How do you organize your media

[Groove01]

I’m reorganizing my physical media and kind of wish I hadn’t started . Although It’s always interesting finding stuff I completely forgot I had - lol.

I think this question would apply to both physical and “digital” (music servers and such) media. How do you organize your music libraries? By genre, alphabetically..? Genre then alphabetically?

I need a better system.

 

[Blumlein 88]

What is this organize thing you speak of here?

 

[Sokel]

By composer, the only sane way in classical.
Maybe by conductor too at an another instance but some have strong preferences about certain composers so lots of different instances.

Most importantly, info should be full.

(streaming is close to chaos with classical, there's no way around it, only stored/physical media can do the trick)

 

[LTig]

By composer, the only sane way in classical.

I know someone who orders the "classical" music by date of the composer - makes it easier to find music in the style you want to listen.

 

[Groove01]

What is this organize thing you speak of here?

IKR - that’s how a rainy Sunday gets you into trouble - lol.

the "classical" music by date of the composer

I have lots of different genre’s from Tool to Miles Davis and everything in between.

This is an interesting idea for my “rock” library, organized by period. 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, etc. Great suggestion!

Jazz, folk/bluegrass, classical, etc., by genre, rock by era (which is the lions share of my collection)

I could absolutely find titles organized in this way!! I like it!

 

[Chrispy]

Alphabetically for the most part, with subgroups based on genre or type of recording....

 

[Sokel]

I know someone who orders the "classical" music by date of the composer - makes it easier to find music in the style you want to listen.

That's a good idea too but unfortunately metadata's "date" usually refers to album's release, not the composition's.
Perfectly doable with foobar for example as it's only a matter of adding a new entry field but then every work has to be filled in too.

 

[Keith_W]

By composer, the only sane way in classical.
Maybe by conductor too at an another instance but some have strong preferences about certain composers so lots of different instances.

Most importantly, info should be full.

(streaming is close to chaos with classical, there's no way around it, only stored/physical media can do the trick)

That's the way I do it too. What do you do about discs with multiple composers in it?

For those, I have a section at the end where discs are arranged by soloist or conductor.

 

[Chrispy]

That's the way I do it too. What do you do about discs with multiple composers in it?

For those, I have a section at the end where discs are arranged by soloist or conductor.

Why by composer? That just for classical?

 

[muza_1]

I digitize all and use MusicBrainz Picard for the tags and organize by "Album Artist" and separate columns for "Genre", "Artist", "Composer" and "Album", on the main window music is ordered by (alphabtical by album artist) "track number", "title", "album artist", "album" and "album year" (original release date).

For classical I use the "Album Artist" field to separate combined albums by composer and for non classical compilations (of various artists) I use the the field as "Various Artists".

 

[Keith_W]

Why by composer? That just for classical?

That's right. 95% of my collection is classical. The 5% that are not get dumped in a section that is labelled "other".

 

[Chrispy]

That's right. 95% of my collection is classical. The 5% that are not get dumped in a section that is labelled "other".

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For me I have classical as a sub-section sorted by composer as it is the best way to catalog such old stuff. Less than 2% of my collection, tho. Most just isn't that interesting....

 

[bluefuzz]

CDs and vinyl are upstairs in boxes. Digital music is organised (using Bliss) alphabetically by artist/album. My 500 or so blu-rays are on shelves here in the living room intentionally randomly distributed (!). Digital movies/series are organised in Drama, Documentary, Instruction and Music and then alphabetically ...

 

[Galliardist]

My discs appear to be in two cardboard boxes. One box ripped, the other "mostly ripped".

The media I actually use at the moment is organised by Qobuz. And I'm very good at finding their mistakes, for what it's worth.

 

[Sokel]

That's the way I do it too. What do you do about discs with multiple composers in it?

For those, I have a section at the end where discs are arranged by soloist or conductor.

Yes, that's the way I do it too, although there is the option for them to be listed the first way too.
It gets messy though, as they go in-between others,etc.

Usually I do a different playlist and do it your way if multiple ones.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I don't think there is one correct and perfect way. Digitally I've gone for hierarchical folders based on Album Artist. Within each folder I have the album name but preceded by mastering year. This is useful for artists where I have more than one release, it keeps the structure fairly flat. Classical is always much trickier than non-classical. I don't structure by composition year, since that's relatively easy to discover (e.g. Dark Side of the Moon).

 

[BeeKay]

I don’t care. Roon does some of that for me, else I can’t be bothered. Happy to surprise myself when picking a CD or vinyl record from a drawer or shelf. Drifting through music. Even more since streaming.

 

[dualazmak]

Just for your reference (and interest), please find my policy and practice shared here (and here, here).

Spoiler

My music ( and video) library consists of mainly classical music and also with some jazz and popular.

