Organising music on your HD

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paulmo101

New DJ
Apr 13, 2009
12
0
63
Hi Folks

I`m looking for some advice on the best way to organise my music on my Hd.

he format is MP3 and I`m looking for some ideas on the best way to save the files as to make it easy to find songs. I was thinking of organising by having folders for each artist ( probably too many folders), Genre ( could be a little indistinct) or leaving all files in one big directory. I was thinking that with so many files in one directory would this affect the speed of searches?

Big thanks for reading and sorry if you have read this on another forum.

Cheers

Paul
 
I have all of my music in one folder, named "music". Never have had any problems finding a song. my mp3 tags are in this format, Artist - Title - Album.mp3
 
alphabetical order in one folder,then if you wish you can make folders of special music or playlists which you may use more often,thats just me.
 
Note that I'm just starting my conversion to digital now, so what follows is definitely up for revision at any time, but here's how I chose to start.

Part of it may seem a little odd, and it is definitely idiosyncratic, but it corresponds directly to how I have cd's organized in my case, and hence how I go about browsing and programming my music on-the-fly.

<folder> DECADES (All compilations dumped here-each song in its decade/genre by artist
----------- <folder> 50's
------------------------ARTIST FOLDERS
----------- <folder> 60's
------------------------ARTIST FOLDERS
----------- <folder> 70's
------------------------ARTIST FOLDERS
----------- <folder> 80's
------------------------ARTIST FOLDERS
----------- <folder> 90's to Present
------------------------ <folder> ROCK/POP
----------------------------------ARTIST FOLDERS
------------------------ <folder> Soul/R&B
----------------------------------ARTIST FOLDERS
------------------------ <folder> HIP-HOP/RAP
----------------------------------ARTIST FOLDERS
<folder> BEST-OF (All best-of discs get dumped here)
------------------------ARTIST FOLDERS
<folder> ALBUMS (All complete albums get dumped here)
----------- <folder> ARTIST
------------------------ <folder> ALBUM
<folder> GENRES (All specific specialized genres dumped here)
----------- <folder> HAIR ROCK
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> FUNK/OLD SKOOL
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> ELECTRO
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> REGGAETON
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
<folder> THEMED/ETHNIC/NOVELTY (All specific specialized genres dumped here)
----------- <folder> IRISH WEDDING
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> PUNJABI
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> HAWAIIAN
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> CARIBBEAN
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> CHRISTMAS
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> CELTIC
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> NOVELTY (Chick dance, cha-cha slide, macarena, etc.)
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
<folder> BIG BAND/SWING
----------- ARTIST FOLDERS
<folder> POPULAR STANDARDS 20's - 50's
----------- ARTIST FOLDERS

And so-on and so forth with dinner music, cocktail piano, jazz, and everything else.
 
I'm another for the single catch all file folder style with a few exceptions due to how VDJ searches.... because I don't want to see some music in just a general search as it clutters things... for example I don't want Instrumentals, wedding specific music, Latin, jazz or holiday tunes etc.... to show so they end up in their own folders. Otherwise everything is in one directory and I let the software sort out Artist, Title, Album, Year, Genre etc for me....
 
Sounds To Go said:
Are there any noticable performance issues with having such large catch-all folders? Take longer to search, etc?
Click to expand...

None that I've noted.... and I don't recall anyone saying so with libraries that are larger than 10k because it's not searching the files directly it's searching a database... so HD access while searching is limited.
 
jokerswild said:
None that I've noted.... and I don't recall anyone saying so with libraries that are larger than 10k because it's not searching the files directly it's searching a database... so HD access while searching is limited.
Click to expand...

I guess thats true with DB vs file searching. Part of why I did it the way I did was because as I was ripping and storing everything in a catch-all I noticed that it took windows a LONG TIME to search out and display individual files. And never having loaded a DJ program in my life, I didn't have a clue re the whole DB search aspect. So I decided on uber-organized folders, and so far even though I am now playing with VDJ and considering Rockit and some others, I'm glad I did it that way. But that may change as I actually gig:p
 
Sounds To Go said:
I guess thats true with DB vs file searching. Part of why I did it the way I did was because as I was ripping and storing everything in a catch-all I noticed that it took windows a LONG TIME to search out and display individual files. And never having loaded a DJ program in my life, I didn't have a clue re the whole DB search aspect. So I decided on uber-organized folders, and so far even though I am now playing with VDJ and considering Rockit and some others, I'm glad I did it that way. But that may change as I actually gig:p
Click to expand...

