database. You create your own tags to apply to each picture or selection, and then search on those tags. I don't know how it'd hold up to huge collections, but since it only stores metadata and not the images themselves, I imagine it'd do pretty well.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    3. Re:My pr0n example. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pervert

    4. Re:My pr0n example. by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 1
      Oh man, if only you'd posted two years ago, I could have likely hooked you up with the best porn organizing system ever developed. You haven't lived until you've built a categorizing system for hundreds of gigs of porn (hundreds of thousands of pics, tens of thousands of movies). 'Course having access to all that porn doesn't hurt either!

      At the time I was a partner in a company that envisioned creating the mother of all porn sites. We were dealing with such an amount of content that we had to devise our own way of managing it. The solution I came up with was PHP/MySQL based. There was a database that held ungodly amounts of metadata about every file, and a "sorting" script that allowed some hired grunts to sit around all day literally reviewing thumbnails and sorting each image/movie by quality, assigning categories, etc.

      A major HD death (of an unbacked-up HD*...) killed the project, and I've only got some snippets of the code left, and no database schema. As an example, though, here is some of the metadata we collected on every file - this code is not from the final revision, so some fields are missing...

      For JPGs:

      $result = mysql_query("INSERT INTO content SET name='$_POST[name]', owner=$_POST[content_provider], type='$_POST[type]', size=" . filesize("$_POST[origdir]/$filename") . ", height=$height, width=$width, md5sum='$md5sum', $cats, rawfile='$newpath/$filename', preview1='$preview1', preview2='$preview2', rate_internal=$_POST[quality], description='$_POST[description]', added=" . time(), $db);

      For movies:

      $result = mysql_query("INSERT INTO content SET moviethumb='$newpath/thumb.jpg', name='$_REQUEST[name]', owner=$_REQUEST[content_provider], type='$_REQUEST[type]', movietype='$_REQUEST[movietype]', moviesize_1=$filesize_1, moviesize_2=$filesize_2, moviesize_3=$filesize_3, movieheight_1=$height_1, movieheight_2=$height_2, movieheight_3=$height_3, moviewidth_1=$width_1, moviewidth_2=$width_2, moviewidth_3=$width_3, moviemd5_1='$md5sum_1', moviemd5_2='$md5sum_2', moviemd5_3='$md5sum_3', $cats, movierawfile_1='$newpath/speed1.wmv', movierawfile_2='$newpath/speed2.wmv', movierawfile_3='$newpath/speed3.wmv', preview1='$newpath/thumb.jpg', preview2='$newpath/thumb2.jpg', rate_internal=$_REQUEST[quality], description='$_REQUEST[description]', movieseconds_1='$movieseconds_1', movieseconds_2='$movieseconds_2', movieseconds_3='$movieseconds_3', added=" . time(), $db);

      In both cases, "cats" was a string built earlier in the sorting process, like "cat1=5, cat2=17, cat3=40" ... Each catN corresponded to an entry in the "categories" table. So you could assign one pic/vid to categories "Asian," "Foot Fetish," "Brunette," whatever fit.

      The movie sorter was really one of my better works ever - and it took forever to build. Unreviewed vids went into an "unsorted" dir. The person reviewing content would choose a vid to review. The script used mplayer to rip a few stills from the vid in realtime, the person sorting could choose a couple of stills to act as thumbnails. Once they assigned categories, description, quality, etc. the script would cut 3 different resolution versions (low, med, hi) of the vid, god I wish I still had all the code :/

      One thing of vast importance to anyone building any sort of file tracking system - be it for porn, mp3s, whatever - is hashing. We used md5. Content providers would upload or send CD's full of zips or rars, and often times, the same set of pics would show up in multiple places. Being able to compare file hashes was essential in preventing duplicate content from going into the database. I guess for MP3s this would be a little harder, since you might have two copies of the same song ripped by different people...

      Maybe someday I'll try to rebuild the DB schema and rewrite the missing portions of the code - which unfortunately is most of it. But if anyone else wants to write a porn organizer, maybe you picked up some pointe

      --
      "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
  34. Re:as a related question -- SQL v. LDAP v. whateve by sporktoast · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Boy, there's the itch that I want scratched!

    Stop storing music as files in a disk directory. Craft up a database that keeps the music AND ALL the metadata (artist, title, album, track #, date, album genre, song genre, lyrics, album cover, liner notes, producer, guest artists, record label, drugs the band was on while recording, etc.). Work up file-system API's into the database to present the data as if it were actual files with appropriate filenames/ID tags. Plug in an API appropriate to your OS and configure whichever output filename format (Artist/Album/Artist-SongTitle.foo) you and your player software prefer.

