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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?"

34 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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.

    2. 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?
  2. 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
    "

  3. 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).

  4. 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.

  5. 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/

  6. 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.
  7. 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/

  8. 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?
  9. 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
  10. 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.

  11. 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?!'"
  12. 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
  13. 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 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!>.

    2. 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.

  14. 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.
  15. 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?

  16. 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

  17. 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
  18. 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.
  19. 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.

  20. 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.

  21. 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?
  22. 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)

  23. 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.