How do you organise your MP3's?

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I started using Itunes and have now changed to WMP. In the process I seem to have lost most of the MP3's I converted from tape. I think it was something to do with the ID3 tags

Anyway I now have all my music on a different drive as follows F/Music and then either a folder with artist or with no folder a the MP3 name.

The Media Player is not a problem but the way my MP3's are stored is. What does everybody else do?

kingmonkey

I store my MP3s in folders. "artist/album/tracknumber-trackname"

amcluesent

I have mine as Genre\Letter\Artist Name\Album\track # - track name.mp3

Plus all tagged for drag-drop to the iPod (I have WAY more music than fits on a 80Gb Ipod)

So -

\My Music\-= Blues =-\R\R.L. Burnside\Sound Machine Groove\01 - Shake, Little Baby.mp3

Except for classical, which is ordered by Composer (last, first) -

My Music\= Classical =-\B\Britten, Benjamin\Serenade For Tenor, Horn & Strings, Les Illuminations, Nocturne\01 - I- Fanfare.mp3

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Thanks for the replies.

I suppose it's the way that the MP3's are ripped that dictates the sequence they are filed. Itunes and WMP file in different ways and it's a hell of a job sorting them out if you change from one to the other. I am not sure but I think Itunes and WMP use different ID3 tags.

Do most people use their media player to rip their MP3's or is there a better way of doing it?

BillScarab

Personally I tend to use FreeRIP to rip CDs. no idea if it's the best tool or not but I've been using it for years and it works for me.

http://www.download.com/FreeRip/3000-2140_4-10050140.html

jghal

Audiograbber will rip your CDs to MP3 and also give you flexibility over how the resultant mp3 file is named

:beer:

Willow147

kingmonkey wrote:

I store my MP3s in folders. "artist/album/tracknumber-trackname"

Exactly how I organise mine.

Idiophreak

me too....

wolfman

Willow147 wrote:

Exactly how I organise mine.

Yep me too.

But I have root folders for Albums, Soundtracks, Classical, Radio etc...

For ripping, try using an application called CDex.
http://www.download.com/CDex/3000-2140-10226370.html
It will rip your tracks using LAME (the best mp3 encoder about), in the artist/ablum/tracknumber - trackname format, and it can tag all the files (it reads of the cddb, an online music database).
Edit - Actually AudioGrabber is a very good one to use (just seen it mentioned above).

For any already existing tracks. Firstly, go through and try to name them correctly, in a nice format like artist/ablum/tracknumber - trackname. Once they're all the same, download an app called Mp3Tag. It's a very powerful and quite easy to use batch tagger.
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

Finally don't use iTunes! or WMP! No, just playing, but seriously there are better alternatives.

https://www.winamp.com
Winamp has been around for ages. Very modular, lots of plugins and skins (themes) for it. It's also got a good media library built in, so you can load up all of your music into it.

MediaMonkey is also worth a look and can do all of the above very well. In fact so can Winamp, but I prefer to have specific apps that are usually more functional.

mostly

just started using mediamonkey does a great job of everything, although I haven't ripped anything with it yet.

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Many thanks for some great advice.

The "artist/album/tracknumber-trackname" seems to be the format most people use but I have got hundreds of singles that are currently showing just Music/mp3 name. Is there any easy wasy of getting an artist folder written for each of them without having to manually do it.Perhaps I could re rip them using some of the progs above....I will have a look.

I have tried a couple of the Tag progs but I have found the WMP tag edit the best to use. From what you advise I need to look at other alternatives!