Hi,
what do you suggest for the best file scheme for FLAC music?
Actually I use this:
\Music\Artist\[year] - Album\01. Track Name.flac
Do you think that is a good choice?
Thanks
given that you can use tags within your music programme to sort and find tracks, this is mainly a Operating System explorer question and which looks best to you, whilst providing the information you would.
I use
\\Music\Artist\Album (Year) [bitrate]\## - Artist - Title.ext
putting the year first is an interesting idea, though I think I could guess album names better than years when looking for albums.
The reason for the bitrate part is to allow multiple formats to be stored on my PC (ie I don't need flac on an mp3 player my Zen Xtra)
Open a text file and make notes. Explain your "system" to yourself. Read the text file and see if it makes sense to you. If you like what you read, then keep going as you are. If you don't like what you read, then make small tweaks and changes to your "system" and update your text file too. Slowly over time (maybe a few years) it will all come together...
To give you an idea, here is my own text file (copy it to a text file on your desktop for better reading with word wrap on)...
F:\music\user\admin\my filesystem.txt ==============================
How I Organize My Filesystem
==============================
EVERYTHING is lower case
ONLY use these characters:
Numbers 0,1-9 | Letters A-Z | Full Stop . | Hyphen-Minus - | Plus sign + | Underscore _ | Number sign # | Dollar sign $ | Tilde ~ | Apostrophe ' | Parenthesis ()
NO track names !!! ...all tracks are formatted like this:
HAS no discnumber: 01.track.flac; 02.track.flac; 03.track.flac; ...
HAS discnumber: 1.01.track.flac; 1.02.track.flac; 1.03.track.flac; 2.01.track.flac; 2.02.track.flac; 2.03.track.flac ...
ONLY eight (8) Genre classes:
composed | electro | jazz | popular | project | rhythm | rock | world
Word and Character Formatting Rules:
If is persons name, change to ("LASTNAME DOT FIRSTNAME") ... e.g. Carlos Kleiber == kleiber.carlos
If is stage name, do not change ... e.g. Muddy Waters == muddy waters
If name begins with prefix ("THE") then change to ("NAME DOT PREFIX") ... e.g. The Beatles == beatles.the
If "name and ensemble", then remove prefix ("THE") and change to ("NAME PLUS ENSEMBLE") ... e.g. The Dave Brubeck Quartet == brubeck.dave + quartet ... e.g. Iggy Pop and the Stooges == iggy pop + the stooges
If Composer name, then prefix Tilde character to name ... e.g. BEETHOVEN == ~beethoven
If Vinyl Ripper name, then prefix Tilde character and append date to name ... e.g. PBTHAL == ~pbthal 201202
If four character string ("$DIV") is present in filename, then change color of Track Title name in foobar2000 playlist viewer display. The "$DIV" file is a blank audio file of 0.1 seconds duration (one tenth of a second) and of same samplerate as the album tracks. The purpose of these files is to create informative separation effects in foobar2000. I create as many "$DIV" files as I think necessary to achieve my display ambitions. (for a visual example, see the screenshot further down).
If ampersand character ("&") is present in path, then choose: [A] remove it and use "SPACE DOT SPACE" [B] change it to plus sign "+" [C] change it to string "and".
Note: I reserve the right to break these rules any time I think it is appropriate (except for ampersand character).
Path overview (with foobar2000 syntax tokens):
IS lossless audio:
F:\music\lib\00\%GENRE%\%ALBUM ARTIST%\(%DATE%) %ALBUM%\%PRODUCTID%\[%DISCNUMBER%.]%TRACKNUMBER%.track.$EXT(%PATH%)
IS lossy audio:
F:\music\lib\01\%GENRE%\%ALBUM ARTIST%\(%DATE%) %ALBUM%\%PRODUCTID%\[%DISCNUMBER%.]%TRACKNUMBER%.track.$EXT(%PATH%)
IS multimedia:
F:\music\lib\media\"derty2 reserves the right to change things here without notice ..."
IS playlist:
F:\music\lib\playlists\"derty2 reserves the right to change things here without notice ..."
Note: %PRODUCTID% is a sub-string of the %COMMENT% tag string and I modify it for filesystem display.
