This is gonna be difficult. It’s also gonna take some time to describe where I am with the music library today and how I got here. I’ve been needing to rebuild, shrink, reorganize, and just generally clean out my music library for a LONG time. But it’s HARD. A LOT of work... takes a lot of time... and isn’t fun. I can usually find a more fun project to do, which keeps pushing this one to the back burner.[emoji1]
My current music library, a copy of which resides on each of my DJ computers, contains over 120,000 tracks. YES... They’re all legal![emoji1] I started buying CD’s in the mid 80’s and collected thousands of them over the years (lost count at 8000)... LONG before I ever thought about being a DJ. In the late 90’s I built a home server, connected it to my stereo system and TV, and started digitizing my music. At first I just digitized and stored the tracks I liked, but then I found that it was a hassle to pull CD’s off the shelf when I wanted to listen to a whole album (CD), so I rescanned my entire collection in the early 2000’s. Originally, disk drives were small and expensive, but over time, capacities increased and prices declinesd, so multiple terabyte drive arrays became the norm. I’ve since gone through several home servers... mostly Linux, or some Unix based OS. The original copy of my music library still resides on my home server.
The music libraries on my DJ computers are all copies of the main library on my home server, only the folder structure differs slightly. In my main library the folder structure is alphabetical by ARTIST>>>ALBUM>>>TRACK TITLE. On my DJ computers, I have top level folders with each letter of the alphabet (A-Z) plus a folder (0) for artists with names starting with numbers (like 38 Special and 98 Degrees). Then the folders for each artist go into the folder with the appropriate letter of the alphabet matching the first letter of the artist’s name. I have all my songs tagged (MP3 tags) with vital information like Release Year, Genre, etc. but tracks are not sorted by genre or decade within the file structure.
To keep ALL the copies of the music library in sync, I have a STAGING folder on my main server. All my computers can access the Main Server. The Staging folder has sub folders labeled by the date the music in it was downloaded and/or ripped, then the folders within are the in the same Artist/Album/Track Title structure. Then I pull the files into each music library on each PC. Since all the computers are not connected to the network or booted up all the time, this process seems to work the best, but it IS time consuming.
So the issue is... too many tracks that will likely NEVER be played when DJing. My preferred style of music was generally mellower than the music I play at most paid DJ events, so probably half or more of the music needs to be deleted. Not a lot of call for John Gorka or Clannad.
How am I gonna do this??? I think the best way to start is by creating a new empty library on my Main Server. Then start copying files into it from the old library. But this is where it gets difficult. I guess I just do one artist at a time, trying to copy only the tracks that I might play when DJing... making sure I get all the tracks on my current playlists, and all the tracks on the lists I have of most requested songs. That could take FOREVER, but I can’t think of a better way.
Has anybody else gone through something like this? How did you do it? Is there a better file structure than what I’m using?
I’m looking for suggestions here. If this is gonna take FOREVER, I need to get started soon.[emoji1]
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My current music library, a copy of which resides on each of my DJ computers, contains over 120,000 tracks. YES... They’re all legal![emoji1] I started buying CD’s in the mid 80’s and collected thousands of them over the years (lost count at 8000)... LONG before I ever thought about being a DJ. In the late 90’s I built a home server, connected it to my stereo system and TV, and started digitizing my music. At first I just digitized and stored the tracks I liked, but then I found that it was a hassle to pull CD’s off the shelf when I wanted to listen to a whole album (CD), so I rescanned my entire collection in the early 2000’s. Originally, disk drives were small and expensive, but over time, capacities increased and prices declinesd, so multiple terabyte drive arrays became the norm. I’ve since gone through several home servers... mostly Linux, or some Unix based OS. The original copy of my music library still resides on my home server.
The music libraries on my DJ computers are all copies of the main library on my home server, only the folder structure differs slightly. In my main library the folder structure is alphabetical by ARTIST>>>ALBUM>>>TRACK TITLE. On my DJ computers, I have top level folders with each letter of the alphabet (A-Z) plus a folder (0) for artists with names starting with numbers (like 38 Special and 98 Degrees). Then the folders for each artist go into the folder with the appropriate letter of the alphabet matching the first letter of the artist’s name. I have all my songs tagged (MP3 tags) with vital information like Release Year, Genre, etc. but tracks are not sorted by genre or decade within the file structure.
To keep ALL the copies of the music library in sync, I have a STAGING folder on my main server. All my computers can access the Main Server. The Staging folder has sub folders labeled by the date the music in it was downloaded and/or ripped, then the folders within are the in the same Artist/Album/Track Title structure. Then I pull the files into each music library on each PC. Since all the computers are not connected to the network or booted up all the time, this process seems to work the best, but it IS time consuming.
So the issue is... too many tracks that will likely NEVER be played when DJing. My preferred style of music was generally mellower than the music I play at most paid DJ events, so probably half or more of the music needs to be deleted. Not a lot of call for John Gorka or Clannad.
How am I gonna do this??? I think the best way to start is by creating a new empty library on my Main Server. Then start copying files into it from the old library. But this is where it gets difficult. I guess I just do one artist at a time, trying to copy only the tracks that I might play when DJing... making sure I get all the tracks on my current playlists, and all the tracks on the lists I have of most requested songs. That could take FOREVER, but I can’t think of a better way.
Has anybody else gone through something like this? How did you do it? Is there a better file structure than what I’m using?
I’m looking for suggestions here. If this is gonna take FOREVER, I need to get started soon.[emoji1]
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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