    --
    In a related story, the IRS has recently ruled that the cost of Windows upgrades can NOT be deducted as a gambling loss.
  35. It's simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Put everything in one folder, and click View -> Arrange Icons -> By Name, or click View -> List and then click the Name column header to sort everything.

  36. Possibly redundant, but... by mopslik · · Score: 1

    ...there's always the poor man's organizer:

    1. (optional) Create genre directory
    2. Create Artist/album/year/etc. directories
    3. Rename MP3s according to track/title/etc.
    4. Copy files to appropriate folder
    5. (optional) Burn to CDs

    Most of the popular players out there should be able to autogenerate playlists starting at your base directory.

    I always like to listen to my music in the car, so 8-10 hours/disc at 160-192kbps is fine for me.

  37. Tag and Rename by Jjeff1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Tag and rename handles a bunch of different files, and has a pile of tools for editing tags.

    1. Re:Tag and Rename by angle_slam · · Score: 1

      I use Tag and Rename also. It's a great program for editing tags. However, the original question asks about organizing files, not editing tags.

  38. GnuMP3d by fiori · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you always have network access to a server, drop your music files on the server and point GnuMP3d at the directories. GnuMP3d has ACLs and password moderated accesss.

  39. delicious by pbaumgar · · Score: 1

    monster. Very nice software.

    http://www.delicious-monster.com/

  40. A related question. by Mandoric · · Score: 1

    Are there any player/tagger combinations that support multiple ID3 tags per file? Not as in "one ID3, one ID3v2" but as in "three ID3v2s, the second two of which are hidden in library/playlist except when corresponding to a search".

  41. Re:Spare Linux PC with large drive? by justforaday · · Score: 1

    I bet you get great sound out of that s-video cable...

    --
    I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
  42. Artist first? What about collaborative albums by superstick58 · · Score: 1

    I've got many albums in my collection that are by different artists. I'm wondering why so many people separate by Artist first in their sorting. iTunes sorted my music this way and now it is a mess. If I want to play just one album I have to either create a playlist for it or search under multiple artist folders to piece the album files together. I'm afraid my music collection is a big mess now :(

    1. Re:Artist first? What about collaborative albums by Chyeld · · Score: 1

      In iTunes, there is an option to store Compliations under a seperate folder by Album. i.e. Compliations/Godzilla - The Soundtrack/

      Turn that on and then use the built in tag editor for those songs and mark them as a compliation.

    2. Re:Artist first? What about collaborative albums by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can browse by genre, artist or album in iTunes. So when you want to listen to a compilation just browse by album first instead of artist first.

  43. Re:Spare Linux PC with large drive? by krunchyfrog · · Score: 0

    Yep.. And I get a fabulous image through those RCA audio cables. I just wanted to mean that my TV is my multimedia center and I get the audio and video on it. It's excellent for viewing those .torrents I got around ;)

    --
    printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
    -- myself
  44. I make ID3 == disk hierarchy by macemoneta · · Score: 1

    I arrange my files by directory structure to suit me, then use a simple script running the id3tag utility (part of the id3lib package on Linux) to update the ID3 tags to match my configuration. That way, whether the my mp3 player uses the physical hierarchy or the ID3 tags, the results are the same, and what I want them to be. If I rearrange the files, I just rerun the script. It's simple, but effective.

    --

    Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.

  45. Tagmaster by AnalogX by LuserOnFire · · Score: 1

    Tagmaster by AnalogX

    Great windows utility that will change MP3 ID tags and rename the files. Can be used on one file, or on all the files in a directory!

  46. Perl you say? Here is knowledge: by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 1

    You're almost there.
    What you need first is a PROCEDURE, then you can evaluate the pros and cons of previously mentioned software for your needs. Or if these steps are simple enough, you could write a perl script to fill in the gaps.

