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Topic: File and directory naming conventions (Read 13588 times) previous topic - next topic
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File and directory naming conventions

I'm curious to know what sort of conventions people
use to name/organise their digital music files.

I've standardised on a 10-character file name
comprising the serial number of the CD (8 hex
characters) followed by 2 zero-padded digits from
the track number. All the track information (artist,
date, etc.) is stored in tags (I use Ogg Vorbis). I've
found this saves me having to mess around with
really long file names and most accented characters.

All albums get their own playlist file and all the
albums from a particular artist get stored under
one directory:

\music\artist\abcd123401.ogg
\music\artist\abcd123402.ogg
...
\music\artist\abcd123412.ogg
\music\artist\album.m3u

What sort of conventions do other people use?

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #1 –
I use:

Artist - Album\Artist - Album - Track - Title

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #2 –
I suspect this is a rather non-traditional approach, but since my OGG/MP3 compilations are generally dedicated to one artist or box set per CD I settled upon the following (with long filenames replacing the generic "Artist," "Album" and "Song" descriptors below; files are also appropriately tagged, so this naming is strictly for my own convenience when browsing through a disc or directory):
Code: [Select]
Artist <Root directory>
  a) 1st Album
       01 Song
       02 Song
       03 Song...
  b) 2nd Album
       01 Song
       02 Song
       03 Song...
  c) 3rd Album
       01 Song
       02 Song
       03 Song...

    - M.

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #3 –
artist (track#) trackname <--for album tracks
example: Bryan Ferry (01) It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.mp3

album (tracknumber) artist - trackname  <--for various-artist albums and soundtracks ect.
example: Space Jazz  (01) Tosca - Chocolate Elvis.mpc

folders:  artist (release year) album title (encoder settings if known)
examples: Santana (1970) Abraxas (mpc)   
                  Various - Sampled Volume 4 [2003] (-aps)

Any less then this amount of information in the filename makes searching quite difficult. IMO

previous rant:  http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....991&hl=filename (down near the bottom)

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #4 –
I do (similar to M)
Code: [Select]
Artist
 Albumname
      01_Song
      02_Song
      03_Song...
 Albumname
      01_Song
      02_Song
      03_Song...
...

or in Various Artists
Code: [Select]
"Various Artists"
 Albumname
      01_Artist_-_Song
      02_Artist_-_Song
      03_Artist_-_Song...
 Albumname
      01_Artist_-_Song
      02_Artist_-_Song
      03_Artist_-_Song...
...


People on filesharing would probably hate me for it, but since I don't fileshare it doesn't really matter.
happiness comes in brown paper bags.

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #5 –
dir: Artist - (year) Albumname [format]
file: Artist - Album - Track - Title

Misfits - (1982) Walk Among Us [mpc std]\Misfits - Walk Among Us - 02 - I Turned Into A Martian.mpc

I delete all tags from the files, except replaygain ones

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #6 –
Artist\(Year) Album\Artist - Album - Track - Title.mp3

Example:

Donnie Iris\(1980) Back On The Streets\Donnie Iris - Back On The Streets - 01 - Ah! Leah!.mp3

This allows me to sort directories by artist, and then sort each artist's album chronologically by year.  I don't use tags either (hate them), hence my file names contain all the information I need.

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #7 –
I use for Albums:

Artist - Album\Track - Title
Ex: Santana - Shaman\ 03 - The Game Of Love feat. Michelle Brach.mpc

for Singles or genre:
Genre\Artist - Title
Ej: Pop 2001\Britney Spears - I'm Slave For You.mpc

I have all my collection of music files with complete tags, I use APE tags with mpc and id3 v1 and v2 with mp3 files, and I use MAC (Mpeg Audio Collection) for manage them.-
MPC: --quality 10 --xlevel (v. 1.15s) (archive/transcoding)
MP3:  LAME 3.96.1 --preset standard (daily listening/portable)

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #8 –
Artist\Album [Year]\-01- Song Title

Convenient since it makes it easy to batch tag (with Case's Tag) all the encodes with the relevant information. I extract to WAV, then run a batch file that encodes, replaygains, then tags everything.

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #9 –
You know how Microsoft gives you a "My Music" directory?  I decided it was only appropriate to have a corresponding "Not My Music" directory for all those files for which I do not have the CD (no, I'm not into file sharing...many of those files are legit downloads).  As a Linux user, I figure it's the least I can do to amuse myself.  Below those directories I follow this standard:

Artist/Album/Artist - Track - Title.ogg

I use Vorbis and FLAC, but still have many mp3s that I figure are fine the way they are.  I used to erase tags, but now I use them whenever possible.  In the case of 2-CD albums, I do separate "Album (Disc One)" and "Album (Disc Two)" folders so that my music is always at the same subfolder depth.  Why that matters to me, I don't know.  Maybe someday I'll add some year information in there - it would certainly help in cases such as my George Carlin collection, where I have 21 CDs to keep track of, and it's nice to listen to them in chronological order.

