Organizing your music

[Sjeng]

I've been looking for a program to tag and organize my music collection. I have a lot of MP3's stored on my HDD, but most of them aren't properly tagged, are missing their release year, are scattered or double, etc.
Most of my music is sorted into alphabetical folders. I've created a MUSIC folder, with A to Z subfolders. In those, I simply made folders for each artist/group. But I also have lots and lots of seperate songs that I just download when I hear a song I like on the radio. I collect those into folders by year. So I have a "Various" folder with subfolders from 1970 - 2014. Obviously, this is where many songs get duplicats if I also have a complete album of a certain artist/group.
So what I'd prefer is a system to organize all my music into folders on my HDD, with a way to either play entire albums or all songs from a certain time period or even genre.

What I want is to keep them in windows-structured folders, and not simply thrown onto one giant heap of files that only my music organizer software can manage. I still want to be able to select one folder and copy that to my smartphone or USB for my car.

So, how to do this. Will it be smarter to simply let go of the Albums A-Z folders, and try to arrange all MP3's into year-folders? Or should I keep the A-Z and store all songs into Artist/Group name folders, even if I only have 1 or 2 songs of a certain artist? And then let the software sort them by name or by year or by type/genre?

How do you do this? PS: I hate iTunes. It disregards my windows folder system. I like having a system I can manage even without software.

I'm going to try MusicBee and MP3Tag for tagging and organizing, and see what they do.

[knightkrawler]

I basically have the same problem. No solution whatsoever.

[Maike05]

Try musicbrainz picard and mp3tag as a complementary solution.

The first can detect tag based on the musical footprint like shazam or soundhound. The second one enable you to play with id3tags

[Sjeng]

I don't understand how MP3Tag works... I can convert filenames to tags and vice versa, but I can't let it auto-tag my mp3's for some reason. It asks me for a search field, but I want it it auto search ALL my files, and find artist/title/year...

[Maike05]

you have to set up a folder for source where your mp3's are stored. Click on File / change folder et browse where your music is.

then, go to Convert / file name -> tags this option allows you to read a file with a mask : %artist%, %album%, %title%

then, if your file is named like this : system of a down - storage.mp3 the " - " is the separator for tags.

therefore, the reading mask should be %artist% - %title%

finally, if you want to organize your library by genre, you should try this command in menu Convert / tag -> filename: genre%\%artist%\%album%\%artist% - title%

[Maike05]

If you want to autotag your library, you should use Musicbrainz first : http://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_Picard
It will search based on the audio footprint, then on the filename. When it finds a match, it propose you the result on the right hand pane, which you have to approve to apply changes.



Then, and only then, you should use mp3tag to manage the tags and organize the library by folders.

There also are many other automated tools from musicbrainz which you can try : http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Products

[TMU]

I just download my music to the computer and do CDs. Then I delete those songs and they don't stack up

Ps. my cousin makes music:

I know atleast knigthcrawler won't like this

Edit. WAIT I'll get it working!

[TMU]

Damn you Sjeng... Damn you...

[Sjeng]

If you want to autotag your library, you should use Musicbrainz first : http://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_Picard
It will search based on the audio footprint, then on the filename. When it finds a match, it propose you the result on the right hand pane, which you have to approve to apply changes.



Then, and only then, you should use mp3tag to manage the tags and organize the library by folders.

There also are many other automated tools from musicbrainz which you can try : http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Products

I've tried this one, but I can't get the YEAR to show in the list. *sigh* I just want the program to fill in the blanks: YEAR, and if needed artist/title. If it's already filled in, it doesn't need to list them for me.
I don't see how to select MP3's that only have missing tags, and how to do a search and approve the suggestions at all... Just can't figure it out.

I've read this https://musicbrainz.org/doc/How_to_Tag_ ... ith_Picard and apparently it needs to link any song with an album. Well, sure, okay, no problem, but then it suggests tags for you, but where is the Approve button? How do I apply the suggested tags?

edit: by clicking SAVE apparently. Still a tedious way to do this. And some albums are released a lot later than the actual song, if it's on a collection album (greatest hits of...)
This annoys me beyond measure. I just need to tag ALL my mp3's with the correct YEAR, that alone would make me infinately happy.

[Maike05]

no ideal & fully automated solution exists ...
It took me almost 2 year to clean up my library.