Classical music directory naming convention

[nkclayton]

Does anyone have an 'ideal' file naming string for classical music CDs?

I think mine would start with ComposerSort then album then track but what about compilations?

Any suggestions?

Neil

[rmilewsk]

Re: Classical music directory naming convention

I go with the following.

1. If the album has the same composer, the directory the album goes into is the composer name then the album name.

(Drive:\FLAC\Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus\Mozart - Piano Concertos blah\Tracks)

2. If the album has different composers but the same artist (soloist, conductor etc.) then the album goes into artist directory followed by album name.

(Drive:\FLAC\Brendel, Alfred\Beethoven and Mozart piano concertos\Tracks)

3. If the album has different composers and artists then the album goes into various classical directory folowed by album name.

(Drive:\FLAC\Various Classical\Great Symphonies of Classical Composers\Tracks)

If I looked real hard I might be able to find a couple of directories where the artist is just as important as the composer and I created artist \ directory album name even though the album was by the same composer

(Drive:\FLAC\Gould, Glenn\Goldberg Variations 1955\Tracks)

[nkclayton]

Re: Classical music directory naming convention

Thanks for your answer, I shall try it. My collection is a complete mess and I really need to re-rip everything to a decent, consistent structure. What about multi-volume CDs? Do you put each in a separate directory or group all the tracks in a single directory?

Thanks,

Neil

[Milo Tweenie]

Re: Classical music directory naming convention

Thanks for your answer, I shall try it. My collection is a complete mess and I really need to re-rip everything to a decent, consistent structure. What about multi-volume CDs? Do you put each in a separate directory or group all the tracks in a single directory?

Thanks,

Neil

No need to re-rip. If the file names or directory structure needs changing, just change it. If the tagging's a mess, use something like mp3tag to edit the tags. Mp3tag's brilliant.

[nkclayton]

Re: Classical music directory naming convention

I tried MP3Tag program but it hardly recognised any of my music (2 out a couple of hundred CDs) :( so I have started re-ripping. Might take some time...

Thanks anyway, Neil

[tunetyme]

Re: Classical music directory naming convention

A slightly different view on multiple composers. I keep everything by composer regardless of the the conductor or Artist. I take care of everything else in the database.

[rschatz]

Re: Classical music directory naming convention

If your music comes from CDs, I suggest a folder for each album (CD), with individual tracks contained therein. The folder is named [label] [mfrs number] [album title or your version of it] (album artist). Inside each folder are the files representing tracks of the album. Each file name is of the form [track number][space][track title]. Including the track number keeps them in order when you play or view them. This method makes it easy to see what you have, and play it in the correct order.

It would be really nice if the music cataloging world included the concept of a composition (or group of tracks), such as symphony with movements, but it doesn't. They are all just songs. So those of us who collect classical music need to do some extra work to keep it all straight.

I use a great program called MediaMonkey to maintain the catalog and play music. Mediamonkey uses the embedded tags to create the catalog, so use dBpoweramp to get the tags right at the start. Mediamonkey doesn't care about file names, only tags, so it's up to you to keep them synchronized.

It's tedious work, but the rewards are great.