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #10 –
I use:  \Artist\Year - Album\Track Number - Song Title\
best way imo

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #11 –
For audio ripped to the hard drive as .wav (I soley use this so I very rarely ever have to edit a tag, and of course so that I can ReplayGain the albums which are of course separated):
Artist\Year - Album\Artist+Year+Album+TrackNumber+TrackName+Genre

Once done encoding the tracks get moved to a single audio-type dir and renamed, such as:
C:\WAVs\Artist\Year - Album\Artist+Year+Album+TrackNumber+TrackName+Genre.mpc
becomes:
C:\MPCs\Artist+Year+Album+TrackNumber+TrackName.mpc


For audio on a CD:
Artist\Year_TrackNumber

For audio on a CD when more than one CD is released in a given year, such as an EP:
Artist\Year-01_TrackNumber
Artist\Year-02_TrackNumber

I dump a playlist in the M3U and PLS formats in the root of the CD.

Since I'm a bit paranoid about using filenames that are too long I have been strictly using the above scheme(s) for CD backups for the last year. I make sure I dump a text file with the track names, etc., using EAC in the same dir as the tracks so I know what they are - just in case some media player cannot read the tags.

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #12 –
For regular, complete albums:

Code: [Select]
\Albums
     \Artist - [Year] - Album
          Artist - TrackNo - Title.mpc
          Artist - [Year] - Album\Artist - Album.m3u

The album will include the CD number if applicable (e.g. "Album name (CD1)").



For complete compilation discs:

Code: [Select]
\Albums
     \Various Artists - [Year] - Album
          TrackNo - Artist - Title.mpc
          Various Artists - Album.m3u

The album will include the CD number if applicable (e.g. "Album name (CD1)").



For "loose" individual files:

Code: [Select]
\Various
     Artist - Title.mpc


[span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'][EDIT][/span] Made the post more complete and better formed. [span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'][/EDIT][/span]

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #13 –
Label_Name\(Catalogue)_Artist_Name-Release_Title\
  01-Artist_Name-Track_Name.mp3
  02-...

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #14 –
I suppose my organization system is fairly typical.  I store each album in a directory organized under top level directories by genre.  I like to keep each album as a single unit. I use " - " as the delimiter between fields and a parenthetical for year and supplementary information, e.g., "01 - song title (Remix)".

Code: [Select]
if single disc and individual tracks:
..\Genre\Artist - Album (year)\
     \Artist - Album (year) - Covers\ (for album art)
     track - song title
     
if multiple discs and individual tracks:
..\Genre\Artist - Album (year)\
     \Artist - Album (year) - Covers\ (for album art)
     \Artist - Album (year) - CD 1\
          track - song title
     \Artist - Album (year) - CD 2\
          track - song title


if multiple discs and single tracks:
..\Genre\Artist - Album (year)\
     \Artist - Album (year) - Covers\ (for album art)
     Artist - Album (year) - CD 1.extension
     Artist - Album (year) - CD 2.extension

   
   
I don't ever label an album "various artists" for associative/scheme reasons (I don't remember albums by "various artists"; the term is as pointless as it is vague).  If there is no DJ or obvious arranger, I use only the album title.
   
All albums contain a playlist, cuesheet, and text file (that includes tracklist, album reviews, and any other information pertaining to the artist/album).  Over time, I have had to break down genres more and more to keep the directory sizes manageable.  File formats are not taken into account in the organization--albums are what they are and at the point they are accepted into my collection, I could care less.

I gave up on CD archives years ago (HDD backups now), which also has allowed me to largely ignore path lengths. Tip to those who still write archives to CD but have long path lengths:  rar the albums.



Edit by Dibrom:  Moved the code tag around to make the thread display better.

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #15 –
I use:

# <Genre> #\<Album-Artist>\<Year> - <Album-Name>\<Track-Number> - <Track-Artists> - <Track-Title>.mp3
# Pop #\Pink\2002 - Missundaztood\09 - Pink feat. Steven Tyler - Misery.mp3

or

# <Genre> #\<Album-Artist>\<Year> - <Album-Name>\<Media-Number>-<Track-Number> - <Track-Artists> - <Track-Title>.mp3
# Trip-Hop #\Kruder & Dorfmeister\1998 - The K&D Sessions\02-04 - Bomb The Bass - Bug Powder Dust.mp3

or

# <Genre> #\<Sampler>\<Year> - <Volume>\<Track-Number> - <Track-Artists> - <Track-Title>.mp3
# Ambient #\Café del Mar\2002 - Vol. 9\04 - Kalliope - Lunar Landings.mp3

or

# <Genre> #\<Sampler>\<Year> - <Volume>\<Media-Number><Track-Number> - <Track-Artists> - <Track-Title>.mp3
# Trance #\Dream Dance\2002 - Vol. 25\02-05 - Noémi - You.mp3

or
# <Genre> #\<Sampler> - <Year>\<Track-Number> - <Track-Artists> - <Track-Title>.mp3
# Soundtrack #\Buffy The Vampire Slayer - 1992\07 - Ozzy Obourne - Party With The Animals.mp3

