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Tips/Software for organising an mp3 collection?

3stripe3stripe ✭✭
edited July 2005 in Vanilla 1.0 Help
Totally off-topic, but figure someone might have some pointers for me...

Just bought a 500gb Formac external hard-drive, to stick my burgeoning mp3s collection on. (Actually ran out of space on my laptop for anything at all now...) When I get rich, I'm gonna hook it up to a Mac Mini, and then link it to something like a Roku Soundbridge in another room :-P

imageimage

Now I need to sit down and move the mp3s off my laptop into a sensible directory structure on the Lacie (can I trust iTunes to do this for me... probably not?). Is there any usual mp3 organising software out there?

The best advice I've seen for a structure is simply:

ARTIST OR COMPILATION FOLDER
→ ALBUM NAME FOLDER
→ TRACK - ARTIST – TITLE.mp3
«1

Comments

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    ithcyithcy New
    edited July 2005
    i've got a ... large mp3 collection and i organize mine as such: genre/artist - album/track# - title.mp3 just because i'm not crazy about having all the thousands of artists hanging out in one folder. it gets a little difficult to assign a genre to everything, though.
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    FLCFLC New
    i just let itunes organise it for me

    artist -> album -> song title
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    domdom
    Another option is to go: First Letter -> Artist -> Album -> Track

    eg: B -> Brendan Benson -> Alternative To Love -> 01 Spit It Out.mp3

    I have used iTunes once before to move a large collection (well, 11 gb, so large-ish), and it seemed to behave alright.
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    3stripe3stripe ✭✭
    The genre thing does kinda of make sense, but then you have to get anal about categorising everything... tricky especially with dance music... hmmm

    techno/house/tech-house/tech-breaks/breaks/bassline-breaks/dubstep/ etc
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    MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    i've solved your puzzle...delete the dance music.
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    bradybrady New

    Once you get em organized, this will give you remote access - mp3act

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    jonezyjonezy New
    tag&rename is your new best friend
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    3stripe3stripe ✭✭
    edited July 2005
    delete the dance music :-? :-? :-? :-? :-?

    tag&rename looks promising, ta jonezy...

    mp3act is JUST what i've been looking for in our office, just installed slimserver but it seems a little clunky...
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    3stripe3stripe ✭✭
    oh yeah, another question, what's a sensible rate for encoding, i usuall use 192kbps... anyone who claims to be able to tell the difference between this and a higher bitrate is a LIAR imo, i've got a seperates hi-fi and they still sound fine....
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    lechlech Chicagoland ✭
    edited July 2005
    192 is perfect. The ONLY time you can really tell is if the encoder used to get that bitrate introduced it's own pops & clicks or if it made voices or instruments sound distanced and synthed up a bit. Generally most encoders these days do a decent job compared to those from the earlier years.
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    3stripe3stripe ✭✭
    cheers lech.
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    lechlech Chicagoland ✭
    No problem. 128 is ideal if you're worried about space. but these days that shouldn't be an issue. 192 if I recall correctly is nearly if not exact cd quality and anything higher just preserves the quality a bit better. I presume someone who's more a technical sound engineer could explain this better.
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    MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    i could be wrong but i believe higher qualities are also used to help with different sound channels (e.g. 2.1 5.1 7.1 etc) I've never had a problem with 128 but 192 seems a good base.
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    3stripe3stripe ✭✭
    seeing as i got 500gigs to play with, i reckon 192 should be perfect

    (although i've just tried installing the damn Formac drive, and good old XP won't recognise it.. sigh)
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    jonezyjonezy New
    holy shitnuts you need a 500gb hard drive to store mp3's?
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    3stripe3stripe ✭✭
    edited July 2005
    nope... probs only 50gigs... but i thought i should future proof a bit as it only cost me twice as much for the extra space :-)
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    jonezyjonezy New
    holy crap even 50gigs of mp3's is alot of music
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    bradybrady New

    I can't wait to get my hands on Sonos

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    3stripe3stripe ✭✭
    Sonos... nice!
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    jonezyjonezy New
    yeah that sonos looks very awesome
This discussion has been closed.