Tagging your MP3s / Digital Music Organization

[kirbypuckett]

The Windows Media Player Library or whatever the hell it's called is pretty slick. I used it to help me fix a few things.

[kirbypuckett]

I finally posted the blog entry:

http://kirbypuckett.tumblr.com/post/1306037081/mp3-tagging-best-practices

[baldsteve]

i have a few artists that i have TONS of live recordings for (jawbreaker, alkaline trio, nirvana - just to name a couple), and it started to get kind of hard to search through an artist's albums and find the live sets - or the specific live set i was looking for - if they are listed like this:

24 Hour Revenge Therapy

92-3-21 at 924 Gilman Street

Bivouac

Cat's Cradle - 4/11/96

Dear You

Live At The King's Head Inn 6-6-1993

etc. etc. etc. (no pun intended with the jawbreaker theme haha)... so i started listing all Live sets like this:

(1990-06-28) on WFMU in East Orange, NJ

(1992-03-21) at 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California

(1993-05-29) at CBGB's in New York City, NY

putting the year first keeps things organized chronologically, which i really like. having a "0" in front of a single-digit month/date assures this, as well. otherwise you'd have 1992-11-5 listed before 1992-5-5.

putting the date listed first in parentheses also keeps ALL of the live sets grouped together, and all of the albums grouped together afterward. i try to keep everything listed as detailed as possible, including the venue's name and the city/state if i know all of that info. if not, i do a quick google search for missing details.

i have found it much easier to find exactly what i'm looking for since i've gone to this system. the only problem is having album art for all of the live sets. to solve that problem, i'll do some more searching on google and try to find a live picture that was taken at the show in question. if i can't find one, i'll just use a picture of the venue sometimes, or a rare press photo of the band or something. i try not to use the same picture for 2 live sets to avoid confusion and repetition.

I do EXACTLY the same thing with my live recordings.

Plus I was at this show: "Cat's Cradle - 4/11/96".

[jhamm212]

digitally, i split the album into 2 albums. for example the matt skiba/kevin seconds split, i would label the matt skiba songs under an album called "split with kevin seconds" and the kevin seconds songs under an album called "split with matt skiba."

for physical copies of splits, normally i just file them with the artist who i like more of the two.

if i ever have an album with more than 2 different artists on it, i file that under "various artists."

For physical splits I alphabetize by whoever is on side A

[faith]

Here's a question...

I have a ton of Weezer tracks from compilations where I don't have the rest of the tracks.

Should I label those as Compilations and put them w/ the rest of my comps, or just leave them as normal so that they appear under Weezer?

I use iTunes, and when I have single songs like that I just put them all under the "Single Songs" album that is tagged as a Compilation.

Or, if you would prefer, and I do this for a few bands for which I have demos that I really like to listen to, I create a "Demos" album for the artist and just stick the tracks in there, unnumbered.

[leerobert]

Great thread, I'm super anal about my iTunes ID3 tags as well but recently I've become quite slack and I have a TON of new songs and albums that I've bought that need to be sorted out properly. I'll probably end up taking a week off work to sort that out & alphabetise my record collection, at which point my girlfriend will probably end up leaving me, heh heh.

[leerobert]

PS. So good is this blog post that Ima tweet dat!

[kirbypuckett]

PS. So good is this blog post that Ima tweet dat!

WOO! Thanks for the reblog!

[Guest eriathomas]

I need to do a major rehaul of my mp3 collection because ever since you made this topic I've been irked to hell by the way my collection is tagged. I have so many scene releases that fuck shit up too, so I need to do a bunch of retagging and folder name fixing. Damn you Kirby!

[kirbypuckett]

[mcm1610]

I'm too much of a completist. My library is like 3 weeks worth of music, and it's not all perfect, which bugs the shit out of me, but I don't have NEARLY enough free time to sit and try to fix it, so I don't even bother to try. When I add a new album, I make sure it's perfect, but to go back and fix something that's there already just means that I tried and didn't get everything.

It doesn't make sense, but that's my reasoning.

I have a few albums that lack artwork, and a few random single tracks, and some that show up a couple times for some reason, and I just don't know how to deal with it without sitting down for hours and doing my whole library.

[philviral]

I'm too much of a completist. My library is like 3 weeks worth of music, and it's not all perfect, which bugs the shit out of me, but I don't have NEARLY enough free time to sit and try to fix it, so I don't even bother to try. When I add a new album, I make sure it's perfect, but to go back and fix something that's there already just means that I tried and didn't get everything.

It doesn't make sense, but that's my reasoning.

I have a few albums that lack artwork, and a few random single tracks, and some that show up a couple times for some reason, and I just don't know how to deal with it without sitting down for hours and doing my whole library.

I'm in the same situation.... sometimes when I'm bored and have some time I'll go through my library and fix something specific - like find artwork for all the albums missing cover images, or standardizing artist names (can't stand it when you have two artists that are clearly the same ie Rage Against the Machine vs Rage Against The Machine). Bit by bit it's getting better.

[Guest eriathomas]

How do you guys tag the album title on live bootlegs? All my old scene releases look stupid like Live at Venue 1020 (1020 for the date looks stupid too). I was thinking of going with Live at Venue 10/20/2010 or whatever.