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #16 –
%A-%C [CDType-%Y]\%N-%T

2 CD SETS WITH SAME NAME

Artist-Album [DCD-1]
Artist-Album [DCD-2]


2CD SETS WITH DIFF CD NAMES

Artist-Main Dir[DCD-2002]\DCD-1-Sub Dir

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #17 –
Code: [Select]
H:\The Rippingtons

                     \Loreena McKennitt
   
                           \The Book of Secrets - 1997

                                 \flac -5

                                 \mpc -q5 -xlevel -auto

                                 \wav

All files are written to the H: drive in a folder called `The Rippingtons' (humorous).

Then it's the musician followed by a subdirectory with the album - date
Then it's folders whose names describe the encoding details.

In \mpc folder:  01 - Track Name.mpc

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #18 –
To all you lot who go:

Album/Artist - Album - Track - Title.mp3

- what do you do when you want to archive to CD? You must run up against Joliet's lame 64 character limit (or whatever it is) all the time. Under Linux I use Rock Ridge, but mp3 players & windows machines don't recognise this so the m3u files are screwed.

Anyone got a decent solution?

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #19 –
Quote
To all you lot who go:

Album/Artist - Album - Track - Title.mp3

- what do you do when you want to archive to CD? You must run up against Joliet's lame 64 character limit (or whatever it is) all the time. Under Linux I use Rock Ridge, but mp3 players & windows machines don't recognise this so the m3u files are screwed.

Anyone got a decent solution?

I don't burn my archive on CD. I have an external USB Disk (110GB) and sometimes backup this disk on my internal drive. Burning xxGB on CD sucks!

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #20 –
I use the Artist - Album - Track - Name convention, and have ID3v1 tags on all the files. If it does not fit in a v1 tag, then I add a v2 tag. Anyway, I burn them to a CD as a backup, and even if the filename gets mangled, I just run them thru Tag to get all the filenames correct again.

It only sucks in dance CDs. Some of them are "by" one artist, say DJ Icey. Well, he's really the one that kinda coordinates the whole CD and you end up with songs by him, and songs by other people. With those ones I've been using the Real Artist - Title in the above title section, which makes the filename even longer. But it works fine and really helps with the searching.

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #21 –
edit: outdated

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #22 –
Quote
To all you lot who go:

Album/Artist - Album - Track - Title.mp3

- what do you do when you want to archive to CD? You must run up against Joliet's lame 64 character limit (or whatever it is) all the time. Under Linux I use Rock Ridge, but mp3 players & windows machines don't recognise this so the m3u files are screwed.

Anyone got a decent solution?

NTI cdmaker (has romeo filename format that allows 128 characters)

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #23 –
Quote
To all you lot who go:

Album/Artist - Album - Track - Title.mp3

- what do you do when you want to archive to CD? You must run up against Joliet's lame 64 character limit (or whatever it is) all the time. Under Linux I use Rock Ridge, but mp3 players & windows machines don't recognise this so the m3u files are screwed.

Anyone got a decent solution?

I zip files with zero compression before archiving to CD.  (I've seen trying to compress already-compressed data actually add to the zip size, so I don't bother trying.)  Several months ago I had a hard drive die on me, and I spent many days archiving 45 gigs of zipped FLAC files to CD (on a 4x burner, no less) while transcoding each to Ogg Vorbis for listening purposes.  Hey, we all need a hobby...

File and directory naming conventions

Reply #24 –
I was experimenting a lot with the settings and what do I have now?
System
artist/album/artist-album-track-title is great as you won't have any problems even if you throw all your files into a single directory, but there are lots of problems with it: while burning music to CDs I've found, that quite often album names have 30+ characters and I have to cut filenemes in order to make records. A bitlater I started using anoher scheme and use it to the present day: artist/album/artist-track-title.ext
This way my files are sorted correctly in audio players, I get quite a simple structure of my music collection. Besides, there are very few albums, where songs with the same titles have the same tracknumbers, so I don't have problems even while making compilations.
using"-" as separator makes it easier to work with multitaggers, like ATC (Russian successor to Tag&Rename), TAG or Dr.Tag.