    1) Bring all the files together into one place (if you can).
    Resolve name collisions now, but don't worry too much about how.
    2) Evaluate the existing metadata (is it consistent across all your file formats? how consistent is it?). Come up with a mapping. (OGG Comments of Artist and Composer map to IDV3 artist, etc.)
    3) Decide on a common schema for your metadata.
    IE - I'm going to have Artist, Title, Album/Compilation, and Year for all my music. I'll have Title and Year for all my legally copied movies, etc.
    4) UPDATE ALL YOUR METADATA. This is the painful part for which a lot of the tagging tools will be helpful. STICK TO THE SCHEMA.
    5) Create a top level directory for each major media type (music, movies, pictures, text)
    I'm just going to focus on music...
    6) Create a directory for each artist. You may be able to automate this with metadata extraction tools and a perl script.
    7) Ensure you have no duplicates (The Cure vs Cure, The). If you do, you may need to FIX YOUR METADATA
    LOOP:
    8) Make a subdirectory of an artist and call it "All Tracks". Move all the files matching the artist into the subdirectory. Every reference to this artist from any
    9) For each album or compilation in which the tracks are featured, make a subdirectory under the artist (again, use a perl script and metadata extraction tools). Don't include any identifiable "Various/Sndtrk" compilations (usually the "track artist" and "artist" don't match in that case). Create seperate Compilation and Soundtracks directories at the artist level for this purpose.
    10) Create a compilation-level subdirectory called "Incomplete", and one called "Other". Move any compilation-level subdirectories for albums you know are not complete into the Incomplete subdirectory.
    11) For each compilation-level subdirectory for albums which you know are complete, make softlinks out of the directory into the "All Tracks" directory for that Artist. Use a scheme like TRACK# - ARTIST - TITLE.FMT. Note you don't have to rename any files in the "All Tracks" directory... you can keep those as is.
    12) Repeat step 11 for all the incomplete albums in the subdirectory
    13) Link any files not listed under a compilation in the Other directory
    14) REPEAT

    This should get you organized.

    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  47. Do it by hand by pilybaby · · Score: 1

    If you keep on top of it it's easy to do it all by hand (with the help of a few tools)

    I use ID3Tagit and convert all my songs to have proper tgs for Artist, Track number, Album, Title. I then use ID3 Tagit to rename all my files based on the ID3 info in the format

    track# - Artist - Album - Track Name

    then I put the resulting files in my Audio directory under the structure

    Audio -> Artist -> Album

    It's not that often that I have so many albums to get throguh in one go that it becomes tedious. Just let the tool do it for me and them move the files where I want them. Then just drag them onto my WA playlist where I want them. Save the PL and press play.

  48. MusicBrainz by mmkkbb · · Score: 1

    Grab a MusicBrainz tagger while you're at it.

    --
    -mkb
  49. on a related note, regarding Creative Nomad by fliptout · · Score: 1

    I have a Creative Nomad Zen Nx, and I simply cannot believe how horrible the software is. I'm curious what software other people with the same problem use. I don't think I will buy any creative products in the future, as everything they produce seems seriously under engineered.

    As for organization software for the Nomad, I have seen Notmad. Any good? Any firmware replacements out there? :P

    --
    A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
    1. Re:on a related note, regarding Creative Nomad by mobby_6kl · · Score: 1

      I have a Zen Xtra, and for me the combination of NOMAD Explorer and MediaSource does the job. Far from perfect, but just enough to move the files or play music through the computer speakers with all the EAX goodness.

      There is a plugin for winamp called "NomadZen Plugin" which allows you to browse, search, and play the music from the player in the same way you would with local content, although it seems to be somehow streaming the files to itself. Uploading/downloading also should work. It's available on SF I think.

      I tried Notmad, and it seemed like a very nice POS (piece of software), but the trial version was somehow crippled, and I had no way to pay for it.

      Anyway, I don't really have a problem with the crappy bundled software, as there isn't much organization to do: just drop the music there once and forget about it.

  50. I can't believe no one suggested JuK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    JuK, included with KDE, is an application designed more to manage your music than it is to play it.

    JuK includes a file renamer feature that will take your tagged music files (and you can edit the tags easily within the interface) and rename the music based on a pattern you pass to it.

  51. Jamdb by richieb · · Score: 1
    iTunes is pretty bad. It insists on keeping the files in one directory. My music files are spread across several computers.

    Instead I set up a server with Jamdb running. I drop my files on one of several disks, and every night a script runs to update the database of what I have.

    With a web UI I can search and play whatever I want. By opening some ports on my firewall, I get access to my music from the office too.

    --
    ...richie - It is a good day to code.
    1. Re:Jamdb by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, iTunes doesn't insist on keeping all files in one directory.

      Open up the preferences dialog, go to the advanced tab at the top, and uncheck the box that says "copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" Problem solved.

  52. Re:Spare Linux PC with large drive? by spacecowboy420 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Noone is impressed and you are completely offtopic. This the worse case of forum masturbation I have ever seen.