What I found, at least with VDJ, is that using a ton of folders created search problems and I was having to "recurse" the whole directory before the start of every gig just so that it would search all of my folders.... lumping all of the music I generally play in one folder and leaving, or moving, files that aren't used much if at all to a subdirectory under the main mp3 directory helped.... then if I wanted a certain song, say Little Drummer Boy, I know that it is located in my Holiday directory and go their directly rather than haveing "Little drummer boy" pop up with I'm searching for say Boy Bands of the 80s......(I use the comments section of mp3 tags to list things like that)

If you looked at my directory you'd see this

C:\Media\MP3 <---all general titles here

then in subdirectories

C:\Media\MP3\Wedding Music
...................\Instumentals
....................\Holiday Music

Etc...

With VDJ and I imagine Rockit to... I can set up filters for the decades and even filter further for genre, top 10, top 100, or really just about any filter you can think of there is a way to do it.... so it can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be without going through the trouble of sorting every single song into a windows directory tree since it's not really truelly needed.
 
I organize in to folders like Justin (Sounds2Go). I use VDJ like Rob (Joker) but I haven't had any search issues.

I find the folders helps me when I want to go directly to the folder from VDJ.
 
Hi Folks

Thanks for great replies - looks like one large directory for most stuff and a few folders for odd/special stuff.

Thanks to the Mods as well for running a great resource.

Cheers

Paul
 
paulmo101 said:
Hi Folks

I`m looking for some advice on the best way to organise my music on my Hd.

he format is MP3 and I`m looking for some ideas on the best way to save the files as to make it easy to find songs. I was thinking of organising by having folders for each artist ( probably too many folders), Genre ( could be a little indistinct) or leaving all files in one big directory. I was thinking that with so many files in one directory would this affect the speed of searches?

Big thanks for reading and sorry if you have read this on another forum.

Cheers

Paul
Click to expand...

The best way to do this is to do it the way you like...

However, here are a few ideas:

  • Intro Music
  • Slow Dance Music
  • Game Music
  • Dance Music (which is broken up by year and style) 50's, Pop, Rock, Swing, Big Band, etc...

I do this so that I can find music easier.
Yes I can search but
sometime I find them faster by just
selecting other song within the style...

I hope this helps a little.

Good luck and the best way is the way that works for you...

:sqwink:
 
I have a complete CD folder meaning it has entire cd. These are songs not used often.

I have a number of hot play folders for my dance music these are duplicate files.

I then have catagory folders like someone else but I don't use sub folders. That would be too much searching. I use winamp 5 days a week to create a playlist for my inbetween karaoke singers.
 
I have several folders on my drive (music only external) and have never had a problem with VDJ 4 or 6 finding anything and adding it to the database.
 
DJCC said:
I have all of my music in one folder, named "music". Never have had any problems finding a song. my mp3 tags are in this format, Artist - Title - Album.mp3
Click to expand...

but the mp3 titling is a lot different as above...

Artist Name \ Album Title \ Artist - Title.mp3

Various Album Title \ CD1or2 \ 01 Artist - Title.mp3

you get the general way
at some of the directories <dir>

I almost do the same as Justin (Sounds to Go) below

<folder> GENRES (All specific specialized genres dumped here)
----------- <folder> HAIR ROCK
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> FUNK_OLD SKOOL
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> ELECTRO
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS
----------- <folder> REGGAETON
------------------------INDIVIDUAL SONGS

but its how YOU want your hard drive to look and feel and how you want to store it like...
 
Directory consists of Music Library/(Different Genres each in its own folder). My DJ program automatically reads the tags and has folders by song, artist, label, genre etc.
The DJ software also is utilized to create play lists for any Genre or mood I want, such as Best of Top 40, Current Hits, Line Dances, Raunchy Music, Dinner/Background Music etc
 
OK, ahoustondj

You made me stop and look...

Nice picture...

Now, what was this thread about...???

O ya, Your Hard Drive of !!@#$@!#$@#$...

Whatever, again Nice picture you lucky guy you...

hahahahahahaha

*****
Would that dj software be VDJ...???
 
I actually use iTunes to organize my music. I just drag and drop into it and it puts everything in its perspective folders via artist, album, title.

I then sync that directory with my external drive and sync that with my laptop hard drive. I usually do this once or twice a week. It keeps all my music organized so that even if I have to use my hd-2500 to play out of I can easily find an artist or album.

That's what I use currently and that may change. And as always ymmv
 
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