My policy and actual operation of organization are as follows;

1. Digitize all, of course, save in silent SSD;

LPs: into 192 kHz 24 bit AIFF (non-compressed, easy to add unlimited tag info) "devided track files" using Audacity; if needed remove scratch and/or pop noises using Audacity, edit file name, add Tag info and cover art by JRiver (see below)

CDs: rip bit-perfectly into 44.1 kHz 16 bit AIFF track files with JRiver's safe mode dBpoweramp's CD Ripper safe mode

SACDs: rip the "DSD layer" into DSF (DSD64 2.8 MHz 1 bit) files (I will not discuss the method here...)

DVD Movies: rip into ISO (.iso) file by CloneCD, store in "DVD Movies" folder to be mounted on "virtual CD-DVD drive" which can be played by JRiver, add to JRiver's video playlist

Downloads: non-compressed format in as high sampling rate as possible, and save "as it is" in SSD of PC

YouTube etc. clips: beloved clips: download into .xml or .mp4 or .mkv files by "4K Video Downloader", store in "my_webmedia" folder, add to JRiver's video playlist

2. Music Library Organization Policy in SSD
Track file naming policy:
Track #+content: for single CD album
Disc#+Track#+content: for multiple-CD album
Folder structure: Root - Music_Arcives - Artist - Album, like these images;

3. Tag info and cover art
Have the tag info at least;
Artist, Album Artist (same as Artist in my library), Genre, Date (recording year), Disk#, Track#, SamplingRate, FileType, Duration, FileSize, BitDepth, Channels, Composer (in my rule), Comment (with Company+Label+Catalog #, download link, etc.), Year (recording year)

Some of these would be automatically assigned by JRiver; I usually carefully edit the tag contents before and/or after ripping.

if needed:
Conductor, Orchestra, Soloists, Instruments, etc.

Cover art: must be embedded "in each track file" by JRiver or other software

4. Downloaded Booklet, purchasing info, etc. in PDF format
These PDF files should be saved in the same album folder for future reference

5. JRiver (or Roon) to Organize and Play all the files
Add all the above files (tracks) to JRiver to organize, search, and play...
(I recently abandoned using Roon because of many reasons; to be discussed separately if needed...)

For play with multichannel multi-driver multi-amplifier system with digital crossover software EKIO and Okto DAC8PRO, audio tracks are up or down converted into 192 kHz 96 kHz or 88.2 kHz 24 bit by JRiver "on the fly". (I also maintain the system configuration which can play DSF files in bit perfect native DSD format using OPPO sonica DAC or OKTO DAC8PRO.) (ref. here)

6. Extract audio track from video clips, DVD movies etc., if needed
If needed, we can easily extract audio tracks by using JRiver's "Convert Format - Convert video to audio", and we may organize the extracted audio files as shown above.

7. Size of the SSD...
We are living in wonderful era of computer technology and digital format.
In my audio (audio-visual) completely silent PCs, I use 2TB SSD for music+video library which easily keeps non-compressed tracks of about 2,000 CDs, 500 LPs, DVD movies, many of recently downloaded large DSD and FLAC files, YouTube clips, etc: really amazing.

Of course I have several backups of my whole library in 6TB HDDs in other PCs and also in QNAP NAS.

And I can easily carry whole of the library in my very tiny USB 3.0 portable 2TB SSD...

8. mp3 compressed library
BTW, I also always build and keep the mp3 library of my whole tracks/files (mp3 Variable Bit Rate VBR Encoding by JRiver) which can be easily loaded into 128 GB Apple iPod to be USB connected to my car audio system.

9. Physical LP, CD, DVD library
I also keep all the physical LPs, CDs, DVDs in shelves with glass window, in LP, CD, DVD sections; the order in each section is mainly;
Genre - Category - Composer (alphabetical) - Artist (alphabetical)

Categories in classical music is historic order like this;
old ancient, early+Renaissance (before baroque), baroque, classical School (Wiener Klassik, Viennese School), romantic, impressionist-period, modern contemporary, etc.

Some of the unique Labels/Companies are separated as a group in specific shelf space, like "Dorian Recordings", "Gimell for The Tallis Scholars" (I have all Gimell's), etc.

Jazz and popular physical disks are of course separated, and in usually artist's alphabetical order.

If needed, I can rather easily access to the specific physical disk of interest...

As for my "backup policy and practice" of my digital library, please refer here.

 

[pinger]

That's right. 95% of my collection is classical. The 5% that are not get dumped in a section that is labelled "other".

View attachment 434949

Mine are by composer but i prefer stacking horizontally

 

[Waxx]

I listen to a lot of genres, from classical to breakcore and from abba to zappa and back. I got music from all over the world, from very mainstream (yes, i got michael jackson on vinyl, and i'm proud of that) to extreme obscure music that probally nobody here heared yet.

Vinyl is in a for me logical way that is impossible to explain to you. It's by genre and then by tunes that fits each other or by artists, depending on the case.

Digital media is by gerne (following my own definition) and then by artist, with a seperate folder for compilations.

I can (if my libary is welll maintained) find any music back in less than a minute, but i tried to explain it to several, and nobody understand my way, so they need to keep out of my vinyl, and got only read rights to my digital music database... I do have a folder for new that they can write to, so i can sort it later but i won't let them mess with my digital database on my nas freely, so they can mess it up.