    WooHoo! someone installed webmin and read some howtos!! BFD. Jerk off in private next time.

    --
    ymmv
  53. BFS? by minuend · · Score: 1

    Why not just install BeOS?

    Can't even WinXP's File Explorer display mp3 tags in a nice sorted list? I know it handles wav/avi. I'm pretty sure I saw this same functionality in the Linux world.

    Just don't be so lazy, name your files right when you acquire them.

    Personally I use Windows File Explorer, Winamp 2.8, and directory layout. I don't create artist folders unless I have more than 2 songs by the artist. Album folders are only created for complete albums. Stuff I've just recently acquired goes in the "unsorted" folder. Track numbers have to always be two digits(01,02..) for Windows to sort it sanely(1 > 09, 4 > 19, heh).
    Folders go...
    "genre/artist/album/artist - track # - song.mp3"
    "genre/artist/artist - song.mp3"
    "genre/artist - song.mp3"
    "unsorted/artist - song.mp3"
    "playlists/station - genre"

    If Windows Explorer didn't have good keyboard integration I'd probably just use the latest Winamp.

  54. Two words: by borsi · · Score: 1

    amaroK. It needs the kde-base libraries, but I think it's the best media player program avaliable at Linux. It supports song databases (via MySQL, or SQLite), and IMHO it has got a very intuitive user interface.

    --
    For Aiur!!!
  55. Amarok + easytag by neves · · Score: 1
    In Linux I'm really liking Amarok for searching and playing and Easy tag to mass tagging. Newer versions of Amarok are really cool, they even download the CD covers from Amazon, fetch lyrics, and submit what your are hearing to audioscrobbler. I also use Grip with cdparanoia to scan tracks from CDs.

    My only problem is with accented chars in id3 tags. It looks like the id3 lib doesn't like the utf8 enconding, and they look corrupted in a lot of places. Does anyone know how to convert a bunch of id3 flags from utf8 to iso-8859-1?

    1. Re:Amarok + easytag by wan-fu · · Score: 1

      amaroK is definitely the way to go. I've been using it for the past few months and it's simply amazing. Think iTunes but better (a LOT better).

  56. one big directory by Cheeze · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just dump everything in one big directory and get google desktop or something

    --
    Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
  57. NetJuke by fuzzybunny · · Score: 1

    Have a look at NetJuke--Nice web-based app that does streaming and makes a good effort at organizing by artist, album name, category, etc.

    --
    Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
  58. MusicBrainz for acquiring and checking mixes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, but how well does it do with compilations (mixes)?

  59. What about sorting duplicate mp3s by lsco · · Score: 1

    Everybody seems to have covered the tagging issue but my first perusal of all the comments did not seem to find anything regarding the issue of duplicate songs.

    I have a considerable collection of mp3s in a few locations... I dream of bringing them all together and removing all the duplicates... BUT... I have yet to find a tool that will:

    a) Scan locations of stored MP3s, WMAs, OGGs and flag duplicates of songs
    b) Allow me to select which of the duplicate song versions I want to keep based on encoding bitrate, filetype and any other relevant criteria.

    Doing this manually would take a considerable amount of time. Does anyone know of a tool that may already deliver this functionality?

    cheers
    Elton

  60. ID3s by blue-rabbit · · Score: 1
    Tagscanner is great

    http://xdev.narod.ru/index_e.htm

  61. DiskLIb by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    http://www.lyrasoftware.com/disclib/

    Its for windows, but free. Have not tried it under wine.

    Works great when you have easily over a thousand CD's to deal with.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  62. This is not helpful at all. by mindaktiviti · · Score: 1

    "After trying to merge several sets of media files that I've had laying around across several PC's"

    The guy doesn't have a Mac. Why would you infer that he purchase an expensive computer (with the OS attached to it) just to manage his mp3 collection?

    1. Re:This is not helpful at all. by damsa · · Score: 1

      Mac Mini's are 500 bucks. Most expensive iPods are 450. People do spend 450 bucks to manage their music. Think of Mac Minis as gigantic iPods and they don't seem that expensive.

  63. Myself... by Shadikka · · Score: 2, Informative

    I use foobar2000+Masstagger for that. It does the job just great with my structure being: Artist\Album\## - Song.mp3 I recommend that one :o)

  64. JRiver Media Center by ny_p · · Score: 1

    Cant beleive no one mentioned this media manager. It's not free but not too expensive either. It blows away iTunes in terms of flexibility, usability and speed. It's forte is audio, but can also manage photos, videos and documents.

