How to tag and structure music collection for MP?

So far best structure is:

folder (Artist - Album)
files:
folder.jpg
Artist - Track No - Track Name.ext

from @Nice Monkey :

Next to Folder.jpg also Cover.jpg, Front.jpg and artist.album.jpg (=matching the folder name) is used automatically.
These are the 4 most common formats widely used.

Next to Artist - Track Nr - Track Name also Track Nr - Track Name - Artist is working fine. This with displaying Track/Title on top and Artist below after folder scanning that is.
Never put Artist before Track Nr myself as file sorting on Nr always goes correct and is a lot more common.

 

There you go..

I've un-stickied a couple of other threads too so we don't have too many..

 

Thanks @Markswift2003 your the man. Now I am waiting for proper info from @mirror.

 

I have also discovered that MP ignores tags, but it accepts info from a cue file located in the same folder.

 

Using The TAG information overriding /adding to any scraping results should be an option.
It in fact uses the cover information from the tags but not the other fields.
Both "folder.jpg", "cover.jpg" and "album - artist.jpg" matching the folder name exactly should be allowed. As all these 3 are commonly used.

Also in my view MP needs to do something smart with File Structure and Title Naming convention used for that.
Rules how and when to apply should me developed jointly with Zidoo. Have seen many good proposals passing this forum already.

Just as a start my own naming convention:
- For Tracks/Titles
Artist Albums: Nr - Title.ext
Collection Albums: Nr - Artist(s) - Title.ext
Numbering: NN used for numbering and DNN for multi disc albums.
We need to agree or have a variable for the separation field " - " and order of fields.
In my view the separator should be configurable?
There are good programs to change those if needed in bulk as long as the collection is named consistently .

- Folder structure
Artist Albums: Artist - Album Title
Multiple Artist Albums: Various - Album Title "Various Artists" also to be allowed
Also this needs to be variables or standardized upon. Mine is just a fairly commonly used stile
Also Genre could well make part of this but for big collections it is mostly a Folder by itself.
Multi Genre Folder: Genre - Artist - Album Title
As it has 3 fields now that should be easily recognized.
Single Artist Folder: Artist
For big collections of a single Artist having its own Albums Subfolder having just 1 field.

Once decided consistently the tags can actually be generated from the folder structure or vice versa. Good for massive updating. Scraping results should be usable for updating/correcting as an option: "Overwrite my tags please for this album" on-demand.

 

I noticed that it follows
album artist\album
folder structure
with
tracknumber trackname.extension
for naming
and folder.jpg.
So far in this way all my albums have been correctly recognised, with proper cover.
On the other hand Artists are mess.

 

Like my convention better including the collection album folder with the unique" Various" label.
The 1, 2, 3 fields structure makes it more flexible I think suiting more preferences? Lets hear smarter solutions.

Yes the multi artist naming convention as an identifier is a real must to get Artist and Album Artist views and searches possible.
The first will look/show only full alums for an artist and the second will look/show all titles for an artist. Without that it gets a mess immediately. Most good music programs have this choice but the argument is often not specified/applied consistent enough.

 

I have been building my digital music collection for almost 25 years. I guess that I have somewhere around 80,000 songs in various formats and resolution. Both Plex and UAPP have no problems with most of my music, so I dont see why or how I could change what I have been doing for decades. Heres a few screen shots of my HDD. ..

 

@toshu
Finding a convention with some setup options dealing with various installed collections is the goal here I think.
Bulk conversions work well provided the current standard is very consistent.

You shots are inconsistent for the field separator "-"versus " - " which still can be automated ignoring the space characters. A single "- "or in general the separator may then never occur in titles. With a single character that is dangerous and not preferred by me.

To allow your convention adds a need for an option for specifying the number of fields should be looked for. In your case 2 as the other fields are your personal comments/notes.
Common is also to setup a character indicating that comments are allowed in field strings. Like "Artist - Album (comments)".

@mirror;
Please comment here and create a dedicated post/reply with agreed conventions and to be included options all bundled in one place.

 

"-" vs " - " is an indication of me being lazy at 2am. I prefer the first, but sometimes a file already contains the second and I miss it or let it go by.

That just shows how difficult consistency is in large collections

 

I think this should be updated as new policies are implemented. For me was easy, I just ripped small collection of CDs so my wife could play them. And few dts audio tracks like David Gilmour's Live in Gdansk On Island 5.1

 

btw MediaMonkey is good for moving and renaming large Libraries.

 

At least Cover, Artist, Album and Title should be displayed correctly. Using simply the tagged MP3/FLAC info plus folder.jpg file as a priority option is a good start. Should be the next thing to fix.
Remind: I am using Media Center to select my albums organized my own way. Did a try to scrape just some folders but not a succes (got stuck or player crash).

Tried as an alternative with the very simple (but trouble free) Dune Music Player and that works as it should. Functionally it is very similar to what an OPPO does. Honestly I still prefer those players far over the current state of MP6.

I am surprised not seeing any comments here not even from Zidoo.

 

Can Dune Music Player be installed on Zidoo ? If possible, where can I download it?
Thanks.

I'm not happy with the MP6. Doesn't read flac cue, there are no covers in full screen, but just a small icon, sorting is inconvenient.

 

I never had problem with flac cue. I did have some problems with special characters when coding was set to East European.

 

I have incorrectly explained. The player reads the image, but in its entirety. There is no track selection as other players do. In a third party player, I click on the сue file and see all the tracks. This cannot be done in mp6. Perhaps this will be done in the following firmware.

 

I didn't have that kind of problem, just did quick full image rip to flac with cue to check it out. Works fine.

 

Thank you very much!
There must be something wrong with my files. Have to update your music library.
Thanks again!

 

For me it looks as if the MP6 can't handle non-english characters in the cue (Artist or Title).
It inserts for example the File-name as the Title, when the swedish Åå, Ää, Öö are used.

 

This thread confuses me. Isn't metadata enough, Ogg tags on FLAC and ID3 tags on mp3? Why would/do you need any specific naming conventions when it should be driven by the metadata?

Most of what I listen to is mp3, all tagged with folder.jpg in each album to reduce filesize vs embedded artwork, I have a small percent of FLAC but no .cue file, just the music. Currently use MusicBee on my PC to listen to music, all wonderfully tagged.

Is there a clear guide on what's required for music?