Examples (Note: I allow the "composed" and "project" and "world" genres to have a looser naming structure):
F:\music\lib\00\composed\munch.charles . orch boston ~berlioz. symphonie fantastique (1954)\vinyl. classic records 'rca living stereo' series (1994) ~garybx 201109\01.track.flac
F:\music\lib\00\electro\times.the\(1992) lundi bleu (mixes of 'blue monday' by new order)\cd (ep). creation #crescd114. uk\01.track.flac
F:\music\lib\00\jazz\brubeck.dave + quartet\(1959) time out\vinyl 200g. columbia_classic records #cs 8192. remaster (2005) ~aksman 200906\01.track.flac
F:\music\lib\00\popular\cohen.leonard\(1967) songs of leonard cohen\vinyl. columbia #cl 2733. us. orig mono ~profstoned 201004\01.track.flac
F:\music\lib\00\project\audio sound\alan parsons. sound check 2. audio test and demo cd (1996)\01.track.flac
F:\music\lib\00\project\film\2001 a space odyssey (1968)\cd. rhino #r2 72562. reissue remaster (1996)\01.track.flac
F:\music\lib\00\project\nature sound\syntonic research - environments 3. dawn and dusk at new hope. pa\cd. atlantic #817662 (1987)\01.track.flac
F:\music\lib\00\rhythm\hound dog taylor and the houserockers\(1974) natural boogie\vinyl. alligator #4704. usa ~86ed 201109\01.track.flac
F:\music\lib\00\rock\pink floyd\(1973) dark side of the moon\vinyl. #q4shvl 804. uk. orig quad mix ~pbthal 201202\01.track.flac
F:\music\lib\00\world\stavros xarchakos (greece)\(1963) 6+6\vinyl. columbia #33gsx6 ~ljubo44 201111\01.track.flac
Filesystem structure is ALWAYS like this example:
...\ folder \ 01 art back.jpg
...\ folder \ 02 art disc-a.jpg --------- //all artwork, created and optimized for display by me from the original sources
...\ folder \ 03 art disc-b.jpg
...\ folder \ 04 art crop-1.jpg
...\ folder \ 05 art crop-2.jpg
...\ folder \ 06 photo artist.jpg
...\ folder \ archive sources.rar ------- //screenshots; original unmodified artwork and non-audio files.
...\ 01.$div1.flac
...\ 01.$div2.flac ---------------------- //special $div" audio files; for description see above; for screenshot see below.
...\ 01.$div3.flac
...\ 01.track.flac
...\ 02.track.flac
...\ 03.$div.flac
...\ 03.track.flac
...\ folder.jpg ------------------------- //the front cover, created and optimized for display by me from the original sources
...\ folder.txt
Screenshot of my foobar2000 audio player (March 2012): [url=http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/1544/20120305054602.png]http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/1544/20120305054602.png[/url]
take note of some interesting features:
(1) The top right panel is reading the file "folder.txt" and rendering the contents.
(2) the top center panel is an auto-cycling artwork viewing panel, here showing a vinyl record label, before changing to the next image with a timer of 8 seconds. It cycles through everything in the root folder and the "folder" sub-folder.
(3) the bottom panel is my playlist viewer and the green lines in the Track Title column are special ("$DIV") tracks as described above.
I agree with icstm. Since your music player software can sort based on the tags, this is not critical and any file organization you choose is OK.
I basically use /Genre/Artist/Album/Song.
And, /Genre/Artist/[Singles]/Song.
I also have /Various Artists/Album/Song.
For live albums and musicals where the song-sequence is important, I include the track number in the song/file name. (That's not really necessary, since the track number is in the tag. It's just my preference.)
But, I don't actually have a folder for every genre. About 50% of my music is in a folder called "Rock And Popular". Then, I have folders for "special" genres like, Classical, Christmas, Halloween, Mexican, Comedy, Live Concerts, Zydeco, etc.
I disagree - the file structure IS important, because there are times when you need to do things to groups of files outside of foobar2000 (or indeed any other tag-aware application).
FLAC files ripped from CD:
\\Music\FLAC\Artist\Album\## - Artist - Title.flac
\\Music\FLAC\Various Artists\Album\## - Artist - Title.flac
FLAC files converted to MP3 for portable play:
\\Music\FLAC2MP3\Artist\Album\## - Artist - Title.mp3
\\Music\FLAC2MP3\Various Artists\Album\## - Artist - Title.mp3
Files that only exist as MP3:
\\Music\MP3\Artist\Album\## - Artist - Title.mp3
\\Music\MP3\Various Artists\Album\## - Artist - Title.mp3
Files that only exist as AAC:
\\Music\AAC\Artist\Album\## - Artist - Title.m4a
\\Music\AAC\Various Artists\Album\## - Artist - Title.m4a
This allows me to quickly select groups of files for adding to libraries by type, or for converting to other formats, by simply selecting the appropriate second-level directory.
Please search before starting redundant topics:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=32726 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=32726)
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=34271 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=34271)
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=47558 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=47558)
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=6289 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=6289)
This one will now close (an be moved to the appropriate forum).