  65. MP3 bitrate changing program? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone have any suggestions for programs that can change the bitrates for a massive amount of files and preserve the directory structure? I have tried a couple and both have crashed at some random point. One was called 4musics I think.

  66. MediaMonkey -- great free organizer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stupid name, great product. It supports MP3, OGG, FLAC, APE; organizes tracks (renames/moves); tags all supported formats; imports metadata and Album art from Amazon; and allows for custom scripts.
    http://www.mediamonkey.com/

  67. MP3 Book Helper by All_Star25 · · Score: 1

    Mass tagging, mp3/ogg/flac/speex support, regular expression support, freedb support, directory structuring by album/band/many other things, and more.
    Free and open source.
    http://mp3bookhelper.sourceforge.net/

  68. (OT?) Nice interface for remote playing? by David+E.+Smith · · Score: 1

    Since most of the comments have diverged a bit from the original question, I might as well diverge a bit more...

    Most of my music is stored on a headless Linux box, with SSH and Samba running. That PC has a decent sound card, and cheap-but-serviceable speakers. Normally, if I want to have some music playing, but keep the desktop's CPU free (I've been doing a lot of radio and topographical-related work of late, which chews up CPU), I have to SSH into the other system, decide what to listen to, and run mpg123 (or insert your favorite command-line music player here).

    It works, but I'd like a bit better option. A nifty Web-based (or something) interface to the /home/me/music/* file tree, where I can easily navigate through stuff, edit the current playlist on the fly, pause/stop/skip tracks, and so on, would be ideal.

    xmms-shell would have all the requisite functionality, I think, but it requires XMMS, which requires GTK+, which requires Xwindows, which requires a bloody lot of tinkering to set up, and since the system is headless, I can't even easily double-check my work.

    I've seen a LOT of different interfaces for setting up a streaming-music server, but that's not quite what I'm looking for. I want something like that, but where the music plays locally.

    Any suggestions?

    1. Re:(OT?) Nice interface for remote playing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd try looking for a curses frontend for starters. Wouldn't solve the have-to-ssh-in problem but it would be a good deal more usable.

  69. Ampache by vollmerk · · Score: 1

    Ampache (www.ampache.org) is another web jukebox like Netjuke, Jinzora Edna and the many others that exist out there. Since I'm the lead dev of Ampache I'll shamelessly plug it :-) Supported Audio File Formats: * MP3 * OGG * RM * WMA * FLAC * MPC * MP4/M4A/AAC It also supports output to * Any Player that can read a http STREAM * Local Play through Moosic * Local Play through MPD * Multicasting using IceCast And it can generate the following Playlist types * Extended m3u * Simple m3u * PLS * ASX Public SVN: https://svn.ampache.org/trunk Themes: http://www.ampache.org/themes/ I could go on, but you should just try it for yourself, http://www.ampache.org/

  70. Google saves... by cwraig · · Score: 1

    i have music all over the place too, some ripped by media player and others just all over the place i have a library of a >30gb and the best tool ive found is google destop search want a track just throw in a few words and see what it comes up with results in less then seconds

  71. What I do... by Kymermosst · · Score: 2, Funny

    I modeled it after /dev I just give them all a prefix serial number and plop them in one directory, like such:

    mm000000.mp3
    mm000001.mp3
    mm000002.mp3
    .
    .
    .

    "mm" stands for "mystery music".

    This way, I never need the shuffle button. Stripping the ID3 tags makes it even better. Every song is a surprise!

    I also do the same thing with pictures, movies, and everything else. You should see the directory containing my college homework!

    ~/u/essays/essay001.sxw
    ~/u/essays/essay002.sxw
    ~/u/essays/essay003.sxw
    .
    .
    .

    What, you think the /dev model leaves much to be desired? Pfft! Blasphemy!

    P.S. I organize all my web bookmarks like /etc.

    --
    "Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
  72. Media Center by meehawl · · Score: 1

    No question about it, Media Center is a great solution. Federates all media (audio, video, photo) across multiple directories or file systems. Can play back any format either simply, by playback Zone, or using streaming (with optional on-demand transcoding/re-encoding) across LAN or WAN. Tagging system is open-ended, there are dynamic SmartLists, and there's a progammable API with expressions for querying the database and spitting back results. You can also use HTGML and Flash to make your own "Now Playing" screens.

    --

    Da Blog
  73. Dynamic linking by tepples · · Score: 1

    Likewise, it's a pity that Qt isn't statically linked into KDE.