"best practices" for naming conventions

[JLC]

I've noodled around with mp3s but have stuck mostly to CD listening. I've now decided to get serious and rip my CD collection to flac for permanent backup, and then convert from flac to aac for use on a iPod. My goal is to never have to rip the same music again, & the aac files may eventually be blown off and flac can be re-converted to some future, better compression format.

So, I'd like to use the most practical and "as future-proof as possible" naming conventions now. For the few discs I've previously ripped, I've kept the naming flat; that is, one fully-named folder for each CD, and tracks named ** - Track. So for example, folder name "Beatles, The - White Album [CD 2] (1963)" with track naming "01 - Back In The USSR.flac".

Everyone has preferences based on the software players, DACs, etc that they are using, but are there standard conventions? Pros & cons? I like being able to glance inside a "music" folder and see each individual folder just as I would see it as a CD on a shelf. What are the cons, and why might I consider other approaches before I begin this large undertaking?

Thanks for any and all experiences and suggestions.

[garym]

The real key is to do organized, complete, correct tags in the FLAC files upfront (and deal with album art). This way, you can always convert FLAC files to whatever format and you'll have everything the way you want it without additional tag cleanup work. And if your tags are good you can always use dbpoweramp or mp3tag to reorganize your files (and rename them) in virtually any way you desire.

For organization I like:

Artist/Album/track* - tracktitle

if the album is multidisc (like Beatles white album), I like:

Artist/Album/Disc 1/track* - tracktitle

[and I replaygain the entire album (all discs) as an album so the album gain is the same for all the discs....e.g., a 3 disc grateful dead show which is a single concert

If album is compilation disc, I use:

Compilations/Album/track* - tracktitle

(with /disc 1, etc. after album for multidisc sets)

I keep a parent directory called FLAC for all my flac files (with the above scheme underneath). I have a mirror parent directory called MP3 with same structure.

EDIT: Although I use this directory structure, I rarely use if for actually finding anything. With the right tags, you can use foobar2000, or musicmonkey, or itunes, etc. as a very nice library management tool. I use mostly foobar2000 for my home system and I also have all the mp3 files loaded into an ITUNES library (as I use ITUNES to sync with my IPOD). If you happen to use SqueezeBox (Logitec) music server for distributing music in your home, the directory method and good tags will also work for its library system.

[Buvy]

My preferred organization is as follows

[album artist]\[album]\[disc]-[track]-[title]

That way all multi disc albums go into the same folder and sort in Windows Explorer correctly. Yes it is two extra characters on single disc albums but I like the consistency.

I also treat all multi disc albums as a single unit in replay gain as well.

[JLC]

Thanks for the replies and I've looked further in these forums and found the same query answered by others with additional approaches, too.

So looking beyond file naming to meta data, do most people keep their meta data in line with their file names? I've done a few changes to default settings on CD ripper so that file name & meta data align. But- I don't see where I able to alter the meta tag for title to be [track] - [title] as with my file naming. Can this be done? In custom tagging, or elsewhere... if so, specifically how?

I'm reading through these forums and remember now why I registered years ago then got distracted and never pursued ripping. Now I'm revisiting & trying to keep it simple but as with most new knowledge, with each answer comes more questions.
TIA.

[Pianonut]

I also treat all multi disc albums as a single unit in replay gain as well.

How do you do this?

[TarkusShakti]

I like to incorporate the year into my filing scheme. Viewing an artist's works chronologically just seems "right" to me.

I used this:
Album Artist\Artist - Year_Album\Disc*-Track* Title

I also use the disk* part when there's more than 1 cd, so there's one folder for one album.

my 2 cents worth
TS